“There are a lot of questions that come out of the silence. It is so close to the infinite.” Quote by Elia Suleiman
“People in power tend to find poetry dangerous to them because it is dislocating, they can't catch it, can't control it. They prefer coherence, what's blunt and has clarity.” PeopleDangerousClarityBluntCoherence Author:Elia Suleiman
“Living more intensely, more lovingly, with more camaraderie, that is in itself resistance.” ResistanceCamaraderieLiving More Author:Elia Suleiman
“I am more at peace than I've ever known myself to be. My connectedness to the world is more intense. I am more attentive to the humanity around me.” WorldHumanityKnownIntenseConnectedness Author:Elia Suleiman
“Trump doesn't have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment, but banks, intelligence agencies, arms companies, big foreign money, are all united behind Hillary Clinton, and the media as well, media owners and even journalists themselves.” IfsWellsBigsUnitedBehindsCompanyMediaArmsTrumpClintonJournalistAgencyExceptionOwnersEstablishmentIntelligence Agencies Author:Julian Assange
“Libya, more than anyone else's war, was Hillary Clinton's war. Barak Obama initially opposed it. Who was the person championing it? Hillary Clinton.” PersonsWarClintonLibyaBarak Obama Author:Julian Assange
“Libya faces along to the Mediterranean and had been effectively the cork in the bottle of Africa. So all problems, economic problems and civil war in Africa - previously people fleeing those problems didn't end up in Europe because Libya policed the Mediterranean. That was said explicitly at the time, back in early 2011 by Gaddafi: 'What do these Europeans think they're doing, trying to bomb and destroy the Libyan State? There's going to be floods of migrants out of Africa and jihadists into Europe', and this is exactly what happened.” PeopleThinkingTryingSaidWarEndsStatesProblemFacesHappenedEconomicEuropeCivil WarBombsBottlesFloodLibyaMigrantsFleeingEconomic ProblemsCorkGaddafi Author:Julian Assange
“We need a more complex understanding of writers working under authoritarian or repressive regimes. Something to replace this simpleminded, Cold War-ish equation in which the dissident in exile is seen as a bold figure, and those who choose to work with restrictions on their freedom are considered patsies for repressive governments. Let's not forget that most writers in history have lived under nondemocratic regimes: Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Goethe didn't actually enjoy constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of speech.” NeedsWarGovernmentEnjoyUnderstandingForgetRightsFiguresColdSpeechComplexesRegimesFreedom Of SpeechCold WarEquationsExileRestrictionDissidents Author:Pankaj Mishra
“Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.” LiteratureSpeechGuaranteesFreedom Of SpeechGreat Literature Author:Pankaj Mishra
“The recent past is full of diverse examples of writers - Mahfouz in Egypt, Pamuk in Turkey, and more interestingly, Pasternak in the Soviet Union - who have conducted their arguments with their societies and its political arrangements through their art in subtle, oblique ways. They didn't always have the license to make bold pronouncements about freedom, democracy, Islam, and liberalism, but they exerted another kind of moral authority through their work.” WayKindArtPastPoliticalMoralDemocracyExampleAuthorityArgumentUnionsIslamLiberalismSubtleSovietDiverseArrangementsEgyptSoviet UnionLicenseTurkeysMoral AuthorityRecent Past Author:Pankaj Mishra
“The asymmetries of power that have shaped relations between the West and the rest of the world also exist in the realm of literary criticism.” WorldCriticismRelationWestRealmsLiterary CriticismAsymmetry Author:Pankaj Mishra