German far-right set for big win in east

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, this is Alex Ritson from the Global News Podcast. We're bringing you the latest on that decisive victory for the far right AFD party in Germany's eastern state of Saxony and Holt. Join us to hear the day's top stories from BBC News to live a twice a day on weekdays daily at weekends. Search for the Global News Podcast wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hello, welcome to News Air. It's coming to you live from the BBC in London, I'm Tim Franks.

1:05And we're beginning in Germany in the east of Germany and the state of Saxony and Holt, which has today delivered a huge jolt to the country's politics. Exit polls say that the far right alternative food, Deutschland party has secured a landslide victory in today's regional elections, which news prompted roars and whoops of delight at party HQ. The AFD is projected to have secured about 44% of the vote more than double what it got at the last election and mirroring its triumph. Germany's main governing party, the centre right, CDU saw its support crater to about 18%. The AFD says it has a mandate to govern which were it to come to pass would mean it would be the first far right party to win control of a German state since the Second World War, since the time when the Nazis committed some of the worst crimes in the history of humanity. A correspondent Jess Parker joins me now from the state capital Magdeburg. Jess, will it come to pass?

2:10What's it looking like tonight for the AFD? Well, it's still looking slightly uncertain. Forgive the echoing environment I'm in a hotel hallway having rushed out of the AFD election party earlier in order to be able to do some edits and talk to you, but it's at the moment, all I'm as a wrong whether the smaller party BSW or BSV as it's known here, whether it's going to reach the 5% threshold that could allow it to get into Parliament. The reason that's important is BSV have signaled that they would maybe be able to helping the AFD actually take power in this state even if it wouldn't be any kind of formal coalition. If the BSV didn't make into Parliament the AFD would potentially get more seats, more likely to get state level power. So still some convoluted German political maths going on here, but the big picture is they've won in terms of voter share, the AFD big.

3:10They've won and they've won big here in Saxony and Halts. And in terms of both the state, I mean, obviously states in Germany have a considerable amount of power, not unfettered power, so that could be important. But nationally, what does this huge victory for the AFD mean, do you think? nationally, I think it means the AFD feels there on the march and they have been growing in popularity. They're leading the polls nationally, even though the support is heavily skewed to Eastern Germany. I think as well it's a bad night for Friedrich Merz, the Chancellor, CDU, who was already very embattled, but this could potentially further desabilise him and his government. Now remember, his government is for example a key supporter of Ukraine, whereas the alternative for Germany, I want to end support to Ukraine and have pro-Russia policies. Now as you say, it's important to understand states, they don't set foreign policy state governments, but they do run things like education, policing, culture.

4:12So as well, I think for the AFD, they see this as a potential blueprint for how they would look in power in other states or indeed nationally, something that they aspire to. So they're seeing it as a stepping stone for their aspirations, whereas other people I think critics of the AFD, which there are many in Germany, this is a party cost as rightly extremist in this state by domestic intelligence. Critics of the party fear this is a moment of peril for the country. If indeed there is some kind of domino effect. Jess Parker, a correspondent in Magdaburg in the State Capital of Saxony and Halt. Thank you very much. Well, let's hear from the victors now. Christine Anderson is a member of the European Parliament with the AFD. As things stand, how certain is she that they will be able to take power in Saxony and Halt? As the ex-Full showed, we missed the absolute majority by like one seat and as the evening will pass and more roads will come in. It will most likely even drop a little, however, no matter what the other parties do.

5:17It kind of depends on whether a party that is called BSW will make it that is not quite clear yet. But the other three parties that did make it in parliament, it's not enough for them to secure a majority. And even if the fourth party, the BSW will make it, it's still not going to be enough. So they will have to speak to us to get a government going. Okay, but just to be clear, if this left-wing anti-immigration BSW party does pass the 5% threshold is represented in the parliament, you would be happy to go into coalition with them. We would more likely or would like to go into a coalition with the Christian Democrats, the former Conservative Party. But if the BSW is a Communist Party, let's face it. But if they said that they want to clean up and all the mess that the established parties created, yes, we would absolutely speak with them.

6:21And I hear what you're saying about the Christian Democrats. I have to say after speaking to you, we're going to be running an interview I did with a senior member of the Christian Democrats, where I asked him about the possibility of at last ending this firewall against the AFD. He said that it would be appalling because he feels that the AFD, you are on the far right of politics, you stand for things which frankly appall him. And actually aren't just wrong, they are dangerous. So it seems as if the CDU has absolutely no intention of going into coalition. Well, the truth is the positions we hold as AFD are exactly the positions that the Christian Democrats held within the 2000s. So I'm sorry to interrupt, but I mean, they did not adopt a policy of remigration of essentially forced deportation. They didn't talk about trying to get rid of people in Germany whom they deemed somehow to be culturally incompatible.

7:28But that's what they're advocating for. And that's what the chancellor nerds ran on that he wanted to expel illegal migrants. Lots of countries want to expel, want to expel illegal migrants. But this is far far broader than that. No, no, it's actually not. Listen to how they campaign. They know all the right things to say. And once they are elected, they have a whole entire different to we stood by what we said for over 10 years now. And we were proven to be right. I mean, look at the results and Saxony, Anna, today 44%. What more do you need? We strike a court with the people. And that's what they want. One of the other objections that is made part of it is that actually your language, your policy stance, is are seen as being extreme right that you haven't really distance yourself from people who are out and out needing policies. We are not extreme right. We have just been extremely right so far.

8:30The other part of this is about your party stance on Russia and the the chap who wrote the manifesto for Saxony and Halt, Hans Thomas Tillschneider, he attended a celebration of Vladimir Putin's birthday at the Russian Embassy in Berlin last year. Is this really the sort of behavior that you think Germans should be reassured by, especially when you're coming under drone attack? Our state interest, of course, entails that we have to secure power for our country. We are an exporting nation. And we depend on energy. And Russia has been able to supply us with that energy. So you have to differentiate between our national interest in terms of securing our power and what Russia is doing right now. Christine Anderson, member of the European Parliament with the alternative, Deutschlands, sorry about the line quality there. She was a speaker who was from a moving car. She wasn't driving.

9:37I can reassure you, but let's go from the victors to the vanquished. Michal Gala is also a member of the European Parliament, but with the center rights CDU whose leader, Friedrich Merz, as we have from Jessica Parker, our correspondent is Chancellor of Germany. How bruising has today been? Well, it's an unprecedented result at a lender level. It is an outrageous for my party. We were cut in half from 37 to 18.5 around. And the AFD has got around 44%. One seat as it stands now, one seat taught of an outright majority. The evening is not over yet. We will see how it ends in May. Well be an outright majority or an alternative would be then that all other parties, including the left party, would have to join forces in order to get the outright majority and keep an acting Prime Minister of the CDU in charge.

10:39Your Chancellor, well, Germany's Chancellor, the man who's at the top of your party, Friedrich Merz, came to power promising that he wouldn't just beat back the AFD. He would have their support. The people whose support halved, as you've already pointed out, were your party can Merz survive? I think so. Saxony Unhullt is not representative for Germany. It's around 2 million people, less than 2 million voters, although we had now 80% turnout. Do you not think that there may well be some people within your party who will see these results tonight and think, you know, is the brand-mower, is the firewall which prevents you and other mainstream parties from even thinking about going into coalition with the AFD? Is it really the right thing to carry on? Because, I mean, you may say that you disagree with lots and lots of AFD policies, but if they win a crushing victory, isn't there something firstly, slightly anti-democratic about saying we're going to do all we can even going into coalition with people on the left who we really have got very little in common with just to stop the AFD?

12:01I mean, so there's the moral argument, the principled argument, but also, it's just not working, is it? I mean, you know, the firewall has been erected for years now, and the AFD is only gaining support. Yes, and still, it is very clear, I mean, the objective of the AFD is to destroy the Christian Democratic Party, our union, and any attempt to have a seek a common ground with them on the lander or the national level would split my party and would bring us really to the end. And that is nothing that is to be, that can by any means be discussed and in so far, we have our principles. And if they get a majority, they shall they rule and deliver or make their points, but not with us. I don't see any responsible person in my party on the lander for a state government or even the federal government level to work with a party that wants to destroy Europe, that is pro-Russian, and that is the biggest threat to our democracy.

13:18And that is the power of the country with the Georgia history. And when you look at how the Nazis prior to seizing power held democratic institutions and politicians in contempt and compare that to the harsh wording on the present day, it is something that is truly frightening. And I think we will all work together that history doesn't repeat itself. And that was Michal Gala, member of the European Parliament with the center right CDU on what has been a very tough night for mainstream parties and a very big night for the far right AFT. And coming up on the political philosopher Francis Fukuyama worries about the direction of democracy in America. JD Vance, our vice president has been pushing this line about heritage Americans. If you can trace your ancestors back to at least the civil war that you're somehow more American. I think it's terrible. Donald Trump wants to up in the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship. That affects me personally because my mother was in the United States on a student visa when she met my father at the University of Chicago and had me.

14:33And under those rules, I wouldn't be a citizen if those people have their way. That interview with Francis Fukuyama coming up in 30 minutes and one headline story we'll be looking at in 15 minutes after meeting Donald Trump's peace and boys on their first official visit to Ukraine. Vladimir Zelensky says he expects the war with Russia to continue into the winter. This is news hour is coming to you live from the BBC World Service, I'm Tim Franks. The FIFA president, Janie in Fantino, has been the man running the world's favorite sport football since 2016. But ever since news came out after this year's World Cup, the plan to sell off stakes in FIFA competitions. A plan he had to abandon in the teeth of halls of outrage from large swathes of the sport. It felt like every other headline about him, Fantino, has included the word beleaguered. And yet, today FIFA announced that its president still intends to stand for re-election next March for a fourth term in office.

15:34Henry Winter is a veteran football journalist who writes now for the news website World Soccer. Is he surprised? Not in the least bit surprised because of his lack of self awareness. And I also thought the moment that UEFA, the governing body of European football, effectively withdrew their boycott threat, their threat to not send European teams to FIFA events. I thought that that would embolden in Fantino. And also the legal action, threatening criminal action against the UEFA. And FIFA's quick response to that. And as we all know, legal work particularly in football can take a long time. I always thought that he would fancy himself to have another run at the office. And do you think he has the support? Because it's what, 211, something like that. Member countries that belong to FIFA, he just needs a simple majority. Do you reckon he's got it? He's been working on it and it's quite interesting that he is in Poland at the moment for the FIFA Women's Under 20 Championships.

16:41And he's been going round. Have you seen some of his quotes that have been appearing on FIFA websites? That's all about, oh, you know, it's, it's fantastic here. He's an astute politician. And he has been traveling around trying to shore up his power base. Obviously he's got Africa, elements of Commodore, which is Latin and South America. And I'm sure we'll see in the next few weeks confirmation that the 2030 World Cup, the next men's World Cup, will have 64 teams, which of course will win him even more support from countries around the world. Because everyone wants to get on board the World Cup gravy train. But given that European football's governing body UEFA has launched this league action, I know you say that it, you know, it could take a long time for it to win its way through the courts. Could member nations not think, gosh, do we really want more bad publicity over the next few years?

17:42I think some will see it just as Europe being a little bit arrogant. And you've got a lot of countries in Africa and parts of Asia who are saying actually what in Fantina was proposing in terms of opening up the sell-off of parts of the World Cup to investors. Actually, they would benefit from, I'm sure we're now going to see in Fantina perhaps loosening the purse strings and dipping into FIFA's reservoir of revenue. They've got a couple of billion. And also with respect to UEFA, I mean, they are a governing body. They're not the FBI. They're not in to poll. They can't really launch criminal action. Is there any chance that there could be a rival candidate found? It has to be done. The nominations have to be in November the 18th. Montagliani, who is head of the ConquerCalf, the North America Caribbean, Central American Federation. He is the obvious candidate because you can't put up a European candidate because of the rest of the world.

18:46They wouldn't take kindly to that. So the clock is running. So nominations by November the 18th. And then the vote is in Rabatin, March the 18th. The football journalist Henry Wynn. Hello, this is Alex Ritson from the Global News Podcast. We're bringing you the latest on that decisive victory for the far-right AFD party in Germany's eastern state of Saxony and Holt. Join us to hear the day's top stories from BBC News to live a twice a day on weekdays daily at weekends. Search for the Global News Podcast wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Get more with BBC podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows, like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and Your Dead To Me, with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts, add free, with an Amazon Music subscription.

19:50T. Welcome back to News Ad. During the Second World War, suspicions ran high within countries that had been invaded by Nazi Germany with locals keeping a watchful eye out for those who had chosen to collaborate with the Nazis. Women across Europe who had relationships with Nazi soldiers were vilified and treated as outcasts. A new film, Woman Unknown, is set in Denmark after the war entails a story of Maria Young, Nanny and Housemaiden Copenhagen who tries to keep such a relationship secret. The film has premiered tonight at the Venice Film Festival and my colleague, Julian Morak, has been speaking ahead of that to its Danish Egyptian director, May El Tukki. There was a lot of saved up anchor in the immediate aftermath after Second World War in Europe, many places in Europe. And Denmark specifically, because we chose a politic of collaboration with the Germans to avoid too many casualties, it's understandable that you would get angry at people collaborating at the same time that was the official politic of the country.

20:59So that makes it a messy matter to tell a story about and therefore for me more exciting because there's something to debate and talk about. Because people felt, correct me if I'm wrong, that those women by doing what they did had effectively gone against their national identity at a time when that mattered so much to people. Yeah, and so they were actually called horizontal collaborators by some in wartime and in postwar, the female body has always been regarded as part of the kind of national identity national territory. And that's also what the film is about, basically, the female body as a battleground and what that means in a private setting and what that means in a public setting. And I talked to a historian at some point who had been helping me out and we talked about the concept that men often pay with their lives during war and women pay with their bodies. And sometimes these people, I mean, they were hunted down when they've for what they had done.

21:59Yes, and it was quite violently, they were shamed in the street humiliated, spat on, you would cut their hair. And then given that time where migration wasn't as common as it is today, people didn't necessarily leave their hometown. So often these women would live in that town that had shamed them and their children would suffer as well. So what we see now is the grandchildren of these women who are starting to share their stories about their parents who were born out of these relationships. And I was fascinating. I mean, I was going to take the conversation to the present day and you've gone there before I did. I wonder what kind of emotions those grandchildren were expressing now that they knew the stories of their grandmothers. I think they look at their grandmothers with a more sympathetic, gracious gaze. I think there's an opportunity now to tell stories about that time where we can maybe be more nuanced in order to reflect on what went down.

23:06And also to some extent talk about how can we deal with future conflicts of that sort. May El Tuhi, Director of Women Unknown, and she was speaking to Julian Morrake. This is Neuser, coming to you live from the BBC World Service with me, Tim Franks. Today saw a first in the war between Russia and Ukraine. It was the first time the President Trump's top-end-voiced, Steve Whitkopf and Jared Kushner had traveled to Kiev since Russia's full-scale invasion. Their visit came the day after seeing Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a trip that they'd made several times before. Mr. Whitkopf pronounced himself encouraged out of today's talks with Vladimir Zelensky. Mr. Kushner adopted a rather more neutral tone. You never know with any deal, right? So it's not done till it's done and it could happen quickly. It could happen slowly. And I think if we can achieve that, it'd be an incredible thing.

24:08It doesn't mean that we will achieve it, but it's an effort that's very important to try. And so we're going to continue to do it. And as for President Zelensky, he thanked the US emboys for coming, but he also made his familiar plea of a peace buttressed by security guarantees. We're all on the same side, and we want a war to be over. We want a suffering to stop. And we want this war to finish in a just manner, and in a way that there will be no new aggression from Russia. And the Ukrainian President warned his compatriots that the war will in all likelihood extend into a long, hard winter, another long, hard winter. Andrew Kramer is key of Bureau Chief for the New York Times and joins me live very late at night from the Ukrainian capital for which thank you, Andrew. Do you know, have you been given any insight into why Whitkopf and Kushner decided that this was going to be an invitation that they would accept?

25:11Well, thank you very much for having me on. This visit had been rumored about for months, and the expectation in Ukraine was that they would visit even back in the spring. One possible explanation is the coming midterm elections in the United States. Their visit highlights the Trump administration's diplomacy. So the timing politically works, and I last week spoke with the chief negotiator on the Ukrainian side who said that only a confluence of political, military, and economic circumstances will actually lead to peace agreement. So we have, in this case, the US politics are lining as well with these peace talks. I have been reports, I've only seen them on the AFP news agency, but the Ukrainian or Abe Ukrainian presidential officials said that the envoy's brought new, more effective proposals with them.

26:12I mean, I guess this could just be a sort of diplomatic niceties. But do you think there is any evidence of sort of fresh thinking or breakthroughs? Well, certainly President Trump has set this, and the Ukrainians have also said there are new ideas on the table. We have not so far learned the details of what those might be. The most important question is control of territory in Eastern Ukraine, and the compromises discussed last February, where we're not acceptable, and where we have yet to learn what might work. And all this comes against a backdrop where I mean, it feels as if the front lines may not be changing hugely, but the war is escalating. I mean, I'm sure that you and Kyiv feel it very strongly, and there are also Ukrainians has its own long-range strikes in Russia. It doesn't feel like it's a sort of particularly propitious moment for there to be talked about, peace.

27:15Well, that's certainly the case. One of the questions that was posed to Mr. Whitkopf when he arrived was whether he indeed thought that Putin wanted peace because the airport, which he was considering flying to, according to Ukrainian officials, had been hit by a Russian ballistic missile last night, even after a ceasefire was expected to be in place. So there have been no real signs of a let up, and in fact, quite the opposite here in Kyiv, it's been a nonstop cacophony of drone attacks from Russia over the past week or so before the arrival of these invoices. And given the dearth of these interceptor missiles that Ukraine has been desperately asking for to try and shoot down the ballistic and the cruise missiles, I presume Andrew, the people in Kyiv that you talk to, I mean, I'm sure lots of people say where, where resolute, but they must be fearful about what the winter will hold for them.

28:15That's certainly the case. Everybody's very worried about the coming winter. Last January, February, we're brutal in Kyiv, most of the city lost electricity and heat at some point, and the expectation is that this winter will be worse. And also that there won't be a window for a ceasefire until Russia carries through with another winter bombing campaign in Kyiv and then ascertains where the balance of power stands at that point. Andrew Kramer, the key of Bureau Chief for the New York Times. Thank you very much for joining us live from Ukrainian capital. Now there's absolutely no competition for the sporting competition of the weekend. It was Katie Taylor, the 40 year old Irish boxer, ending her career by beating Flora Pili over 10 rounds to become the undisputed light World to Weight Champion.

29:17She did so in front of more than 80,000 fans at Ireland's most storied sporting stadium, Croke Park. It was a stunning victory. And you have to remember that once upon a time women's boxing was derided, ostracized. It didn't feature at the Olympics until 2012 when a 26 year old Taylor won Ireland's first Olympic gold since 1996. Back then, in the 90s, was when a 10 year old Katie Taylor wrote a letter to her then hero, the boxer, Deirdre Gogerti, who was a bad welcome Ireland's first female boxing champion. Katie, who was mad keen on her boxing said in her letter age 10, I can't see boxing for girls taking off over here in the near future. I can see why you have to go away to get fights. Well, Deirdre long retired from the ring was their at Croke Park to watch Katie Taylor go out in a blaze of glory. What was it like? The atmosphere was unbelievable, absolutely electric. And just the buzz and the celebration in the air, it was just incredible.

30:26Just the very fact that not only that she won and she's 40 years old as well, I mean, she's been boxing for so long. But then to decide, this was the night that I come up with, I am going to retire. I mean, I've read one former World Champion Boxer saying I have never seen a fight a leave as an undisputed champion on their own terms. In that sense, I don't know if it was unique, but it felt as if it was unique. Oh, it was very unique because there's a saying and boxing that once you've decided to retire, you're already retired. In other words, mentally, you've already kind of stepped off the gas as far as how hard you're going to train and how motivated you are. So a lot of boxers would be very reluctant to say this is my last fight.

31:27And we can be all confident that she will stick to her word and don't try to come back. Because it's very hard to walk away. I mean, if you think about it, a boxer experiences the high of being in the ring at a relatively young age in your life. And you'll never ever experience anything close to that again, the rest of your life, nothing will come close. So you have to accept that. And it's very hard for a lot of people to accept that. It's one thing to retire with a victory, but it is another thing to do it in the way that she did it at islands. Premier sporting venue, croak park, you know, more than 80,000 fans there. And I mean, it obviously must have been an incredibly emotional moment for everybody. But in particular for you, and I know that you wrote a letter back to Katie's 30 years after she wrote to you talking about her legacy. And I would you would you just read from the end of that letter about how you described how you were going to be feeling going to croak park.

32:44When I sit among that enormous crowd at croak park, I'll be thinking about all the women who fought when nobody was watching. I'll be thinking about all the girls who were told they couldn't and shouldn't. And most of all, I'll be thinking about all the young girls watching you who will never have to ask permission to dream with enormous pride and admiration, dear Daryl Gogerti. It's a beautiful letter, dear Daryl. And it's it's it's almost beggars belief just how far. And I guess relatively fast women's boxing has has come. I mean, I'm sure you do feel pride and satisfaction in it, but is just part of you think, I wish I wish I could have boxed at a time when women's boxing was recognized for being a student. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it was an evening of great joy, but I also felt a sense of profound, profound sadness for the women of my generation and what we had to deal with and the attitudes to forward female fighters.

34:00And the fights quite frankly, most of them were outside the ring. I mean, dear, Jannelsen from Northern Ireland, how to take the IBU to court because they laughed at her when she asked for a license and Christina Maa, she was a great world champion and she won her title overseas and doesn't get the credit that she deserves. And it was just a very hard time, a very heartbreaking time and as much as it's fantastic to see now, I do feel a little sad for the women that had to go before that don't get the credit and adoration. I mean, boxing is such in many ways is such a criticized sport for the way in which it is run by the people who exploit boxes and the sort of the, as you say, the fights that go on outside the ring, just in terms of the standing of women's boxing now.

35:01Do you think all those fights have been, have been waged successfully? Yes, I mean, I think Katie's done a fantastic job bringing women's boxing into the mainstream and more athletes are going to come up behind her now when I go into boxing gyms. I see half of them are girls. So there's going to be another athlete that comes along that will bring keep boxing in the mainstream. Hopefully it doesn't go away, but you just never know what's going to happen in the future. But I think there will be more stars and there's no way going backwards. You know, Saturday night just cemented the heights of women boxing permanently. And I think we're just going to keep going forward building momentum even from here. And that was the former boxing world champion, did you did you go to talking about the women that she inspired? I'm sure there are many other women that she inspired.

36:03But that's the Irish boxer Katie Taylor who bowed out on Saturday night as the undisputed world light of light, world weight champion at the age of 40 in front of more than 80,000 at CROPE Park. You're listening to News Air. This is News Air from the BBC every so often someone writes a book which becomes a best seller, but actually in truth not that many people read or at least read all the way through. And yet its fame goes well beyond being a best seller. The work becomes and stays a reference point in our thinking and the way we talk about things. Francis Fukuyama's first book published back in 1992 is exactly that. In the aftermath of the Cold War with West triumphant his book was entitled The End of History and the Last Man. His much subsequently misunderstood and ridiculed argument at least when it comes to the forwards that everyone remembers the end of history was not that nothing of interest or consequence would now happen.

37:13But that the idea that liberal democracy was an unimprovable system of government had been settled he argued once and for all. Well now the 73 year old political philosopher one of the most famous public intellectuals in the world has published a new book picking up on the widely ignored second bit of that famous title the bit about The Last Man. His new book is called In the Realm of the Last Man. When he came into the News Air studio I asked Francis Fukuyama what he meant by that. The original book really had two parts so the end of history was about the idea of progress modernization those are the words we'd use instead of history with a capital H these days and the question of the end of history was in what direction is it going. So back then the Marxists also had a concept of history and they said the end of history would be communism that's the ideal state that we're moving towards and in the late 1980s with the decline of the Soviet Union it seemed to me that we were never going to get there and that some form of market economy coupled to liberal democracy would be the final direction in which history was going.

38:23However the last five chapters of that original book published in 1991 was the part about the last man so the end of history phrase comes from the philosopher Hegel. The last man is an idea of Friedrich Nietzsche who hated the idea of the end of history because a liberal democracy would flatten everything that's the essence of liberalism is that you tolerate different points of view you don't have a strong sense of national purpose single direction everybody. So the next one is the middle direction everybody is moving in and Nietzsche said that human beings want something more than that they don't want to simply be understood to be the equal of every other human being on earth and if you actually reach the end of history where you have peace and prosperity people are going to revolt against the possibility of being a last man who's like a cow you know cattle just grazing and content with you know the status quo. Sad back in the early 90s that democracy may someday fall apart because of that discontent because people weren't just happy with peace and prosperity and I think that actually describes our politics over the last decade where you've had populous parties arising that say that you know things have never been worse and we have to upset the whole system.

39:42How far are you saying in that case in your book that essentially I was right that I predicted that this sort of this complacency this some people mediocrity would produce not a sense of self satisfaction but a sense of rage well I think I did actually make that argument thirty five years ago of course people didn't really hear it because people you obsessed about the end of history yeah they didn't hear it it's also very hard. It's hard to know you know under what circumstance that counter reaction would appear and I think the you know there's a couple of things going on one is just generational change I think that if you grew up in the period when I was young you know for me the biggest event political event of my life was the fall of the Soviet Union the you know the ending of the Berlin wall and that signal you know this new era in which liberal democracy was going on.

40:42The democracy would thrive but a generation has grown up since that time that didn't experience the horrors of communism that didn't experience the conflict you know the second world war when nationalism was unchecked and you know led to really horrific violence and so it's kind of easy under those circumstances to think well the real problem is not dictatorship it's the European Union that's the big dictatorship or you know the liberal consensus this is what a lot of concern is. The conservatives in the United States say that you know it's the liberals today that want us to tolerate everything that are that are cancelling you know free speech and that's the real evil that we have to fight and I think they just don't have any historical perspective on what real evil is about. I want to ask more theoretically about where you think this leaves liberal democracy but just in a in a very personal way if you don't mind me asking you this question I mean you you are a you are a pillar of the establishment I mean you are one of the certainly the US is probably one of the world's most famous public intellectuals you teach at Stanford you are also a Japanese American and you you're family going back I mean you are a real good person.

42:01Your grandfather I think I'm correct was in turn during the second world the whole his whole family was right. So when you hear people these days talking about heritage Americans about suggesting that the US as in many parts of the world needs to think of itself perhaps more in terms of a ethno nationalist state how do you feel. It's horrible I think JD answer vice president has been pushing this line about heritage American somehow if you can trace your ancestors back to at least the civil war that you're somehow more American. You know I think it's terrible Donald Trump wants to up in the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship that affects me personally because my mother was in the United States on a student visa when she met my father at the University of Chicago. And had me and under those rules I wouldn't be a citizen if those people were if those people have their way now I think that the big achievement in the United States was at the end of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s I think we finally achieved a sense of national identity that wasn't based on race or ethnicity.

43:16And that you could say I'm an American because I believe in the Constitution and the rule of law in the declaration of independence assertion of all men are created equal and that's what made you an American but we're going backwards from that right now with ice and you know this very cruel policy towards people that aren't considered you know welcome in our society. So that's you know really I think the big threat that liberal democracy is under right now and it's happening in the home of liberal democracy in the United States of America. And that was the political philosopher Francis Fukuyama whose new book is called in the realm of the last man that's it from this edition of news air from me Tim Franks and the team here in London. Thanks very much for your company. Hello, this is Alex Ritson from the Global News podcast. We're bringing you the latest on that decisive victory for the far right AFD party in Germany's eastern state of Saxony.

44:40And hold join us to hear the days top stories from BBC news deliver twice a day on weekdays daily at weekends search for the global news podcast wherever you get your BBC podcasts.