Showing 1-10 of 192 results
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After Erdogan's win, Turkey inches closer to civil war
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/11/2015
» "You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time...", begins Abraham Lincoln's aphorism about democracy -- but in a multi-party democratic system, that is usually enough. In a parliamentary system like Turkey's, 49% of the popular vote gives you a comfortable majority of seats, and so Recep Tayyib Erdogan will rule Turkey for another four years. If the country lasts that long.
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Five years on from Arab Spring, democracy can still work
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/01/2016
» Five years ago this month, the "Arab Spring" got under way with the non-violent overthrow of Tunisia's long-ruling dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. He dared not order the army to open fire on the demonstrators (because it might not obey), and eventually he flew off off to Saudi Arabia to seek asylum.
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The triumph and tragedy of Egypt
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/02/2016
» Exactly five years after Egypt's democratic revolution triumphed, the country is once more ruled by a military office. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seized power in July 2013, and he is even nastier than his predecessors.
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British petulance is shaping European Union's future
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/02/2016
» What would you call a country that called for "a structure under which [Europe] can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom ... a kind of United States of Europe" at the end of the Second World War (Winston Churchill, 1946), but refused to join that structure when its European neighbours actually began building it (European Economic Community, or EEC, 1957)?
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What would happen if Brexit actually wins?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/06/2016
» After months in which opinion polls showed a 6-10% lead for the "Remain" side in the referendum campaign on continued British membership of the European Union, the numbers have suddenly shifted in favour of "Leave". The latest Guardian/ICM polls revealed that 52% of those polled favour Brexit (British exit from the EU), while only 48% want to stay in.
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Macedonia's 'Colourful Revolution'
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/06/2016
» Abstract expressionism is no longer cutting-edge art in most places, but in one country it is enjoying a massive popular revival: Macedonia. The artists are at work day and night in the capital, Skopje, decorating public buildings and statues with splatters of every colour in the rainbow in a style clearly inspired by Jackson Pollock.
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Brexit stirs serious talk of apocalypse
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/06/2016
» How's this for apocalyptic? "As a historian I fear Brexit [a British vote to leave the European Union in the referendum on June 23] could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also Western political civilisation in its entirety," said Donald Tusk, the president of the European Union, in an interview published on Monday in the German newspaper Bild.
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Will it be Frexit, Nexit or Swexit?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/06/2016
» The EU is dying. I hope we've knocked the first brick out of the wall,” exulted Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party. He proposed that June 23, the day when the British narrowly voted (with 51.8%) to leave the European Union, be a new national holiday called Independence Day.
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Nail in coffin of Turkish democracy
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/07/2016
» Turkey's democracy is dead. It was dying anyway, as President Recep Tayyib Erdogan took over media outlets, arrested political opponents and journalists, and even re-started a war with the Kurds last autumn in order to win an election. But once part of the army launched a coup attempt on Friday night, it was dead no matter which way the crisis ended.
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'Three Brexiteers' run gauntlet of EU trade negotiations
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/07/2016
» So far, so good. Boris Johnson, the face of the "Out" side in last month's Brexit referendum and now Britain's new Foreign Secretary, got through his first encounter with the 27 other foreign ministers of European Union countries on Monday without insulting anybody.
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