Category: Dissidents

National security still tied to fate of freedom, democratic solidarity

     

  Today, sophisticates on both the political Left and Right argue that the United States has no business supporting the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people, or that Iraqis were… Read more »

1989: ‘Ideological lie’ exposed in democracy’s paradoxical moment

     

No empire in history has disintegrated as quickly or as bloodlessly as the Soviet one, in the remarkable year that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989…. Read more »

Liberal democracy’s 1989 promise ‘a squandered opportunity’

     

Two great earthquakes shaped the present global order. The first, in 1989, seemed to promise an irresistible march towards liberal democracy and open markets. The opportunity was squandered by those… Read more »

Russia’s New Ideocracy vs. liberal democracy

     

  “Putinism” has long been a hot topic in the West, where the term – describing the policies and practices of Russian President Vladimir Putin – is generally met with… Read more »

Democracy under threat in post-Wall Europe: Spirit of 1989 fighting back

     

The west’s mistake after 1989 was not that we celebrated what happened in central Europe – and subsequently in the Baltic republics and the former Soviet Union – as a… Read more »

The other ‘God That Failed’? The triumph and tragedy of 1989

     

“Always prepared!” For decades, it was a catchphrase of the Pioneers, an outdoorsy youth group that was a hallmark of communist indoctrination efforts targeting schoolchildren throughout the U.S.S.R. and its… Read more »

First post-Castro crisis: A path toward change in Cuba?

     

For all the talk of restructuring (aka re-branding) in the face of an acute economic crisis, Cuba’s Communist regime is sticking with the same apparatchiks. “#Cuba maintains current leaders in… Read more »

Russia’s maturing opposition confronts ‘calibrated repression’

     

Russia has declared opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation a “foreign agent”. The move by the justice ministry means the organisation will now be subject to more checks by the authorities,… Read more »

Houston, We Have a Problem – China

     

The NBA’s apology for the Houston Rockets general manager’s support of Hong Kong’s protesters is part of a broader trend of U.S. corporate submission to China, James Palmer writes for… Read more »