Comments by "" (@titteryenot4524) on "Channel 4 News"
channel.
-
13
-
13
-
13
-
13
-
13
-
2 militaries in Sudan vying for power. What could possibly go wrong? Of 54 African nations, as we speak, only 1 is classified as a ‘full democracy’: Mauritius. The rest are flawed democracies, hybrid democracies incorporating strongly authoritarian anti-democratic elements, or outright dictatorships. The truth is that too much of Africa is still mired in tribalism and too few States have made the requisite efforts to bring their countries into the sunny uplands of the least worst way of politically organising human affairs. The key here has to be education. Of the salient things functioning democracies need to embrace in order to have any chance of working, such as participation, free and fair elections, representation, accountability, transparency, responsiveness, pluralism, and the rule of law, far too few African nations tick even half of these boxes. Until they do, chiefly through education, Africa will remain benighted and doomed to anti-democratic trouble and strife.
13
-
13
-
13
-
12
-
12
-
What’s happening in France can be correlated with Brexit and Trump. Instead of looking at this in terms of traditional left versus right, David Goodheart’s thesis of two distinct ‘tribes’, the ‘Anywheres’ and the ‘Somewheres’, with irreconcilable differences may be applicable here. Brexiteers, Trumpeteers and Le Penistas fall into the ‘somewhere’ camp and they may be seen as rooted in geographical identity - the Scottish farmer; working-class Geordie; Cornish housewife - who find rapid changes to the modern world unsettling; are socially conservative; are likely to be older and less well educated and less mobile. This manifests in supporting anti-mass-immigration policies; strong support for the Armed Forces; suspicion of the EU, and more widely ‘other’ cultures; strong support for strict law enforcement (including the death penalty) and a general authoritarianism, with the notion that the primary job of Britain’s leaders is to put British interests first. ‘Anywheres’ are footloose; often urban; university educated; socially liberal; egalitarian and meritocratic in their attitudes to race, sexuality, and gender; are able to migrate and integrate comfortably into other places; are often strong supporters of the EU and globalisation; are lighter in their attachments to larger group identities, including national ones, valuing autonomy and self-realisation before stability, community and tradition. What’s happening in France may be seen as a battle between the Anywheres and the Somewheres just as Brexit and Trump’s election may be seen in these terms. Melenchon’s core base appears to be a curious mixture of the two: ‘Somewheres’ and ‘Anywheres’; traditional left-leaning working-class folk rooted in their specific communities, and a more metropolitan strain, found in the big cities, and while left-leaning, also more likely to fall into the ‘Anywhere’ tribe, principally due to a higher-level of education.
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
Aside from being a simple battle for national self-determination in the face of an autocratic aggressor (notwithstanding the very real intra-Ukrainian tensions), this whole war has been a very real question to every single one of us. It’s directly asking us to make a choice about whether we uphold basic non-negotiable liberal values such as individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), pluralistic liberal democracy, secularism, the rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion or, alternatively, we uphold illiberal values such as violation of individual rights (including violation of civil and human rights), illiberal autocracy, abuse of the law, economic and political servitude beholden to dictatorship, little to no freedom of speech, censorship of the press and media more widely, and lack of freedom to worship the Gods of your choice or no God at all. Given this binary choice I, for one, know which side I’m backing.
11
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
11