Irish Examiner View: Just as empires come and go, democracy may not last forever

Events in China, Russia, and beyond suggest that we can't take our democratic institutions for granted

Police detain protestors after the imposition of new security laws in Hong Kong. Democracy is being eroded or even crushed in many other countries too, including Russia, Poland, Brazil — and even in the US. Picture: AP/Kin Cheung

In Murphy, Samuel Beckett pointed to a dichotomy of our existence: “The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”