Socio-economic issues: ‘People prefer 100-years period of tyranny to a single year of chaos’

Dr Richard Falk talks Cold War, Middle East and democracy at Habib Public School


News Desk August 26, 2016
"Autocratic leaders such as Narendra Modi (India), Shinzo Abe (Japan), Trump (USA) and others are now able to be democratically elected by the masses due to the total collapse of the morals and ideals on which the present global order is based upon," Falk said. PHOTO: HABIB UNIVERSITY FACEBOOK PAGE

'People prefer a 100-year period of tyranny to a single year of chaos', narrated Dr Richard Falk, a renowned scholar on international affairs and law, while speaking on the Middle East during a lecture at the Habib University.

He was narrating the saying that has become famous in the region since the interventions of the United States.

The lecture, titled 'Sovereign States, Human Rights, and World (Dis)Order',  took place at

The varsity's Tariq Rafi lecture theatre on Thursday evening and was part of its Dean's Lecture Series that invites notable intellectuals and research scholars from around the world to discuss global socio-economic issues.

Going back into history, Dr Falk said that there was a sense of great achievement in the West after the fall of the Soviet Union. The political commentators of that era, Dr Falk explained, expected the fall of the USSR to lead to a global age of universal human rights, economic freedom, and justice. Instead, sovereign states quickly started moving away from these ideals to take a more practical approach to diplomacy and inter-state politics.

He established the weaknesses in the ideas from which democratic institutions drive their legitimacy. "Autocratic leaders such as Narendra Modi (India), Shinzo Abe (Japan), Trump (USA) and others are now able to be democratically elected by the masses due to the total collapse of the morals and ideals on which the present global order is based upon," he said.

The lecture was attended by notable scholars and researchers, including Dr Haider Nizamani and Dr Asif Aslam Farrukhi, while university chancellor Rafiq Mohammad Habib, along with other faculty members and students from different educational institutes and non-governmental organisations were also in attendance.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27th, 2016.

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