Photo Essay

To be viewed here.

Gandhi, and his claim to fame.

England was in rule of India up until Mahatma Gandhi stepped in to the situation. The Indian people living in the country were extremely controlled, and weren't even allowed to walk the street with an Englishman. Gandhi realised exactly what was going on, on a trip to South Africa, when he was kicked off of a train for riding first class. Up until Gandhi started to bring the citizens of India to reality, they had just thought that this is the way it goes.

Gandhi's first attempts were small, but powerful. His first attempt were actually within South Africa, where he urged the citizens of colour to burn their passports, and was beaten for doing these things. With just this first attempt, he opened the eyes of hundreds to the real horror that these people were living in.

He went on to continue these efforts within his own country. Holding protests of thousands, and inspiring many like them all around India. He would share his words of wisdom, and empowerment, and tell the people of India to be non-compliant of the English ways. He would speak to everyone, telling them to push on in their efforts, and have them envision a free India.

Gandhi was imprisoned over and over again on his path to freedom, but achieved his goal before he was assassinated. He was, and still is, held high by the Indian people and many others around the world. He even gave me my favourite quote of all "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

Another note.

Looking at this so far... I'm already WAY over the 1200 word count. Too much is to be said about these people to try and contain or dull down the amount that is spewing out of me, so sorry sir but you have to deal with it. I'll try my best to keep the other ones to a minimum to prevent you from having to read so much.

Dictatorship #3

The last person, and country, I will rant about is Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan.

Once again one of those "One man, one vote, one time." guys. Nursultan took office in 1991 when Kazakhstan won independence from the Soviet Union. He has remained there ever since. Given the state they had departed from, it can't possibly come as a surprise that this country is dealing with a dictatorship.

Nursultan's last election in 2011, was actually won with a total of 95.54% of the votes. Do these people actually think I will believe this? I can't even fathom how his own citizens can believe these numbers. These people apparently use a technique called "directed democracy" in which they will either discredit or disqualify other parties against them by lying or making up some bogus law. The people then become scared and end up just voting for the same guy as before, mainly because they don't know any better.

Anyways, Nursultan was born in Chemolgan, a small town in former Soviet Union, into a very poor family. By 1962 he joined, and became a prominent member of, the "Young Communist League". He quickly moved up in ranks and by 1972 he became the secretary of the Communist party of some big shot league that is too long to try and read or pronounce.

His name became known through a LOT of controversy within seats of the Communist party, and he simply kept his sights set on the big picture. Everything that happened leading to his power lead to three days of riots known as the Jeltoqsan. Over all things weren't very pretty on this guys way up to the throne. On the 24, April 1990, Nursultan was elected the first ever president of Kazakhstan, winning 91.5% of the votes. Could that have been because nobody ran against him? Actually it was. He has remained in the same position ever since, and is still running the country today.

Kazakhstan has been accused of breaking quite a few human rights, mostly by the US but by other countries too. The list given by the US Department of State include some things like "severe limits on citizens' rights to change their government; an incident of unlawful deprivation of life; military hazing that led to deaths; detainee and prisoner abuse; unhealthy prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention, particularly of government opponents; lack of independent judiciary increased restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and association" and a few others. To boot, this is a huge list of infractions.

Pretty much what this tells me is, citizens of Kazakhstan are almost forced into voting for Nursultan. If any person, especially another form of government, tries to rise above him he throws them in jail and tortures them for doing wrong in "the eyes of the country". These prisoners are beaten within inches of their lives, starved, and if you can think of worse, I'm sure that happens too.

Another thing I can gather is that people are forced into the military, and most likely trained to think in new ways. If they don't pick up on these customs, they're tortured until they catch on. They're is practice of "hazing" mentioned witch if you don't know what it is, it's when they make you go through intense training to join them.

Nobody is allowed to speak their free mind, nor are they free to even try and publish any of the things they find unjust. The people that try are thrown in jail and tortured as well.

So, Kazakhstan... not a nice place. Just on the single link to the US Department of State, there is about 2 hours of reading on what has happened to citizens and political people that have tried to overthrow their leader. The scary thing is, two of the three leaders mentioned are almost exactly the same. They rose to power by separating from a former country and have remained in power ever since. I wonder what Quebec is up to...

Dictatorship #2

My second choice in dictators, is Isaias Aferwerki of Eritrea.

First glance, and he doesn't seem so bad. Dig a little deeper and you see that his supporters have an extremely distorted view on what he actually does. It is stated by many people that he is "the worlds worst dictator" and it seems to me so far that he deserves that title.

WAIT! HORRIBLE NEWS!!!

He is terminally ill with cancer, and will die within the next two years.

Oh, wait thats supposed to be good news... his people don't like to think so though.

One of the first things I came upon about this man, is that he was rumoured to be dead, and then this theory was disproven less than a week later by an interview with him that stated he has cancer. On the comments for this video are many of his citizens saying how it is a tragedy that he will die, that he is such a great leader, or that "he is all holy" and "we all love him". Apparently he has brain washed these people into thinking all of this because it is hardly believable that he can be a great man with a title like "the worlds worst dictator".

Isaias, is a self elected, and first, president of a small African country by the name of Eritrea. His rise to power could coin the phrase "One man, one vote, one time.". This country boarders Sudan, and Ethiopia in the north-eastern part of Africa, and is by default a very poor country. He is, unfortunately, commonly compared to two very famous dictators, Adolf Hitler, and Suddam Hussein, though I feel he deserves his own category for what he has achieved in his people.

He seems to me, to live a double life. He tortures people, kills just for fun, and imprisons people in the blink of an eye. Yet he walks the streets at nights with no guard, no fear of being attacked by anybody, or even a care in the world. In fact he is regularly seen at night clubs just drinking and having fun.

Annual festivals are held in his name in which, if you attended, you would think that you are the only soul alive that hates this man, but research him and you will find that this man has a very dark history. Not much is known about him before his rise to power, as he doesn't really talk about it,  but what I have gathered is that his mother was a beer maker in a company where the women were commonly prostitutes. His father then, of course, is unknown. (This information was found here, and is contrary to what wikipedia says.)

Nobody knows if he has ever attended school, but some rumours say that he attended college up to his sophomore year. If that is true, he definitely doesn't like to push education on his people. In fact he sort of does the opposite and demotes attending schools. He closed the only University in the country and drags students into military schools (Wait, did I say schools? I meant camps) to learn.  This is of course to prevent them from learning the "wrong things". He even goes as far as to say that his experiences in life have "taught him things Isaac Newton didn't know".

According to the "Press Freedom Index" the country of Eritrea has taken the crown for "least freedom of press" for five, thats FIVE, consecutive years now, closely followed by North Korea. I mean for someone to be worse off than the country that believes that they are to be in constant fear of the US government, is pretty bad. In fact when Eritrean press started to call out "Dictatorship" he simply kicked them out of the country. He can actually be quoted saying "What is free press? There is no free press anywhere." and "It is up to us what, why, where, and when we do things." These people pretty much live under a rock, and are dragged along by some guy that teaches them that he is the greatest man alive.

On top of all of this, this man has taken it upon himself to give people in his country actual government jobs. At least he did one thing right. Oh, did I forget to mention the part where he pays them only $45 dollars a month? THATS SOME BIG BUCKS!

Okay so people in his country actually had some decent paying jobs, but not for long. Isaias decided that it would be better for them to work for the government instead. If he picks someone out and they decide they would rather keep their current job, he just throws them in jail without trial. Seems pretty fair right?

I find it pretty interesting how much this country has in common with the book "1984" and the whole "Big Brother" concept. Being kept in the dark with reduced by the day education, lied to by the press (if there even is any), lead to believe that their leader is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and made to do things only because "thats how life is". I really do wonder sometimes if that really is the direction that we're all headed in now.

So yeah this is a lot to read, but I can go on for days about this guy and still have more to say. All in all, not a nice guy, and definitely not a country I would enjoy living in.

Side note.

For questions 1 and 2, whatever I put up will be real time reactions, and analyses. As I read/watch on these people I will comment on how I feel at a first glance, and then sum it up at the end of what I have learned, or how I feel toward these people and places.

Current totalitarian country leader #1

My first pick, and someone that really stood out to me, was Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan.


Now, just reading for five minutes, and I already don't fancy what this guy does. He came to presidency in early 1991, with 85% of the votes, and like many other communist leaders was instantly accused of falsifying the ballots. There is no doubt in my mind, that the accusations are true and that these elections will continue to be "counted" the same way until this guy is dead.
He, to this day, complicates the registration process for other running parties when elections come around making it nearly impossible to even try to overthrow him through a fair election (that is to say if he didn't fake the results anyways).He was pushed, make that supported, into presidency by another communist leader Shukrullo Mirsaidov, among some other communist superpowers around the world.


This man has tossed over 65,000 (number taken from here) political "prisoners" into jail, and says that any single soul that tries to oppose him is an "Islamic terrorist". When these people get to the jail he tortures him, and has even boiled two people alive.


On May 13 2005, this mans troops killed hundreds of people that were peacefully protesting his presidency. This happened in Andijan, Uzbekistan, in what is known as the Andijan massacre. The official "government count" of the dead were 187, but it is rumoured that the numbers got into hundreds more. The Uzebek government stated that this protest was in the name of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic movement of Uzbekistan. 


Unfortunately, when President Bush was in power, Uzbekistan and the United States were in close relations, and Bush even went as far as to have troops stationed there. When the US government tried to issue an internal investigation of the matters in Andijan, Karimov decided it would be best to cut some ties with the US and side 
more with Asian governments.


This man has been in power for 20 years, and has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of peaceful citizens, the torture of many more, crazy amounts of slander, and undeniable falsifications of ballots within his country. All these people are trying to do is have a democratic system installed within their country.