How To Lose Your Country, with Ece Temelkuran (Part Two)

Intelligence Squared

Arts, News, Society & Culture, News Commentary

4.2 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Temelkuran is a brilliant writer, finding humour, hope and humanity in the darkest corners of our current malaise.’ – BRIAN ENO Ece Temelkuran is the award winning Turkish writer and author who was forced into exile for her critical views of President Erdoğan. She has long signalled the alarm that not only her home country of Türkiye but the whole democratic world is steadily sleepwalking into authoritarianism. Her 2019 book How To Lose A Country was an impassioned warning to the world that populism and nationalism don’t march fully-formed into government; they creep. In October 2025, she came to Intelligences Squared to discuss how we can spot the early-warning signs of authoritarianism, defend democracy and learn the lessons of resistance from Eastern Europe to South America. Temelkuran also offered an alternative path and described how democracy can survive the digital age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:49.3	We had a few people who were used to PCs and this was their first foray into Macs.
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1:08.4	Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet.
1:12.5	I'm producer Mia Serenti.
1:15.0	For this episode, we're rejoining for part two of our recent live event with political thinker and writer Echay Temelkuren.
1:22.1	Tamilkuren joined columnist and podcaster Coco Khan recently at the Kieln Theatre to discuss how the world's democracies are
1:29.1	sleepwalking into authoritarianism and how we might be able to defend democracy and learn the
1:34.7	lessons of resistance from across the globe. If you haven't heard part one, do just jump back an
1:39.3	episode to get up to speed. But now let's rejoin the conversation live at the Kielm Theatre in London.
	...

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