“We had a president, Moi, who was a dictator. He ruled the country with an iron fist, and anyone who dared question his authority was arrested, tortured, jailed or even killed. That meant that people were taught to be smart cowards, stay out of trouble. Being a coward was not an insult. Being a coward was a compliment. We used to be told that a coward goes home to his mother. What that meant: that if you stayed out of trouble you're going to stay alive. I used to question this advice, and eight years ago we had an election in Kenya, and the results were violently disputed. What followed that election was terrible violence, rape, and the killing of over 1,000 people. My work was to document the violence. As a photographer, I took thousands of images, and after two months, the two politicians came together, had a cup of tea, signed a peace agreement, and the country moved on. I was a very disturbed man because I saw the violence firsthand. I saw the killings. I saw the displacement. I met women who had been raped, and it disturbed me, but the country never spoke about it. We pretended. We all became smart cowards. We decided to stay out of trouble and not talk about it.”
The day I stood up alone
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Boniface Mwangi 7
Kenyan photojournalist 1983Related quotes
“There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.”
The Study of the Negro Problems, paragraph 50, in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. XI (January 1898) http://www.webdubois.org/dbStudyofnprob.html
Source: Dusk of Dawn
Reach for Light: The Struggle of Jeffrey Bernard by Paul Robert (Tyrese Quitzon: Edinburgh, 1990) (p. 19)
“The fear of being laughed at makes cowards of us all.”
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified
Source: The Gate to Women's Country (1988), Chapter 34 (p. 302)
“No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere…”
No Coward Soul Is Mine (1846)
Context: No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.
Context: p>No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life — that in me has rest,
As I — undying Life — have power in Thee!Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main...</p