Have you ever been to a dictatoship?
If so where and what were you impressions?
As far as I know I've been to 2 so far (Syria and Egypt).
As far as impressions go, I felt surprisingly safe in Syria and the people were friendly. We did some research on crime rates in Syria and they were evidently very low. I also met two people in Lebanon who had been in jail under that particular regime and I can safely say its not hard to understand why crime rates are low given the treatment in prison. On the other hand I felt partly uncomfortable in Egypt and had a few encounters with security were I did not feel particularly safe. I did get detained at the Pyramids for doing something stupid but I was released with a warning which was nice of the guy who detained me who was just doing his job I guess On the other hand I saw two incidents where two people were getting beaten up by security officials there.
These are 2 countries I am not so sure about: Indonesia and Cambodia,
In Cambodia I really sensed peoples fear when talking about politics and the past. I was later told that some of the Khmer Rouge made it into the current day political positions and that people are afraid to say **** about the government for fear of their life. Whether or not that is true I don't know.
I stayed in Indonesia for a month but I don't have a clue as to whether any allegations of totalitarianism are true or not. The allegations seemed area specific at the time.
If so where and what were you impressions?
As far as I know I've been to 2 so far (Syria and Egypt).
As far as impressions go, I felt surprisingly safe in Syria and the people were friendly. We did some research on crime rates in Syria and they were evidently very low. I also met two people in Lebanon who had been in jail under that particular regime and I can safely say its not hard to understand why crime rates are low given the treatment in prison. On the other hand I felt partly uncomfortable in Egypt and had a few encounters with security were I did not feel particularly safe. I did get detained at the Pyramids for doing something stupid but I was released with a warning which was nice of the guy who detained me who was just doing his job I guess On the other hand I saw two incidents where two people were getting beaten up by security officials there.
These are 2 countries I am not so sure about: Indonesia and Cambodia,
In Cambodia I really sensed peoples fear when talking about politics and the past. I was later told that some of the Khmer Rouge made it into the current day political positions and that people are afraid to say **** about the government for fear of their life. Whether or not that is true I don't know.
I stayed in Indonesia for a month but I don't have a clue as to whether any allegations of totalitarianism are true or not. The allegations seemed area specific at the time.
