Totalitarianism casts long dark shadow over China
Can a totalitarian country that does not believe in liberty, democracy and other human values that form the core of the free world be allowed to be the leading superpower,… Read more »
Category: totalitarianism
A new ‘Totalitarian Temptation’? Authoritarians rely on ideas too
Sudan’s transition promises to be anything but easy. Economic problems that sparked initial protests in 2018 still await complex solutions, and the state bureaucracy remains weak. How will the military… Read more »
Can North Korea ever become a democracy?
North Korea is arguably the most closed and repressive society in the world. But over the past 25 years, the failures of North Korea’s totalitarian system have created the possibility… Read more »
China’s sharp power targets satirist of totalitarianism
China’s sharp power is targeting a satirist of totalitarianism, The New York Times reports. A Hong Kong venue operated by a nonprofit with ties to the local government withdrew an invitation… Read more »
China’s surveillance state: ‘totalitarian ploy’ redux
The idea of constant monitoring is not unprecedented in China. Indeed, the name of the government’s 2020 project — xueliang, or “sharp eyes” — is a throwback to a Communist party… Read more »
50 years on, exposing The Che Guevara Myth
In the 50 years since his death, Ernesto “Che” Guevara has grown into a mythical figure for leftists around the world. As one of the heroes of Fidel Castro’s Cuban… Read more »
North Korea’s Solzhenitsyn
It was a dog-eared manuscript, 743 pages bound in string. But for Do Hee-youn, an activist campaigning for human rights in North Korea, it was nothing less than stunning, The… Read more »
Why Russia is ignoring first flirtation with liberalism
Russia’s February Revolution is one of history’s great “What if” moments, says the University of Queensland’s John Quiggin. If this revolution — which actually took place in early March 1917… Read more »
Tzvetan Todorov – highlighted democracy’s ‘inner enemies’
Tzvetan Todorov, a Bulgarian-French literary theorist and historian of ideas whose concerns in dozens of books ranged from fantasy in fiction to the moral consequences of colonialism, fanaticism and the… Read more »
Iran’s ‘mythical moderate’: Rafsanjani blended economic liberalism, political authoritarianism
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (above, left) , who has died aged 82, was one of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran; a shrewd politician who many Iranians saw as… Read more »