In this fast-paced century, rife with technological innovation, we’ve grown accustomed to the impermanence of things. Whatever is here now will likely someday vanish, possibly sooner than we imagine. Movies and music that once played on our VCRs and stereos have given way to infinite choices in the cloud. Cash currency is fast becoming a…
On several continents, 48 peoples are currently rising up against their governments. A movement of such magnitude has never been observed on a planetary scale. After the period of financial globalization, we are witnessing a contestation of political systems and are imagining the emergence of new forms of government. The “supremacy” of democracy The nineteenth…
“In general, unfortunately, the qualifications required to gain power and keep it have almost no connection with those required to govern with competence and impartiality.” – Jean-François Revel (1924-2006), French author and philosopher. (In ‘Ni Marx ni Jésus’, 1970, p. 68). “The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the…
India’s Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu made a curious comment on 28 December. “Express dissent in a democratic way,” he said. Before he became the Vice President – a largely symbolic role – Naidu was the President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the far-right political organization that now governs India. Naidu made his comment…
A succession of social upheavals over the last decade has radically realigned political power throughout the world. As a result of these tectonic shifts, what had once been on the furthest fringes of the right has now moved toward the center while the left has been pushed to the margins. “Things fall apart; the centre…
Coups have been one of the greatest threats to democracy. The people elect a daring leader willing to take on the status quo. And then, as in Iran in 1953 or Chile in 1973, the military pushes the leader aside to take control. Sometimes the generals remain in power; sometimes they restore a royal to…
