I was caught on the hop in an incisive interview with Rashunda Tramble of the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) on the issues raised in Democracy Kills.  She raised the question of democracy being suited to certain cultures and asked about the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the US — when the Federal Government overruled state policies that blocked African-Americans from voting.  What I hadn’t realised was that it took a full one hundred years to pass that legislation since the end of the Civil War  that was fought over slavery, equal rights and democracy. 

I recommend Travel’s with Charley by John Steinbeck on his 1960s journey around America ending up witnesses school segregation in New Orleans and being accused of being a ‘nigger-lover.’  His closing thoughts: “I do know it is a troubled place and a people caught in a jam. And I know that the solution when it arrives will not be easy or simple……It’s the means — the dreadful uncertainty of the means.”

If it took a hundred years in the US and it’s still not fully fixed — how long for the Sri Lankas, Iraqs and others?