A Quote by Simon Sebag Montefiore
It was always presumptuous to expect Russia, an ancient nation-state and proud empire of distinct culture with a tradition of autocracy, to become an Anglo-American democracy overnight - just as it is naive to expect it in other parts of the world.
Related Quotes
The New World Order is a more palatable name for the Anglo American world empire. It's the planetary domination of London, New York, Washington over the rest of the world. It's hard to get people to join that or think they have a part in it if you called it the Anglo American world empire. If you call it the New World Order, then people in India or some place like that or the European Union might think, "Well, there's something there for us too." But that's not what it is; it's the Anglo American New World Order.
Russia engages in a malign influence campaign all over the world. I would expect that they would try to undermine democracy here just that they - as they have in other places.
Russia can be either an empire or a democracy, but it cannot be both. . . . Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.
You know that in the Eurasian space, Russia is the central state, the most powerful state. But to become an empire, a member of some empire, a province in this empire - you know, we're probably not ready for that yet, neither in Kazakhstan nor in Belarus.
The word "democracy" is a Western word obviously. It doesn't exist in Arabic. Democratiya is a loan word. We in the Western world make the great mistake of assuming that ours is the only form of good government; that democracy means what it means in the Anglo-American world and a few other places in the West, but not many others. Muslims have their own tradition on limited government. Now in Islam, there is a very strong political tradition. Because the different circumstances, Islam is political from the very beginning.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
Science is neither a single tradition, nor the best tradition there is, except for people who have become accustomed to its presence, its benefits and its disadvantages. In a democracy it should be separated from the state just as churches are now separated from the state.
I do not expect NASA to go out and build settlements and colonies. I do not expect them to give SpaceX all the money needed to colonize Mars. I do not expect them to realize the future of humanity is contingent on harvesting the wealth of the solar system overnight and suddenly subsidize my asteroid mining project.
It is not true that democracy will always safeguard freedom of conscience better than autocracy. Witness the most famous of all trials. Pilate was, from the standpoint of the Jews, certainly the representative of autocracy. Yet he tried to protect freedom. And he yielded to a democracy.
Many analysts compare Turkey with countries in the Middle East, but I think we need to compare it with Russia. Both countries come from a tradition of empire, and also from a tradition of the strong state.
In many parts of the world, including the Arab world, the Latin American world, and even parts of the Western world, there is a tradition of writers being quite engaged. Particularly in the Arab world you have had very, very strong traditions of literature and poetry and most of the writers have been deeply committed to the cause of the Arab nation.
As an American writer, the literary tradition that I draw on the most is the Anglo-American one, and when you are writing in this tradition, the Orientalizing Western gaze is something you have to constantly push against as well as compromise with.
No, I didn't expect Mancini to become a manager, because of the type of player he was - he was an intelligent player, of course, but I didn't think he had the desire to become a manager. But I guess if you speak to some of my team-mates they'd probably say they didn't expect me to either. I certainly didn't expect it.
In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy.
If you are seeking to obey the Lord, expect opposition. Expect obstacles. Expect difficulties. But also expect God to see you through
We better rethink the position of the United States in the world and whether we want to be an empire. Being an empire puts all of us in jeopardy. The American Empire, while it was just wreaking havoc on other nations, didn't bother us.
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