How To Deal With A Dictator

First and formost, before I address the topic of how to deal with a dictator, we need to find out what a dictator really is. A dictator is a person who has gained power to a country by force, and usually oppresses the citizens. By oppressing the citizens, the dictator takes away the peoples rights and is obviously feared, but supreme. Examples of dictators both from the past and currently are Julius Caesar of Ancient Rome and Kim Jong Un from North Korea.

Those two men are different, yet similar in many ways. In one way, Julius Caesar had fickle audience and the Romans practically worshipped him. Caesar was strong in a military area, and so his power grew from the military, to the senate, and on it's way to a dictatorship. Caesar was very arrogant, from that he disregarded laws agreed by the senate and made his own rules. On the other hand, Kim Jong Un had taken leadership from his deceased father, Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Un, a twenty-something year old, had to take over the country of North Korea with its almost-famine and nuclear weapons. Kim Jong Un and Julius Caesar have at least one thing in common: they eliminate people in their way. Literally, as Julius Caesar got rid of Flavius and Marullus for taking down decor, Kim Jong Un would sentence "enemies of the state" to a concentration camp, along with their children and grandchildren.

Now, onto the subject of how to deal with a dictator. Believe it or not, there are several ways to get rid of a dictator. For example: Assassination  rebellion, protests, military force, raising awareness, and economic embargoes and sanctions. The cold truth is that most plans to overthrow a dictator end off sour. If you wanted to assassinate a dictator, the dictators followers might seek vengeance and throw the country into a civil war (Julius Caesar). Rebellions may not work, because in most cases is goes into a full out war where civilians might be killed, and yet protests can grow into riots or rebellions as well which wouldn't end well. Military force, however, is almost always used. When allied countries go against other allied countries, it's almost World War II again. As previously stated, most dictators would get rid of "enemies of the state", so they wouldn't be very happy with people spreading that they were hurting the country, rather than helping it. Economic embargoes and sanctions, however, would actually work. If you took the situation of current North Korea (crazy nuclear threats, almost famine, and young dictator) and took away their resources, where would that leave them? They would be cut off from oil, which they would desperately need. At the end, there is no one way to deal with a dictator, because it always depends on the situation, and the cause and effect.

Making the Invisible Visible: HIV Discrimination

The issue that we are facing is discrimination against victims of HIV/AIDS. Around the world, there is a belief that HIV is an STD only passed around by homosexual men, drug users, and sex workers. But really, that isn't true. This stereotype came about with the beginning of the disease, whose first victims were a part of those shamed communities. Though the stigma is worldwide, there is still a big problem in Malaysia itself. As Malaysia is an islamic country, the majority of the population feels that homosexuality is a sin, so they would especially frown upon people with a  disease marked as "homosexually transmitted". So far, I've seen pretty negligent people, and that surprised me. It goes to the point that people believe only members of the LGBT community receive HIV/AIDS, which is complete and utter foolishness. Some believe that it is a "homosexual problem", such as the prime minister's wife, Rosmah Mansor. Having learned about this (and still learning), this issue makes me feel sympathetic towards the people who have gotten HIV. They never wanted the disease in the first place, and some people didn't even make bad decisions (drugs, unprotected sex, etc.), and contracted it anyways. In the end, what we really can do is raise awareness. It would contribute to the end of the stigma against the victims of HIV/AIDS, which is what we want to do.

Assassinations and What Not

Assassinations, let's face it, have been around for almost since the dawn of time and space. Okay, maybe not that far back, but probably when we became at least a little civilized. I'm talking about post cave man, of course, though no one would be too sure. Obviously, when someone doesn't like someone, they try their best to take them out. A too well known example of this is with politics. I mean, which political party hasn't tried to take their opponent out? Most of them, I'm sure. So when someone you don't like is a leader of thousands or millions or whatever fits the description, you try your best to exterminate them. This thinking leads to that assassinations occur because people (leaders, celebrities, role models, etc.) are seen as threats and so some people want to eliminate them. Honestly, I don't think assassinations are justifiable. Most of them happened a long time ago, and so we wouldn't know which side of the story was right. We always put the person who was assassinated in the right side. Most of the time, it seems right. Like Martin Luther King Jr., for example. He was assassinated for having different ideas than other people, and so he had to be killed. In my opinion, you can't just kill someone for disagreeing with you. I think that people assassinated others because they didn't want ideas opposing their beliefs to spread among the people. In conclusion, I do believe that assassinations are wrong and totally not justifiable.