A free and rooted society ought to consist of a web of moral obligations. We have the right to ignore them, but we ought to be actually obliged not to let other people starve or to let them lapse into destitution.
From Pankaj Mishra
Certainly, imperial power is never peaceably acquired or maintained.
The Korean War, which China entered on the side of North Korea, fixed Mao's image in the United States as another unappeasable Communist.
To Westerners, the students at Tiananmen may have given an impression of a solid and energetic consensus against dictatorship and for democracy, but they were an egotistical and fractious lot, riven by disagreements over tactics and money.
Tiananmen Square in early 1989 attracted many dreamers like Ma Jian, who returned from Hong Kong to a one-room shack in Beijing in order to join the student protests.
As the spiritual leader of six million people, the Dalai Lama can be credited with a significant renunciation of the authority of tradition - of the conventional politics of national self-interest as well as of religion.
The Dalai Lama can claim the sanction of the Buddha, who is said to have altered his teachings in order to reach a diverse audience.
Though blessed with many able administrators, the British found India just too large and diverse to handle. Many of their decisions stoked Hindu-Muslim tensions, imposing sharp new religious-political identities on Indians.
Ineptitude and negligence directed British policies in India more than any cynical desire to divide and rule, but the British were not above exploiting rivalries.
Many ethnic minorities chafed at the postcolonial nationalism of India and Pakistan, and some rebelled.
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