“Nations and peoples are largely the stories they feed themselves. If they tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the future consequences of those lies. If they tell themselves stories that face their own truths, they will free their histories for future flowering.”

Misguided mobs have attacked parliaments before. Such mobs have brought down democracies and introduced dictatorships. When we talk about the Roman civilization today, we mostly remember Caesar and other emperors. These dictators came to power after the world’s first experiment in democracy—the Roman Republic, that protected the common interests of all its male, non-slave citizens—had succumbed to violent masses.