• OPINION

  Thailand: Back around in the circle again?

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/05/2023

  » There have been occasional violent episodes in Thai politics and one recent massacre (2010), but the struggle for a genuine democracy has usually been relatively restrained. Maybe that is why it has lasted so long.

• OPINION

  Sudan: Thieves fall out and the people suffer

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/04/2023

  » It's a pity that both sides can't lose in the war that broke out between rival generals in Sudan on Saturday, but the best that the 48 million Sudanese can hope for now is that one side loses quickly. Beyond that, it's all bad: the rival generals both want to strangle the democratic revolution that began in Khartoum four years ago.

• OPINION

  Stick to the path of non-violence in Myanmar

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/04/2021

  » The non-violent democratic resistance in Myanmar is living through terrible times, but statistics are on its side: most non-violent movements eventually win. But it’s hard to stay non-violent when you are up against a force as ruthless and brutal as the Tatmadaw.

• OPINION

  Playing football won't turn boys into manly men

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/02/2021

  » It seemed innocent enough at the start: just a surge in the number of boys coming to school with notes from doctors saying they were excused from playing contact sports. But pretty soon high schools all over China were having trouble finding enough willing young men to make up a football team.

• OPINION

  Forced schooling of Mongolians driven by fear

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/09/2020

  » 'Residential schools" were a common feature of European settler societies (except New Zealand) until quite late in the 20th century, and their purpose was not just to educate but to "deracinate" their aboriginal pupils: to cut them off from their roots. The Chinese government would reject the analogy with its last breath, but it is now doing the same thing.

• OPINION

  What went wrong in Hong Kong?

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/05/2020

  » 'We are the meat on the chopping board," said Martin Lee, founder of Hong Kong's Democratic Party. "They have set a precedent for Beijing to legislate on Hong Kong's behalf." Or as Dennis Kwok, a former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, put it rather more succinctly: "This is the end of Hong Kong."

• OPINION

  Defeat snatched from jaws of victory in HK

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/11/2019

  » The "silent majority" in Hong Kong, who regime supporters hoped would show that they are fed up with the pro-democracy protests that have shaken the city in the past five months, turns out to be not only silent but non-existent.

• OPINION

  Cameroon's war on anglophones is self-defeating

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/11/2019

  » Sometimes Donald Trump gets it right. In February he cut off US military aid to the central African country of Cameroon because of its appalling human rights record (and didn't even offer to restore it if the Cameroon government dug up dirt on his political opponents at home). Last Friday he acted again, dropping Cameroon from a pact that promotes trade between sub-Saharan African countries and the US.

• OPINION

  HK protesters making bad gamble

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/10/2019

  » After 17 consecutive weekends of increasingly violent protests in Hong Kong, the first protester was wounded by a live bullet on Tuesday. Tsang Chi-kin, an 18-year-old student and one of a group of about a dozen students attacking a policeman who had become separated from his comrades, was shot in the chest as he struck the officer with a metal pole. He is expected to survive.

• OPINION

  Widodo is not that different from Trudeau

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/09/2019

  » The news out of Indonesia this week is disturbing. In West Papua, the Indonesian-ruled half of the world's second-biggest island, New Guinea, the native people are definitely restive. Some 1.8 million of them, 70% of West Papua's native population, signed a petition demanding the right to self-determination last year, and now much of the island is in revolt.

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