From the Cold War to the War on Terror - a Personal Journey
A personal journey of a Transylvania-born Hungarian from Ceausescu's communist dictatorship to the surreal post-Revolution years and to the totalitarian side-effects of Tony Blair's War on Terror
United Kingdom, November 6, 2014 (Newswire.com) - Recent regime changes in areas ranging from Eastern Europe to the Middle-East had effects and side-effects that are still reverberating not only in the respective societies, but also globally.
Ears by Lehel Vandor is an autobiographical journey through these changes and their aftermaths.
The ramifications of the collapse of totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe are still being felt: corruption, instability, extremism, renewed ethnic tensions... The changes in the Middle-East, facilitated or even induced by the West, have led to very similar processes - especially with the War on Terror experienced by the author in Tony Blair's Britain.
The War on Terror has been having remarkably totalitarian side-effects on British society itself. While its cult of vigilance has deformed into a cult of paranoia reminiscent of Stalinist propaganda, many of its anti-terrorism measures were deemed illegal by the European Court of Human Rights.
The book reveals fundamental patterns and trends that are present in the current socio-political landscapes of both the East and the West. It travels through decades of personal experiences and analyses, starting with a world that Kafka and Orwell had imagined, but Nicolae Ceausescu created, followed by the surreal post-Revolution decades experienced in Romania, and reflecting on the violations of civil liberties in the name of Britain's anti-terrorism measures.
It combines a memoir with the analysis of the social and political processes that reverberate to this day not only in the author's former and current homeland, but are also characteristic of the East and West in general.
(Ears by Lehel Vandor, ISBN-13: 978-1502723413, also available in Kindle, Kobo and Nook ebook formats)