Laughing at power - André DeBattista
Oriana Fallaci is one of the most remarkable journalists of the 20th century. A selection of her interviews with the great and good (or, in many cases, the not-so-good) was published in the book Interviews with History and Conversations with Power. These interviews make for an interesting read. Her style is abrasive, irreverent and forward. She rarely comments on her subjects, thus allowing their words to speak for themselves – often clumsily and inarticulately. These “conversations with power” enlighten us on exercising absolute or autocratic power. In the age of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, these observations are pertinent. However, we can extend her comments to other forms of power closer to home – including that exercised by democratically elected leaders. Firstly, she identifies the element of fear: “All despotic regimes sustain themselves through fear. The fear of being spied on, reported, threatened, arrested, kidnapped, tortured, or punished in one way or another. The fear of being guillotined, hanged, decapitated, shot, stoned. This fear is fed by soldiers, police, guardians of power: in short, anyone who wears a uniform and carries a pistol, a rifle, and a...