Coping with Dystopia: Coping with Fascist Dictatorships
February 1, 2023 — COPING WITH DYSTOPIA
Feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world? Does it seem like society is fraying at the edges? Our podcast, Coping with Dystopia, is here to help!
We speak with people who have experienced it all and come out the other side. These are thoughtful, real-world talks that offer practical and philosophical ways to deal with the chaos. And maybe there’s even the odd glimpse of humour and happiness. Coping with Dystopia is the podcast the world needs right now.
In our fifth episode, we’re coping with fascist dictatorships. Fascism can be described as a political philosophy or regime that exalts nation, and often race, above the individual, and that stands for a centralised autocratic government with one dictatorial leader. And almost one year into Putin’s war on Ukraine, his regime comes dangerously close to being a fascist one. With worrying developments across the world, there are a number of other countries, such as Hungary, the Philippines, and more recently, Italy, that seem to come close to a fascist dictatorship as well.
In this episode we’re joined by American-British financier Bill Browder, author of the Magnitsky act. Browder lobbied for the legislation after his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was tortured for almost a year in a Russian prison, resulting in his death. This act has named and shamed many corrupt Russian officials, and made them persona non grata all over the world, effectively banning them from entering the 35 countries that have signed the act. As a result however, Russian forces launched a disinformation and defamation campaign against Browder trying to convince the world he was a criminal, so he has had to watch his back every day since.
To cope with this, Browder offered us some advice, focussing mainly on the truth:
The truth will always prevail, we just need to work harder at telling it
Use every possible tool to tell the truth
Remain energetic whilst telling the truth
Don’t be discouraged by the dystopian times we are living in
Fight for justice
You can listen to the full podcast below.
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