Enjoyable thing about places like Iran or Russia is they are only countries who will create longwinded intellectual and cultural genealogies for enemies out of reverse orientalism, or occidentalism. Discussions in civilisational terms you won’t see anywhere else outside the right
Famous example of this occidentalism was the former Iran President assuming Americans read Tocqueville because Tocqueville was the lens his own conception of America was filtered through from a distance
Same kind of endearing effect as ‘The Japanese Version of Europe’
China announces new law to formalise further the project of ‘Sinicization’ to ‘promote national unity’. Few countries prepared to top-down systematically integrate their minorities with their majorities like this. Which model of integration is most likely to work?
‘THE ART OF THE DEAL’ has a major flaw in that it doesn’t include a chapter on securing deals by threatening to drop missiles on people if they don’t accept your deals. Hopefully new editions of the book will fix this - it’s a very powerful and underused negotiating technique
Sense of it being done out of ‘completionism’ rather than any particular ideological commitment. You know like when you want to 100% a video game, collect all the collectibles and unlock all the achievements... In many ways a more noble sentiment than ‘ideology’ in-and-of-itself
Cuba in a very very enshittified state and ripe for upheaval as below but I don’t think ‘regime change’ will come internally, whole place is too lethargic - needs a big push from outside in order to topple. Cometh the hour cometh the man…
Lights are from the infamous ‘Rocinha’ favela. You might think they spoil the view of Ipanema beach but actually in a way they contribute to it; you look out and you really get full-on Brazil, full-on Lusotropicalism all included in just the one vista