Southeast Asian fall? Democracy receding in Philippines, Cambodia

The facade of democracy, shabby though it was, did provide some protection for civil and human rights in Cambodia.

Some 700,000 Rohingyas were driven across the border into Bangladesh, Buddhist Burmese nationalists cheered the army on—and Aung San Suu Kyi, pictured, the long-standing leader and hero of the democratic movement, did not dare to condemn the crime. The army is basically back in the saddle, writes columnist Gwynne Dyer. Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

August 1, 2018

A quarter-century before the Arab Spring of 2011, there was a democratic spring in Southeast Asia: the Philippines in 1986, Burma in 1988, Thailand in 1992, and Indonesia in 1998. The Arab Spring was largely drowned in blood (Syria, Egypt, Libya), but democracy really ...

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