Anyone who believes that living in an autocracy or a neo-fascist state is better than living in a democracy should take a close look at life in North Korea today — along with recalling life under Nazi Germany. The recent article, “North Koreans face lives devoid of hope, UN rights chief says,” is a wake-up call for us all and clearly demonstrates that freedom of choice in all aspects of life is far better than enslavement!
Indeed, the happiest countries in the world are those where freedom of the press is the greatest!
To counter this far-right populist extremist push across global regions calls for electing decision-makers who care unmistakably and equally about all life on the planet (humans, non-humans, plants), democracy (truth and freedom) and our collective futures and for these individuals to take advantage of the power that social media has to offer (e.g., Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapshot). It is crucial that voters (of all ages) are given fact-checked information/knowledge — images, commentaries, stories about life today across autocratic countries.
In the final analysis, as Sir David Attenborough wisely concluded, they, along with us all, are reminded:
“[N]o species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, dead or alive, as we now have. That lies upon us, whether we like it o not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.”
UCL social scientist Dr Brian Klaas, after ten years of interviewing “despots, corrupt kingpins, crooked chief executives, power-hungry generals, cult leaders, abusive managers, bloodthirsty rebel leaders, abusive managers, bloodthirsty rebel leaders,” concluded that abuse of power comes down to three “big problems”:
- “power is magnetic to corruptible people…especially true for people with a particular destructive psychological cocktail known as the dark triad: Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy”;
- “people who enjoy elevated power” tend to “eat impulsively and have sexual affairs, to violate the rules of the road, to lie and cheat …and to communicate in rude, profane and disrespectful ways”;
- “we give power to the wrong people for the wrong reasons …seduced by charlatans and strongmen, with roots in the ancient past of our species” as “our brains haven’t evolved much since the Stone Age” while our “societies have changed radically” and “our brains haven’t caught up.”
In “How Democracy Can Defeat Autocracy,” Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, reviewed autocracies across the globe and highlighted how its advocates deny “not only periodic elections but also free public debate, a healthy civil society, competitive political parties, and an independent judiciary capable of defending individual rights and holding officials accountable.”
Related Articles: Why Democracy Produces Incompetent Leaders – And How to Fix it | Hungary Is No Longer a Democracy | Saving Democracy Is Hard but Someone Has to Do It | As Democracy Erodes Worldwide, Autocracies Are Getting Stronger, Concludes New Report | Granular Politics: The Nitty-Gritty of Participatory Democracy
Although autocracies are on the rise, he cautioned that their “superficial appeal…belies a more complex reality — and a bleaker future for autocrats”: people are increasingly recognising that “autocrats prioritize their own interests over the public’s,” regularly devoting “government resources to self-serving projects rather than public needs.”
For democracies “to prevail,” he asserted, “leaders must do more than spotlight the autocrats’ shortcomings” and “make a stronger, positive case for democratic rule” to meet “national and global challenges — of ensuring that democracy delivers on its promised dividends.”
Finally, here are references to several timely and compelling articles, followed by a societal reminder (poem), that should make us all “stop and think!” about what is really happening in the world today, reminiscent of Europe in the 1930s and parallels in 2024:
- Law and Justice in the Third Reich
- How the social structures of Nazi Germany created a bystander society
- A Time to Choose: Utopia vs Dystopia? Democracy is Key
The poem, “First they came…,” written in 1946 by Pastor Martin Nielmoller, after he spent the last years of Nazi rule [1937-1945] in prisons and concentration camps, “argued against apathy — and for the moral connectedness of all people.”
The time for doing so cannot come too soon!
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of Impakter.com — Cover Photo Credit: Unarmed Civilian.
