Freedom From Repression...To A Point

As an immigrant living in the most powerful nation of the world, the United States of America, I can appreciate its political model of republicanism and democracy. My own country of origin, of which I am still a citizen, is the Swiss Confederation also known as Switzerland. It has a long history of granting freedoms to its citizens and served as an inspiration for some of the Founding Fathers in America.

Thus, I have never known the horrors of cruel dictatorships for which I am thankful to Fate as only an agnostic can be.

After being educated in the French culture for 15 years, my views of the world were somewhat naive, that is, I saw nations as black or white. My own country was of course among the pure white, a reference to political freedoms, not race, while others such as the Soviet Union was essentially black after reading the remarkable book called "Escape to Liberty" by a Russian dissident whose name I have long ago forgotten.

Of course, 50 years later, my first innocent opinions have transformed into a much more nuanced perception of the world. Injustice, extreme injustice, is found in all nations, even in these so-called western democracies which claim to offer strong personal rights. So liberty has become a relative concept depending on various factors such the color of your skin, your religion, and the amount of money in your bank account.

That said, there are some countries in which I would never want to live because of the extreme persecution of the freedom of expression and/or because of the state of war, declared or not.They are:

1. North Korea (Self-explanatory)
2. Saudi Arabia (Dictatorship and persecution of women)
3. Iraq (Chaos)
4. Iran (One of the countries with a supreme leader, meaning watch your back)
5. Afghanistan (Obvious)
6. Syria (Obvious)
7. Nigeria (including several African countries where violence and corruption rule)
8. Bangladesh (poverty and violence)
9. Pakistan (Extremists make it dangerous to everybody but especially white foreigners)
10. Egypt (Tourism has almost disappeared due to the killing of Europeans)

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