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Congo Quotes

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Congo Quotes

“Contrary to what most politicians and interveners preach, outside experts, national leaders, and top-down approaches are not the only means to reestablishing peace. Bottom-up initiatives can also make a difference, and ordinary people have the capacity to address some of the deeper roots of their country’s problems.”

WarHopeInternational RelationsCongoPeacebuildingInterventionsPeace And Conflict
Book:The Frontlines of Peace: An Insider's Guide to Changing the World
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“He [Stanley] had stated that he longed to do something wonderful for the African tribes along the Congo, and instead, as would become all too apparent, had set them up for a terrible fate. In 1877 he came down the great river as the first European ever to do so, declaring his hope that the Congo should become like `a torch to those who sought to do good'." Instead, it became the torch that attracted the archexploiter King Leopold II of Belgium.”

ExplorationAfricaCongoColonisationHenry Morton Stanley
Book:Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer
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“Stanley must have realized that this postponement would probably be fatal. But while he did not give up, he never for a moment thought of abandoning his African quest [...] Yet Stanley still longed for the security of marriage, and hoped he could find Livingstone and marry Katie. [...] The romantic side of his nature told him that their story ought to end in marriage: the workhouse boy, having distinguished himself beyond all expectations, weds the daughter of the respectable local gentleman, and they live happily ever afterwards in a big house [...] But Katie had never understood his inner conviction of being chosen for a great task.”

HistoryExplorationAfricaCongoHenry Morton Stanley
Book:Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer
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“Even though the Congo is the stage of intense international peacebuilding efforts, and even though it recently experienced a transition from war to “peace and democracy,” it continues to be plagued by the deadliest conflict since World War II. Why did the international intervention fail to help the Congo achieve lasting peace and security?”

WarForeign PolicyCongoPeace And SecurityPeacebuildingPeace And ConflictDrcDeadly ConflictInternational Interventions
Book:The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding
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“Je lui ai dit que je laissais l’écriture à ceux qui chantent la joie de vivre, à ceux qui luttent, rêvent sans cesse à l’extension du domaine de la lutte, à ceux qui fabriquent des cérémonies pour danser la polka, à ceux qui peuvent étonner les dieux, à ceux qui pataugent dans la disgrâce, à ceux qui vont avec assurance vers l’âge d’homme, à ceux qui inventent un rêve utile, à ceux qui chantent le pays sans ombre, à ceux qui vivent en transit dans un coin de la terre, à ceux qui regardent le monde à travers une lucarne, à ceux qui, comme mon défunt père, écoutent du jazz en buvant du vin de palme, à ceux qui savent décrire un été africain. [Verre Cassé]”

WritingAfricaCongo
Author:Alain Mabanckou
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“I created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation back in 1997 for the purpose of going in and improving the living conditions of my people on the African continent, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo where I came from. Our first mission was to go and build a new hospital. Our next mission was to build a school.”

PeopleFirstsSchoolPurposeNextConditionsFoundationDemocraticMissionsHospitalsRepublicContinentsImprovingCongoAfrican ContinentDemocratic RepublicLiving Conditions
Author:Dikembe Mutombo
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“There is a structural difference between the way that Europe views Israel, and America views Israel. The European view is informed by the importance of colonialism in Europe's past. So for Europeans we are like Belgiums in the Congo, or the French in Alger, or the British in India. Strange interlopers in somebody else's land. But in fact, we [Israeli] have been here for 4,000 years. This is our ancestral homeland.”

WayYearsHas BeensFactsAmericaPastDifferencesViewsLandStrangeEuropeIndiaImportanceIsraelBritishColonialismIsraeliHomelandCongo
Author:Benjamin Netanyahu
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“Sometimes I wish eastern Congo could suffer an earthquake or a tsunami, so that it might finally get the attention it needs. The barbaric civil war being waged here is the most lethal conflict since World War II and has claimed at least 30 times as many lives as the Haiti earthquake.”

WorldNeedsWarSometimesMightSufferingWishAttentionConflictWar Of The WorldsCivil WarWorld War IiWorld War IEasternEarthquakesCongoHaitiBarbaricTsunami
Author:Nicholas D. Kristof
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“And yet the world we live in-its divisions and conflicts, its widening gap between rich and poor, its seemingly inexplicable outbursts of violence-is shaped far less by what we celebrate and mythologize than by the painful events we try to forget. Leopold's Congo is but one of those silences of history.”

WorldTryingForgetPoorSilenceRichViolenceEventsConflictPainfulCelebrateDivisionGapsCongoRich And PoorInexplicableOutburst
Book:King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa
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“We [human beings] are two-legged omnivorous animals, and this means that we have many ecological niches, regarding the possible places where we can live. Therefore, we have to adapt to these different environments and we cannot predict, in a generic way, in which type of world we are going to live (cold as the North Pole or hot as Congo).”

WorldWayHumansMeanTwoDifferentHuman BeingsAnimalEnvironmentTypeColdHotNicheCongoEcologicalGenericNorth PoleDifferent Environments
Author:Rodolfo Llinas
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“My last point about getting started as a writer: do something first, good or bad, successful or not, and write it up before approaching an editor. The best introduction to an editor is your own written work, published or not. I traveled across Siberia on my own money before ever approaching an editor; I wrote my first book, Siberian Dawn, without knowing a single editor, with no idea of how to get it published. I had to risk my life on the Congo before selling my first magazine story. If the rebel spirit dwells within you, you won't wait for an invitation, you'll invade and take no hostages.”

IfsWritingFirstsBookIdeasStoriesLastsSpiritWaitingMy OwnKnowingSuccessfulWrittenRiskSellingMagazinesNo IdeaDawnEditorsRebelWithin YouTraveledInvitationsIntroductionCongoHostageGetting StartedSiberia
Author:Jeffery Taylor
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“Helen Rosevere was a British medical missionary in the Congo years ago during an uprising. Her faith was strong and her trust was confident, yet she was raped and assaulted and treated brutally. Commenting later, she said, "I must ask myself a question as if it came directly from the Lord, 'Can you thank Me for trusting you with this experience even if I never tell you why?'" What a profound thought. God has trusted each of us with our own set of unfair circumstances and unexplained experiences to deal with. Can we still trust in Him even if He never tells us why?”

IfsYearsSaidStillsAsksStrongDealsLordCircumstancesYears AgoProfoundBritishMedicalTreatedMissionaryTrustedUnfairCongoUprisingHelenUnexplainedTrusting YouProfound Thoughts
Author:Charles R. Swindoll
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“Had the Holocaust happened in Tahiti or the Congo, as it has; had it happened in South America, as it has; had it happened in the West Indies, as it has - you must remember that within fifty years of Columbus's arrival, only the bones remained of the people called the Arawaks, with one or two of them in Spain as specimens. Had the Holocaust committed under the Nazis happened somewhere else, we wouldn't be talking about it the way we talk about it.”

PeopleWayYearsTwoAmericaRememberTalkingHappenedWestSouthCommittedBonesFiftyHolocaustNaziSpainSomewhere ElseCongoArrivalsColumbusSouth AmericaWest IndiesTahiti
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
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“One of the reasons why I say we all need to work together to save the Congo forest, because if we don't save the Congo forest, the Amazon forest and the southeast Asia forest, if those forests release the carbon they are trapping at the moment, much of what you will be doing in the North will be negated by the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.”

IfsNeedsReasonMomentsTogetherAmountForestsReleaseAtmosphereReason WhyWorking TogetherCarbonAsiaCongoAmazonSoutheast Asia
Author:Wangari Maathai
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“We can learn a great deal from whales. It is the same lesson we can learn from our close genetic relatives, the bonobo apes of the Congo. Here mothers have a great deal of authority, there is very little violence (with no signs of sexual violence against females), and their society is held together by sharing and caring rather than by fear and force.”

LittlesTogetherMotherForceDealsViolenceLessonsAuthorityFemaleCaringApesCongoWhalesBonobosSharing And Caring
Author:Riane Eisler
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“The main mineral in your cellphone, coltan [a black metallic ore], comes from the Eastern Congo. Multinational corporations are there exploiting the very rich mineral resources of the region. A lot of them are backing militias which are fighting one other to gain control of the resources or a piece of the resources.”

FightingBlackRichPiecesGainsResourcesCorporationsRegionsEasternCongoMineralsMilitiaMultinationalsCellphoneMetallicMultinational CorporationsMineral Resources
Author:Noam Chomsky
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