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Overheard at National Geographic

Documenting Democracy

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.510.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Andrea Bruce, a National Geographic photographer, has covered conflict zones around the world for nearly two decades. She shares how the experience of capturing democratic ideals as a war photographer in Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iraq now shapes the way she's chronicling democracy in America in 2020. For more information on this episode, visit nationalgeographic.com/overheard Want more? Explore dispatches from Andrea Bruce’s Our Democracy project as well as her photos from overseas. We also have resources for election night, including how experts say you should talk to your kids about elections and why election maps may be misleading. And for paid subscribers: See what Bolivia, New Zealand, Iraq, and Afghanistan have in common: Women there have made huge advances and gained political power. Andrea Bruce photographed the women in charge—and the women still fighting for change. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:30.8

Lots of tear gas, lots of rubber bullets. And I think I lived with garlic and onions in

0:42.1

my pockets for like several months because that's one common way to kind of get rid of the

0:47.5

effects of tear gas that people would just hand to you to help you out when you're miserable

0:53.6

with tear gas in your eyes.

0:55.7

How did decade ago Andrea Bruce had a front row seat to revolution. She's a photographer

1:01.1

who covered the Iraq War. And in 2011 Andrea found her way to the heart of the Arab Spring,

1:07.4

pro-democracy protests in Egypt, Bahrain, and Morocco.

1:12.2

Andrea wanted to capture the moment when people said, it's our turn to have a voice. But

1:17.6

in the middle of a protest, there was no telling if it would suddenly turn violent. If the

1:21.8

police would find a reason to fire into the crowd. And there was no way to tell who

1:26.5

was the good guy and who wasn't.

1:29.3

It's really complicated, so complicated that I'd get on the airplane and go back to Iraq

1:34.2

or go to the United States. And all I'd wanted to was like watch superhero movies because

1:40.8

in a superhero movie there's like a good guy and there's a bad guy. And usually like

1:48.7

there's something simple that happens and it's everything's good and that is not what

1:52.9

happens in the middle of turmoil and revolution and especially war.

...

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