—how the public service defends stupid laws
Tag: politics
-
The 193 member states
As the United Nations prepares to pontificate on how democracies defend themselves, it might be useful to remember that across the United Nations’ 193 member states, a substantial proportion are not democratic. According to the 2025 V-Dem report, about 90 states qualify as autocracies, either “electoral autocracies” or “closed autocracies.” Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2025 survey classifies 59 countries as “Not Free,” meaning citizens lack basic political rights and civil liberties. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2024 offers a similar perspective, designating 59 of the 167 states it surveys as authoritarian. Although methodologies differ, these datasets all indicate that roughly one-third to nearly half of UN members fall outside democratic governance.
A handful of states are unambiguous theocracies. Iran and Afghanistan are clear examples, while Saudi Arabia is often described as a theocratic monarchy. Military juntas are rarer but currently in power in about eight UN members, including Myanmar, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea, Chad, Sudan, and Gabon.
Sources
V-Dem 2025 report: https://v-dem.net/documents/54/v-dem_dr_2025_lowres_v1.pdf
Freedom House 2025: https://freedomhouse.org/…/FITW_World2025digitalN.pdf
EIU Democracy Index 2024: https://www.eiu.com/n/democracy-index-2024/
-
Letter to the Australian Human Rights Commission
… in support of the Lesbian Action Group
→ Restore the impartiality of the AHRC (open letter and list of signatories, archived)
page 1 
page 2 
page 3 -
Dog and tie (pencil and oil pastel, 20220226)
Dog and tie (pencil and oil pastel, 20220226) Stephen J. Williams -
Attack of the Nabokovs
Look! From out of history’s darkening skies A kaleidoscope of amorous, witty butterflies Comes to save us—from fatuous liars And deceivers, from ‘fake news’ and perdition’s fires. Welcome them, friend. Let them land Their gaudy wings upon your hand, Or head, or nose, or knee, or bum. Let them flit and ‘do their thing’ until the job is done!
Attack of the Nabokovs (pencil, 20220220) Stephen J. Williams -
The quiet Australians
In case you were wondering the quiet Australians
Won’t tell you what they are thinking. Their patriotic
Yowl is stifled by a kind of shame, or fear of shame
That in a plastic-colored world of money, generations
Of growth and privilege do not add up to much.
The quiet Australians want someone to wail for them
To sob about unfairness, suffering, their piece of cake
To blame, to tear down, to strategise retaking what
Was taken from the history their forebears vandalised.
The quiet Australians would stand up to be counted
If they had a leg to stand on. They would go to war
If war did not require a sacrifice they shrink from.
Fears aside, the quiet Australians sometimes speak
When martyrdom can be assured, when whistling
At a pitch that dingoes hear their words give voice
To pain they sincerely feel in the salty cracking
Landscape of their lives. There on the dusty plain
The quiet Australians cultivate contempt for strangers.
Not feeling for them, we pretend the strangers cannot
Feel. We, I say, since I am one of you and know that
Silence can be strength; I know what lengths my hate
Can go to. When we quiet Australians learn to speak
We might have something good to say. But, when?
I don’t know. I’m old. One day, I think. One day.
Stephen J. Williams 
You must be logged in to post a comment.