The lessons of the past should not be so easily forgotten, particularly when that history involves the unprecedented and systematic slaughter of civilians. Recent travels over Germany and Russia, and the threat of authoritarian creep in countries such as the United States, provide a devastating reminder of what can happen if tyranny is allowed to prevail. 

Three hours into a flight from Amsterdam, and 38,000 feet above Russia, hurtling towards South Korea, the plane I am in passes over the “Bloodlands.” This is that part of Germany and the former Soviet Union, made renowned by the American historian Timothy Snyder, where the Nazi and Stalinist regimes starved, shot, and gassed 14 million people over a 12 year period from 1933, in a zone of death stretching from Berlin to Moscow. Most of those who died were not direct participants in World War II but innocent victims of Hitler’s and Stalin’s dictatorships, as diligently chronicled by Snyder.

Throughout the flight, I recall my own post-war studies of the Holocaust and visits to the death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, as well as personal experiences as a journalist covering Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union when Westerners, least of all those from the Fourth Estate – the media – were not given a warm welcome beyond the “iron curtain.”

On this visit to the Asia Pacific I am looking forward to a Sydney meeting with old friends from the AIIA, anticipating a lively discussion about how well the Biden administration will cope with more than a year of double pressure: trying to hold together the Western alliance over Ukraine and other crucial defence issues, while simultaneously running the US government and fighting a no doubt “dirty” election campaign orchestrated by the odious Donald Trump, who now attaches the epithet “crooked” to his every mention of Biden.

By coincidence, the book I am carrying is a more recent Penguin special by Snyder. It is called “On Tyranny and On Ukraine”; the first part, on tyranny, was written towards the end of the Trump presidency, with Snyder clearly apprehensive about the future of American democracy. In what amounts to a manual for those who are determined to fight tyranny, Snyder lists 20 lessons. Here are extracts from three that had resonance for me, and perhaps for other AIIA members who care what is happening in the world.

Preserve existing institutions

Whether they be membership bodies, instruments of government, trade unions, or any organisations that exist to serve people, institutions are fragile. Synder says many would-be autocrats make no secret of their desire to destroy certain institutions, but members of the public should be vigilant and fight to protect them.

It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. But they need our help as well … They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about: a court, a newspaper, a labour union, and take its side… We tend to assume that institutions will automatically maintain themselves against even the most direct attacks.  This was the very mistake that some German Jews made about Hitler and the Nazis after they had formed a government. … The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions, even when that is exactly what they have announced they will do.

Be kind to our language.

Synder calls on us to avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does, but instead to work out our own way of speaking, to make an effort to separate ourselves from the internet and to read books — in order to better understand what is happening around us. He warns that television, by conveying a succession of images, can hinder resolution and understanding. “Everything happens fast but nothing actually happens.… We are hit by wave upon wave but never see the ocean.”

Learn from peers in other countries.

“The fact that most Americans do not have passports has become a problem for American democracy,” according to Snyder, who adds that Americans sometimes say that they do not need travel documents because they prefer to die defending America.

These are fine words but they miss an important point: the fight will be a long one … it first demands sustained attention to the world around us so that we know what we are resisting and how best to do so. … Having a passport is not a sign of surrender; on the contrary, it is liberating since it creates the possibility of new experiences, it allows us to see how other people, sometimes wiser than we, react to similar problems. … We must observe and listen.

Just 46 percent of Americans are passport holders, a surprising fact given that a significant percentage of the population live close to the Canadian border or take annual holidays in the Caribbean. By contrast, in the geographically isolated continent of Australia, 59 percent have passports – and almost certainly a better knowledge of the world than their American counterparts. Travel is an essential part not just of an individual’s education, but of society as a whole.

Unfortunately, international travel is becoming more and more expensive. Even three weeks away can put stress on a family budget; nevertheless, I urge parents, teachers and those involved in helping young people in the difficult transition from study to work to find some way of enabling them to visit some of the most significant countries in our region. These should include Indonesia, South East Asia, India, China and Japan. There is always a temptation among young Australians to research their origins and enjoy the variety of Europe, but that can wait.

I regret that I won’t be able to visit China on this trip; I would have liked to be able to assess the true state of the faltering economy, which is now suffering deflation and slow growth. Three days before I left for Australia, Biden issued an executive order banning Americans from investing in strategic parts of the Chinese economy. We need to carefully assess the impact of this. The move is unlikely to improve relations between Beijing and Washington. There is still talk of war with China; while certainly not inevitable, it must be avoided at all costs.

China may not be democracy’s greatest friend, but if we are to take Timothy Synder’s lessons to heart, then we must contemplate the reality that a return of Trump to the White House is at least as great a threat to the freedoms of the Western world as that posed by China’s current rulers.

Colin Chapman FAIIA is a writer, broadcaster, public speaker, who specialises in geopolitics, international economics, and global media issues. He is a former president of AIIA NSW and was appointed a fellow of the AIIA in 2017. Colin is editor at large with Australian Outlook.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.