Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
"Bahrain has become a symbol of the failure of the Arab Spring to deliver real democracy and freedom. What is hardly ever mentioned is that this very system of oppression in Bahrain was largely created by the British"
That was Putin's score, Ahmadinejad's too. "Cleverly spun, this 35 per cent simply exists to reinforce and legitimise the 65 per cent that turned out and/or voted for a particular candidate. It creates the fiction of plurality"
Privacy, piracy, security, sovereignty. Just some of the battle lines drawn in the war over the Internet. And part of wider questions of freedom and control. Later this year, the key UN treaty will be revised. Here's what's at stake
Review of "Why Nations Fail" by Acemoglu and Robinson. Successful nations are ones in which everyone has a chance to share in prosperity and power. Failed nation are ones in which rulers grab power and wealth for themselves
Shin In Geun is probably the only person to have been born in, and escape from, a North Korean camp for political prisoners. His account of the cruelty and viciousness of life inside Camp 14 is harrowing almost beyond belief
Photo gallery with awful scenes from Syrian city, where the people are under bombardment from their own government. Rubbish piles up in the streets, cars are burned out, children play with shell and rocket fragments
Profile of Egyptian computer engineer, then working for Google in Dubai, who helped launch anti-Mubarak revolution with online activism. Still maintains Khaled Said Facebook page where it all started, trying to keep revolution alive
Rules of thumb for analysing a revolution. Chances of democracy improve if the public takes to the streets, and if the opposition holds together. But the most likely outcome is renewed and more competitive authoritarianism
"I wrote poems for the regime under a pen name, pretending I was a grass-roots poet from the South. I wrote epic poems glorifying Kim Jong-il, which were published in the main newspaper in the North." And then I had to flee
Translation of Nobel laureate's superb 2007 essay on state of China. Still reads well. Chinese people are fed fabricated myths of success. Patriotism is channeled into superficial, arrogant nationalism. Universal values obliterated
"The brilliance of the Soviet regime was not just that you relied on few people, but that there were lots of replacements. This put your core circle on notice that they were easily replaced. That made them horribly loyal"
"Everywhere, the conventional wisdom was turned upside down by people who turned out to be angrier than their elites had suspected. But the notion that the rules of the economic game are rigged has had remarkable resonance"
Lucas Cranach. The Golden Age
