Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, released in 1940 satirizes the rise of Hitler and Nazism. Given that Charlie Chaplin was famous for his silent films, this was perhaps his first speaking role on the big screen. One of the most powerful parts of the film is the following speech.
Some 70 years later it remains relevant and sadly so.
Too many of the themes that Chaplin points to are painfully obvious in Pakistan at the moment.
The following is a mash up of the speech over Star Wars and music by Hans Zimmer.
And the original:
Text of the speech:
Some 70 years later it remains relevant and sadly so.
Too many of the themes that Chaplin points to are painfully obvious in Pakistan at the moment.
The following is a mash up of the speech over Star Wars and music by Hans Zimmer.
And the original:
Text of the speech:
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be
an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or
conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible- Jew,
Gentile, black men, white…
We all want to help one another. Human
beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness,
not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one
another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth
is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and
beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has
barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and
bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.
Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has
made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little.
More than machinery ,we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need
kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be
violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have
brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries
out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for
the unity of us all.
Even now my voice is
reaching millions throughout the world, millions of
despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that
makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me, I say “Do
not despair.”
The misery that is now upon
us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the
way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die,
and the power they took from the people will return to the people.
And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to
brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives,
tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you,
diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder!
Don’t give yourselves to these
unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts!
You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have
a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate!
Only the unloved hate; the unloved and
the unnatural.
Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery!
Fight for liberty!
In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke,
it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man
nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the
power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness!
You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful,
to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of
democracy, let us use that power.
Let us all unite.
Let us fight for a new world, a decent
world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a
future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes
have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise.
They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they
enslave the people!
Now let us fight to fulfill that
promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national
barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!
Let us fight for a world of reason, a
world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let
us all unite!
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