Figures like Maduro, who is being vilified now by Western propaganda.
@Cowbee has a great reading list here that goes over many of these. Any anti-imperialist historical account is going to give you a better view
Here’s a few documentaries about different leaders:
- Fidel - The untold story (Cuban Revolution)
- Malcolm X - Make it Plain
- The Upright Man (Thomas Sankara)
- Grenada - Future coming Towards Us
- Paul Robeson - Here I Stand
- Lenin - old British Documentary
- The Murder of Fred Hampton
- The Revolution will not be televised (Chavez and Venezuela)
- A place called Chiapas (EZLN)
- Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul (서울의 평양 시민들)
- The Haircut - A North Korean Adventure
And I keep a study guide here.
FYI it seems about half of these have been taken down
Got memory-holed by google, not much we can do about that (apologies for the orwellism)
Note to others. The quality of the links isn’t great. And there seems to be an authoritarian communist et al. bias. Cross-reference stuff, and consider biases.
Well they did want a different light
I’m not arguing against that, just drawing attention to what kind of ‘light’ they are given. It’s not like there are only two perspectives.
You are on a site maintained and developed by communists, so there are a lot of us here. We all have biases, of course, and I’d argue that presenting an anti-western, pro-communist bias on some of the most unjustly demonized figures in the world both today and historically is exactly what OP asked for.
As for the bit on “authoritarianism,” communists support the use of the state in protecting socialism and uplifting the well-being of the vast majority of society. This is often framed as “authoritarian” by western countries, stripping property owners of their spoils and focusing on collectivized production and distribition, but we communists would argue that this creates a freer society overall.
Marx was called an “authoritarian” in his time as well, yet his work has helped lead to the liberation of billions of people. The communists who gave their blood, sweat, and tears to gain the power to feed, house, and clothe the people are the ones actually fighting for freedom, even if the west calls them authoritarian.
If you mean political leaders targeted by imperialist propaganda, most of them have written books or other writings that you can read and get accounts from their own mouth. Mao probably fits your bill (vilified by Western media) and his writing is very accessible and easy to read (he wrote largely for illiterate peasants) so that might be something to interest you.
“They say the man with a stick and nothing to lose can win the day…”
Honestly? Bisan, Obeida and Leo are my heroes.
Well he’s vilified by western far right media, if that counts here.
The premise of the question is flawed. It sounds like you’re just looking for confirmation bias rather than anything objective or substantive.
The very idea of “Western media” is nonsense. The western world is so vast that it spans dozens of different countries with different languages, cultures, histories, and people. Each country is incredibly diverse in of itself, and as in with every non authoritarian society, the media reflects this. You’ll find media outlets that cover just about every single perspective imaginable. So the fact that you think that you overgeneralize all these perspectives, medias, cultures, and societies into a meaningless label like that shows that you have a very myopic worldview in general.
If you want to actually learn something rather than affirm what you already believe, then just read sources critically regardless of where they come from.
Had to be from lemmy world.
The funny part here is that you might actually lack the self awareness to understand that you’re proven my point. I simply pointed out that yiu have a faulty premise and that you’re seeking confirmation bias. Instead of defending the merits of your questions or accepting my critique, your knee jerk reaction is to point out that I’m not a part of the echo chamber. Insulating yourself in a bubble doesn’t make you knowledgeable, it makes you ignorant.
