Timothy Garton Ash
Timothy Garton Ash
Timothy Garton Ash CMG FRSAis a British historian, author and commentator. He is Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Much of his work has been concerned with the late modern and contemporary history of Central and Eastern Europe...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth12 July 1955
abandon british-author community liberal pursuit refine
What we in the community of established liberal democracies should do is not abandon the pursuit of democratisation but refine it.
british-author forget known leave meeting officially six
I will never forget meeting Suu Kyi in Rangoon - now officially known as Yangon - some six years ago, when she was still able to leave her house.
british-author budget canada european lots net poorer taking time
Canada is rich, so would be a much-needed net contributor to the European budget at a time when the EU has been taking in lots of poorer states.
wmd nuclear-proliferation danger
Nuclear proliferation - the proliferation of WMDs altogether - is one of the greatest dangers of our time.
blessed communication fighting
That said, the question remains: how to strike the balance between free speech and mutual respect in this mixed-up world, both blessed and cursed with instant communication? We should not fight fire with fire, threats with threats.
wall fall doors
As one looks back, one sees that the fall of the Berlin Wall opened the door to three developments - the Eurozone, which was crafted around German unification, the free movement of peoples within Europe, particularly people from the new democracies of Eastern Europe, and, more broadly, it opened the door to globalization.
mistress lines cabinets
The trouble is that privacy is at once essential to, and in tension with, both freedom and security. A cabinet minister who keeps his mistress in satin sheets at the French taxpayer's expense cannot justly object when the press exposes his misuse of public funds. Our freedom to scrutinise the conduct of public figures trumps that minister's claim to privacy. The question is: where and how do we draw the line between a genuine public interest and that which is merely what interests the public?
weakness criminals reactions
I have also been saddened, though hardly surprised, by the weakness of the EU's reaction to the criminal attack on the Danish embassy in Syria, which seems to have been permitted, if not actively encouraged, by the Syrian regime.
keys survival liberty
The key to the survival of liberty in the modern world is the embrace of multiple identities.
gone economy eurozone
The Eurozone has clearly gone spectacularly wrong, pulling down all the continental economies.
europe democracy way
Well, that's the way democracy works. We have to build this Europe with the material we have at our disposal. And this material is national democracy.
europe problem
Europe's biggest problem is its success.
united-states common obsession
Yet another thing Canadians and Europeans have in common is an obsession with the United States, and with distinguishing themselves from it, often by crude stereotyping.
unions trouble projects
The whole project of European Union is one in deep trouble.