Tom's Thoughts and Ideas

Of late I have found myself rewatching Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain’s show that aired from 2013 until 2018. Like his other show No Reservations, the intellectual aim of the show is to explore unknown or changing places with a focus on the cultural and culinary points of view. The thing that prompted me to write this post is the season one episode on Libya, among others. All the episodes are fantastic from a pure tv standpoint, but they also act as a time capsule for the world as it was then, in these often volatile and constantly changing places. Watching these episodes in 2013(-2018) compared to 2025 fundamentally alters the tone and ideas gained from them in an interesting way.

The episode I want to focus on it the aforementioned episode on Libya. This episode aired on May 19th 2013; around a year and a half since the death of Gaddafi and the start of the new Libya. The prevailing sentiment in that episode is one of immense hope in the face of freedom and a past of suffering; people are so happy and excited for things to change and for their lives to get better. But at the same time the episode is plagued by reports of unrest and more violence being just around the corner, so the optimism is rather cautious. Even Bourdain who has had a less than easy experience in the country is excited at the prospect of this new freedom, and I would expect that viewers who saw the episode on prime time felt similarly. It is hard for even his foul-mouthed and cynical narration to contain its excitement at the erosion of authoritarianism around the world.

Yet, looking back, Libya was only months away from the start of their second civil war and the beginning of anarchy that reigns to this day in some parts of the country despite the ceasefire in 2020. Watching the hope and excitement now makes the episode feel more like a eulogy to the dream of Libyan freedom and what might have been, rather than an expression of genuine excitement and real hope. Instead of smiles and optimism, one must feel sadness and lament the pain and death that engulfed the nation. While I do think that there is value in watching the show, as it is really good, it takes on a feeling that we as well read and caring people in the West did not do enough to prevent the death and anarchy. I am not a geopolitics wizard and so I can not supply an alternate course of action where everything would have been rainbows, but I do think that being consumed with conspiracies about Christmas being banned and tan suits rather than taking action to encourage and help along the cause of democracy across the world and not allowing fledgling democratic projects to fail will be looked back on as one of the great failings of our time. While there is no way for Bourdain to have known the importance that his show would have 13 years later, having a capsule of hope, even tainted hope, is really powerful.

Seeing how fragile democracy and hope can be is perhaps the best single reason for defending it actively in one’s own life. The unfettered excitement in the Libyans who were interviewed despite overwhelming circumstances and continued violence warmed my heart to its core. While I was feeling sad that the project of democracy failed, I realized that while the battle may have been lost, the war is never over, people will always demand their rights and freedom against tyranny, some quicker than others to be sure. Authoritarianism only works when people lose hope and turn to fear. Resistance to fear can come from everywhere, even food. So even if the parts are now known, the future is always uncertain. The triumph of Parts Unknown is not necessarily in its content about food, but its showing the world changing and evolving before our very eyes, and it is a constant reminder that nothing is written in stone, and that what happens over there always matters to what happens over here.