Democracy Manifest
"Democracy Manifest" (also known as "Succulent Chinese Meal", amongst other names) is an October 1991 Australian news segment video by reporter Chris Reason.
A mystery developed about who the man was and what the incident involved, with theories centring on Hungarian chess player Paul Charles Dozsa, known for his dine-and-dash exploits.
[7] Reason's reporting said that the man was arrested in a case of mistaken identity ("the police thought they'd caught Queensland's most wanted").
Other later sources said he was a dine and dasher, or an international criminal, while officer Dean Biron who attended the scene recalled he was wanted on 19 counts of fraud and receiving stolen goods worth $70,000.
[1] 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.
[21][5] The actor then identified himself in an interview with Sydney Morning Herald as "Cecil George Edwards", the man in the viral video; he was now going by the name of "Jack K".
[9] The video in fact depicts Jack Peter Karlson[23] (born Cecil George Edwards; 1942 – 7 August 2024)[24] being arrested for paying for a Chinese meal with a purportedly stolen credit card.
[25] Karlson began a lifelong career of petty crime in 1956 as a ward of Blackheath Presbyterian Boys' Home in the Brisbane suburb of Oxley, where he is alleged to have been subjected to physical and sexual abuse.
[27] In June 2022, academic Dean Biron, who was one of the arresting officers accused in the "Get your hands off my penis" part of the video, wrote an article about the incident.
Biron gave his version of events, such as why the police were making the arrest, stating that, contrary to other reports made, it was not considered a major case.
Biron said that after the arrest, the man — who had used the Edwards alias — was held in police custody and then released on bail overnight, and disappeared until his "15 minutes of fame" in 2020, "somehow scrubbed clean of that pesky past".
[4] In 2023, true crime author Mark Dapin published a biography of Karlson titled Carnage: A Succulent Chinese Meal, Mr. Rent-a-Kill and the Australian Manson Murders that also explores his connections to other criminals.
"[3] Karlson later explained the meaning of Democracy Manifest as judgement by the people, through the media, saying, "Here's an opportunity to prove my innocence, because they've dragged me out, thinking I was some sort of international gangster, when I knew that I wasn't.
[33] Mac Miller (under his production alias Larry Fisherman) sampled the video in his 2015 instrumental mixtape Run-On Sentences, Volume Two.
"[38][39][40] In the month before Karlson died, he and one of his arresting officers had been speaking with Australian media to promote a new documentary about the incident, titled The Man Who Ate a Succulent Chinese Meal, directed by Heath Davis.
