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Ruchir Sharma Profile picture
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18 Aug, 5 tweets, 2 min read
No need to imagine, it was called West Germany, where Christian Democrats claimed the US executing Nazis was 'un-Christian'.

"This change of course enabled many forrmer Nazis to return to prominent positions in politics and business in the emerging West German postwar republic."
"The demonstrators claimed to have a Christian cause: They demanded that the Americans suspend the death penalty for 28 [Nazis]."

When the truth was, West Germany would have had no policemen, judges or industrialists left, had the CDU-CSU actually taken Denazification seriously.
"In the minds of many people at that time, the Americans were still occupiers, even though the Federal Republic had already been founded.

And in their thinking, a German war criminal was still worth more than an American occupier."

dw.com/en/germany-195…
"Richard Jaeger described the death sentences against the 28 men as un-Christian ... later, as justice minister, he made a name for himself as a zealous advocate of reintroducing the death penalty into German law, earning the nickname "Kopf-Ab-Jaeger" (Chop-the-head-off-Jaeger)."
"The protest of 70 years ago was successful.

Of the 28 death sentences, only seven were carried out ... the last death sentences on the soil of the Federal Republic.

With the onset of the Cold War, ... the enemy was now the Soviet Union. From now on, the Germans were allies."

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More from @ruchirsharma_1

Ruchir Sharma Profile picture
29 Aug
"Seventy-three years ago, Israel made a promise to India's Jews it didn't keep. It invited them to 'return to the promised land' but went back on its word.

Sometimes with heart-wrenching consequences."

livehistoryindia.com/story/cover-st…
"Many Indian Jews packed up their lives and livelihoods and 'made the Aliyah', a religious phrase that describes 'moving to the Land of Israel'.

They had no idea just how miserable they would be."
"The homes assigned to Indian Jews were tents, wooden huts and tin houses, whereas European Jews were assigned more permanent structures including apartments and even fully furnished villas.

European Jews were put up in hotels until permanent accommodation could be allotted."
Read 12 tweets
Ruchir Sharma Profile picture
27 Aug
Well, there's the problem.

Being "an outlier in the postcolonial world for preserving democracy amid poverty" is not something to be proud of.

Real democracy is built by ending poverty, not preserving it.

Embrace Asian values and finally catch up to the rest of the continent.
As Lee Kwan Yew said of 'Asian values', a society can only uphold social, cultural, economic, or constitutional rights when their state is able to defend their sovereignty from external interference.

That is the shared vision behind the 1993 Bangkok Declaration on Human Rights.
Under 'Asian values', concepts like "individual freedoms and rights" only have meaning when:

- people have basic material needs fulfilled, and thus the ability to demand such rights; and
- their state has the sovereignty and capacity to recognise, grant, and enforce such rights.
Read 6 tweets
Ruchir Sharma Profile picture
13 Aug
“The so-called conquest was accomplished with the sword and the cross. Thousands of people were murdered during this period. A culture was imposed, one civilization on top of another...where Catholic churches were constructed on top of the temples of pre-Hispanic peoples.” - AMLO
“A society needs to know where it comes from to know where it is going,” Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s City mayor,said at a forum last month detailing plans for the occasion. “How can we resolve some of our great problems if we don’t know where they began?”

latimes.com/world-nation/s…
"Both Spain and the Vatican have rebuffed the president’s demands for apologies. Events from five centuries ago cannot be judged by “contemporary considerations,” the Spanish government said."
Read 5 tweets
Ruchir Sharma Profile picture
13 Aug
"In 1968, East Germany went about adopting a constitution ... Rather than simply imposing this new document, as the ruling SED could have easily done, it instead chose a more labour-intensive option: a mass national discussion followed by a plebiscite."

historyned.blog/2016/04/10/mor…
"[N]early a million events and meetings were held throughout the GDR to discuss the contents of the proposed constitution ... , the constitutional commission received more than 12,000 letters and post cards from East Germans, expressing their support, concerns, and criticisms."
"The vast number of meetings and discussions surrounding the adoption of the new constitution were meant to both educate the public and ensure their participation in the final vote."
Read 15 tweets
Ruchir Sharma Profile picture
2 Jul
Yes. 😎

"Shall declare an offence punishable by law all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to racial discrimination, ... all acts of violence or incitement to such acts against any race or group of persons of another colour or ethnic origin" Image
"Representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as a pretext for any of these" Image
"Each Member State shall take the measures necessary to ensure that the following intentional conduct is punishable:

Publicly inciting to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion,descent..." Image
Read 4 tweets
Ruchir Sharma Profile picture
29 Jun
"Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table?

They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it."

- Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man

The same applies to poor people in domestic politics and developing countries in geopolitics.
"We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so."
"Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives."
Read 4 tweets

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