Congo Quotes

• I can't be calm when I drive through sections of Atlanta that look more like Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, than America.

  Cynthia McKinney

  Atlanta, America, Looks

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• I can't quite remember the exact moment when I became obsessed with writing a play about the seemingly endless war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I knew that I wanted to somehow tell the stories of the Congolese women caught in the cross-fire.

  Lynn Nottage

  War, Writing, Fire

  "Picking Through the Ruins: How Do We Stop The DRC’s War Against Women" by Lynn Nottage, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 28, 2009.

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• The Congo Free State is unique in its kind. It has nothing to hide and no secrets and is not beholden to anyone except its founder.

  Leopold II of Belgium

  Unique, Secret, Kind

  "The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption". Book by Clive Foss, 2006.

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• When I was a boy we didn't wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Boys, Lunch, Wake Up

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• One of the matters that must be addressed is that Rwanda and Uganda have to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We're also supporting processes to ensure that the political dialogue among the Congolese themselves takes place so that the people there can decide their future.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Uganda, People, Political

  Thabo Mbeki (2002). “Africa Define Yourself”

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• I'm glad that it didn't take as long to get Shepard off the ground as it's taken this series. I'd begun to think the Congo would be ahead of us in the space race before Whispering Smith ever got on the air.

  Audie Murphy

  Taken, Thinking, Race

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• I was not very strong growing up, and my uncle used to look at me, like, This kid is not growing up, he is growing tall but he can be broken like a banana.

  Dikembe Mutombo

  Strong, Uncles, Growing Up

  Source: www.gq.com

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• I am black; I am in total fusion with the world, in sympathetic affinity with the earth, losing my id in the heart of the cosmos -- and the white man, however intelligent he may be, is incapable of understanding Louis Armstrong or songs from the Congo. I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth.

  Frantz Fanon

  Song, Heart, Intelligent

  Frantz Fanon (2008). “Black Skin, White Masks”, p.27, Grove Press

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• I cannot forget the place that I come from. The Congo is much in need.

  Dikembe Mutombo

  Needs, Forget

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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.

  Benjamin Netanyahu

  Past, Years, Europe

  Source: piersmorgan.blogs.cnn.com

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• Syria is bad enough, it's a pretty terrible atrocity. But there are much worse ones in the world. So for example, the worst atrocities in the past decade have been in the Congo, the Eastern Congo, where maybe 5 million people have been killed.

  Noam Chomsky

  Past, People, Atrocities

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• The world has done that already - possessed the Congo and pillaged her and dominated her and robbed her of agency and occupation. Love is something else, something rising and contagious and surprising. It isn't aware of itself. It isn't keeping track. It isn't something you sign for. It's endless and generous and enveloping. It's in the drums, in the voices, in the bodies of the wounded made suddenly whole, by the music, by each other, dancing.

  Eve Ensler

  Love, Agency, Voice

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• The reason we do activism is because, maybe you haven't been raped or abused, but there are millions of people who can't say the same, and when you hear their stories you may be a little bit compelled. And it doesn't have to be dark. In the Congo, there are women who've been raped and re-raped, and they're so powerful, and they can carry trees on their heads, and they're dancing!

  Rosario Dawson

  Powerful, Dark, People

  "Rosario Dawson Acts Up". Interview With Elizabeth Gettelman, www.motherjones.com. July/August 2011.

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• We are not held accountable for how the economy ravages Congo. Governments aren't held accountable for foreign policies that they exercise there. There are no institutional structures to render justice. The press is very limited. There's very little transparency. You find a symmetry in certain basic human tendencies, and these tendencies are not always noble or beautiful. I think we have an instinct to turn away from that, to not acknowledge it, while it is something that's a part of us. There's a certain tragic and sad side to human nature that, in our quest for beauty, we ignore.

  Anjan Sundaram

  Beautiful, Exercise, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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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.

  Nicholas D. Kristof

  War, Earthquakes, Suffering

  "Orphaned, Raped and Ignored" by Nicholas Kristof, www.nytimes.com. January 30, 2010.

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• When people accuse us of taking coltan from Congo, I don't understand what they mean. The quality of our own coltan here from Rwanda is much better. But still people from the UN come here, we show them our coltan mines, we show them the documents, then they go and say: Rwanda smuggles coltan.

  Paul Kagame

  Mean, People, Quality

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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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.

  Jeffery Taylor

  Book, Writing, Successful

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• As I searched the atlas for somewhere to run to, Hugh made a case for his old stomping grounds. His first suggestion was Beirut, where he went to nursery school. His family left there in the midsixties and moved to the Congo. After that, it was Ethiopia, and then Somalia, all fine places in his opinion. 'Let's save Africa and the Middle East for when I decide to quit living,' I said.

  David Sedaris

  Running, School, Middle East

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• When I travel around the globe, I try as hard as I can to represent the NBA and the game of basketball to the best of my abilities. I get to go around the world and not only share the game but also my philanthropic work. Building a hospital in the Congo is one of the proudest achievements of my life.

  Dikembe Mutombo

  Basketball, Nba, Games

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• Nothing is going to change in congo until you and i figure out what is wrong with the person inside the mirror

  Donald Miller

  Mirrors, Figures, Persons

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• Congo is one of the least-developed countries in the world, and has millions of acres of virtually untouched forest.

  Anderson Cooper

  Country, World, Acres

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• I live with that contradiction daily. It is a constant struggle. I struggle very deeply. I don't think I've said this to anyone, but I've wondered if I just want to give up this world and live in the Congo and just be there. But I don't think that's what they need from me.

  Eve Ensler

  Giving Up, Struggle, Thinking

  "The Big Idea: Eve Ensler". Interview with Suzanne Koven, therumpus.net. June 12, 2013.

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• I feel very passionate that we need CAT scanners in every country in the world. There's not a CAT scanner in all of eastern Congo. People don't use the word "cancer" because they don't get diagnosed. They just die.

  Eve Ensler

  Country, Cancer, Cat

  "The Big Idea: Eve Ensler". Interview with Suzanne Koven, therumpus.net. June 12, 2013.

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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.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  West Indies, Talking, Years

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• In abstract mathematics or abstract art, the purpose is to describe inner states of our mind, and to explore the limits of our own imagination and our capacity for creativity. While this has some applications in the world, I think it leads to a distance from the world. Going to Congo was for me an act of seeking proximity, of breaking that distance. With abstraction, which is brilliant and vain, you divorce yourself from any kind of proximity to other people.

  Anjan Sundaram

  Art, Distance, Creativity

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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