Democracy Manifest

"Democracy Manifest" (also known as "Succulent Chinese Meal") is a 1990 Australian news segment video by reporter Chris Reason. It is "one of Australia's most viral videos", according to Sportsbet. "The Guardian" called it "perhaps the pre-eminent Australian meme of the past 10 years". YouTube has several postings of the video, and they "have more than one million views each".
It features a man who is being arrested at a Fortitude Valley Chinese restaurant for the purported crime of "dine and dash". Wrestled into a police car, he speaks with the commanding voice of a trained stage actor. As the police fumble, he exclaims "This is Democracy Manifest", "Get your hand off my penis!", "What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?", and "I see you know your Judo well".
The video was made in 1990, but it was not uploaded to the Internet until 2009. A mystery developed about who the man was, with theories centring on Hungarian chess player Paul Charles Dozsa known for his dine and dash exploits. In 2020, an aging Australian man, later identified as Cecil George Edwards, appeared in a music video by an Australian punk rock band, The Chats, that revealed his true identity as the man in the now-viral 1990 video. The revelation led to an interview with "Sportsbet" and a feature in the "Sydney Morning Herald". Ultimately, Edwards was wrongfully arrested in a bungled sting operation.
Synopsis.
The video shows an unnamed man being escorted by police out of a Chinese restaurant into a waiting police car. He is clearly agitated by this situation, and when told he is being placed under arrest he boisterously exclaims in a stentorian voice, "I am under what?". As police wrestle him into a headlock and try to force him into the car, the man booms in the controlled voice of a classic stage actor, apparently addressing an audience, "Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest". As the scuffle escalates, he shouts, "Get your hand off my penis!" and then incredulously asks, "What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?" As the police struggle to contain the man, he compliments them on the headlock, "Ah, yes. I see that you know your Judo well." He is then man-handled into the car, feet-first, while asking someone inside the vehicle, "And you, sir, are you waiting to receive my limp penis?", and bidding his audience "ta ta and farewell". By this point, bystanders can be heard to chuckle in the background.
History.
The video was taped by then-freshman reporter Chris Reason at "Seven News". As it turned out, the police arrested the wrong man in a case of mistaken identity; they thought he was "an international criminal." They actually arrested Cecil George Edwards, a petty criminal with a flair for acting and multiple aliases, who was released later that day to the embarrassment of the police. The clip remained obscure until a raw video version was uploaded to the Internet in January 2009 when it became an immediate viral video.
The raw footage was missing Reason's voice-over explaining who the man was, or what the incident was about, and Internet speculation attempted to resolve the mystery. Theories about the man's identity centered on Paul Charles Dozsa, a Hungarian chess player and notorious dine and dasher, but there were also serious doubts about this theory. It was questioned as to why the arrest was filmed from so many angles, why it was filmed at all and why the allegedly-Hungarian man did not sound Hungarian. Friends, family and acquaintances of Dozsa also stated that the man in the video was not Dozsa. Other theories included that the man was politician John Bartlett, the video was a skit from a television show, or that the man was a real dine and dasher named Gregory John Ziegler.
The mystery of the man's identity continued until 2020, when Australian punk band The Chats published a music video titled "Dine 'N Dash" that re-created the viral video with an older man acting the part of the arrestee. The actor then identified himself in an interview with "Sydney Morning Herald" as Cecil George Edwards the man in the viral video, now going by the name of "Jack K". Asked why he made such a show during the arrest, he said he wanted to appear crazy so he might be placed into an asylum where it would be easier to escape. It was also revealed he had an artistic career making paintings, including some of the arrest.
In 2020, "Jack K" was interviewed by Sportsbet in a video titled "Democracy Manifest Guy Speaks". The interview includes the original "Seven News" archival footage of the event that was last broadcast to the public in 1990. In the broadcast footage, Reason's voice-over confirms his identity: "When Cecil George Edwards was arrested in a town mall last Friday, the Valley police thought they'd caught Queensland's most wanted."
Influences.
Since being uploaded to YouTube in 2009, the video has become a viral hit in Australian culture. When Julian Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2019, comparisons were made between both respective arrests and "it didn't take long for Aussies to all make the same joke".
It has been the subject of an orchestral work composed by Michael Tan (and conducted by Sam Weller) that was performed at the Sydney Opera House by Ensemble Apex.
Slipstream Brewing Company, a microbrewer in Yeerongpilly, Queensland, makes a beer named "Succulent Chinese Meal".
Mac Miller (under his production alias Larry Fisherman) sampled the video in his 2015 instrumental mixtape Run-On Sentences, Volume Two.