I'm not a prophet, but I always thought it was natural for dictatorships to fall. I remember in 1989, two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, had you said it was going to happen no one would have believed you. The system seemed powerful and unbreakable. Suddenly overnight it blew away like dust.
Interpretation
Dictatorships may appear strong, but they can collapse unexpectedly.
Salman Rushdie reflects on the unpredictable nature of political systems, particularly dictatorships. He points out that while these regimes may seem powerful and stable, they can suddenly disintegrate, as witnessed during significant historical moments like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. This quote highlights the fragility of political power and the possibility of sudden change in the face of long-standing oppression.
In practice
During a lecture on political change, one might quote this to illustrate the unpredictability of regimes.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
The final hour of colonialism has struck, and millions of inhabitants of Africa, Asia and Latin America rise to meet a new life and demand their unrestricted right to self-determination.
Imagine if everyone was able to help just one child who needs to be listened to, needs to be respected, and needs to be loved - we could make such a huge difference for an entire generation.
You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls.
States are like people. They do not question the awful status quo until some dramatic event overturns the conventional and lax way of thinking.
I feel like the sixties is about to happen. It feels like a period in the future to me, rather than a period in the past.
The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart.
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