Quotes about congo (29 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“There have also been cases where the United States, while (perhaps) not interfering in the election process, was, however, involved in overthrowing a democratically-elected government, such as in Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, the Congo 1960, Ecuador 1961, Bolivia 1964, Greece 1967, and Fiji 1987.”

William Blum book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

third edition (2006), p. 286
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

“Poor Congo, barefoot bride of men who took her jewels and promised the Kingdom.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Men

“Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

"Alas! Deceived", p. 367 (1993).
Writing Home (1994)

“Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Change , Personality

“Everything Lumumba would have done in the Congo, Castro actually accomplished in Cuba: drumhead justice, mass executions, confiscation of industry, collectivization of the land, suspension of civil rights, suspension of democratic processes, alliances with the Iron Curtain. All these became the trade marks of the Castro regime.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Justice

“Paris Hilton gets more coverage than Congo, Darfur, Palestine, and Nahr Al-Barid combined.”

As'ad AbuKhalil (1960) professor

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2007/06/paris-hilton-gets-more-coverage-than.html

“[On what she learned from working on The L Word] I think that I learned the most clearly was how connected we all are. And that (does air quotation marks) "gay issues" are also women's issues because homophobia is a form of misogyny…And I feel much more motivated to speak out when I see something that I don't like or that just smells wrong…I see how all women are connected. You know, and that we are all either repressed or we repress ourselves in certain ways, and that's truly codified within the culture. And that I'm not so far removed from that woman in the Congo who's terrified to go out into the woods to look for firewood.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

New York Times Talks Panel (20 April 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeZgJ3EJrbE.

Women , Way , Feeling , Motivation

“Here is a list of the countries that America has been at war with - and bombed - since the second world war: China (1945-46, 1950-53), Korea (1950-53), Guatemala (1954, 1967-69), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-60), the Belgian Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-70), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980s), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998), Yugoslavia (1999). And now Afghanistan.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Articles

War , World , Country

“Yes, all Africa remembers that it was Litvinov who stood alone beside Haile Selassie in Geneva, when Mussolini's sons flew with the blessings of the Pope to drop bombs on Ethiopian women and children. Africa remembers that it was the Soviet Union which fought the attempts of the Smuts to annex Southwest Africa to the slave reservation of the Union of South Africa… if the peoples of the Congo refuse to mine the uranium for the atom bombs made in Jim Crow factories in the United States; if all these peoples demand an end to floggings, an end to the farce of 'trusteeship' in the former Italian colonies…. The Soviet Union is the friend of the African and the West Indian peoples.”

Paul Robeson (1898–1976) American singer and actor

Source: Paul Robeson Speaks (1978), p. 238

Women , Children , People

“It'd be like a bunch of rivers, the Amazon and the Mississippi and the Congo asking how the Atlantic Ocean might affect them… and the answer is, of course, that they won't be rivers anymore, just currents in the ocean.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

His stated response to representatives of the music, publishing and broadcasting industries who had asked Douglas at a conference how he thought technological changes will affect them, apparently hoping his response would be something to the effect of, "not very much"
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future (2001)

“When South Africa was governed by a racist white minority, it was scorned by the West and treated as Saddam Hussein was, with boycotts and sanctions. Now that a racist, black-majority government controls the country; that it is as violent as Iraq, Liberia, or the Congo and rapidly becoming another Islamist-friendly, failed African state, it is the toast of the West.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa
2010s, <u>Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa</u> (2011)

Country

“There is a reason why you only see those adventurous types marching off into crocodile infested waters and uncharted jungles up the Congo. Marching into somewhere like Newcastle city centre on a Saturday night is too damn wild, that’s why. I became overwhelmed with a desire to go to Sunderland. And it’s not very often you hear someone say that.”

David Baboulene (1960) UK author

Jumping Ships (2009)

Water , Night

“I bongo with my Lingo,
Beat it like a wing yo
From Congo to Columbo,
Can't sterotype my thing yo”

M.I.A. (1975) British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director

Sunshowers
Lyrics, Arular (2005)

“The very existence of the Nation was threatened. Threatened on all sides, from the interior and exterior.
From the interior, by the sterile conflicts of politicians who sacrificed the country and their compatriots to their own interests.
Nothing counted for them but power…and what the exercise of power could bring them. Fill their own pockets, exploit the Congo and the Congolese, this was their trademark.
Given such examples, both national and provincial administrations were mired in inertia, inefficiency, and worse yet, corruption.
At all levels, many of those in our country who held a morsel of public power allowed themselves to be corrupted, served individuals and companies who paid bribes and neglected the others…
…certain politicians, to maintain themselves in power or to regain it, did not hesitate to seek help from foreign powers…
…the social, economic and financial situation of the country is catastrophic.”

Mobutu Sésé Seko (1930–1997) President of Zaïre

Mobutu explaining the reasons behind his November 1965 coup. Young and Turner, p. 42

Exercises , Help , Country

“People in eastern Congo are massacred to facilitate smart phone upgrades of ever diminishing marginal utility. Forests are felled to make “personalised heart-shaped wooden cheese board sets”. Rivers are poisoned to manufacture talking fish. This is pathological consumption: a world-consuming epidemic of collective madness, rendered so normal by advertising and the media that we scarcely notice what has happened to us.”

George Monbiot (1963) English writer and political activist

"The Gift of Death" http://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/, The Guardian, 11 December 2012.

People , World , Fish , Heart

“My happiness is my business. I can see finality for myself, an end, an absolute end; but none for my business. There one has room to breathe, to grow, to expand, and the possibilities are boundless. One can go to places like the Congo, and organize, organize, organize, well, very big things indeed. But I don’t work at business only for the sake of money. I am not a lover of money as money and never have been. I work at business because business is life. It enables me to do things.”

William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925) English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician

William Lever, quoted in C. Wilson, The History of Unilever, London: Cassell, 1954, vol. 1, p. 187; Requoted in Witzel (2004: 166)

Life , Money , Lovers , Business

“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 (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Clive Foss, The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption, London: Quercus Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1905204965

Secret

“"Air! Air!" croaked Kralefsky, "Give me air!"
"Interesting," said Colonel Ribbindane. "Saw a pygmy like that once in the Congo… been trapped in an elephant’s stomach. The elephant is the largest African quadruped.."
"Do get him out," said Mother agitatedly. "Get some brandy."
"Fan him! Blow on him!" shrilled Margo, and burst into tears. "He’s dying, he’s dying, and he never finished his trick."”

Gerald Durrell book Fauna and Family

On a magic trick shown by family friends
The Garden of the Gods (1978)

Tear

“The thing about the Star Wars expanded universe that most impresses me is how the need for endless sequels has taken what was way back in the late Disco a fairly upbeat series where the good guys eventually prevailed and turned into a crapsack setting that's grimmer than the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Congo Wars I & II and the Mongol Conquests combined.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

Bujold list message http://lists.herald.co.uk/pipermail/lois-bujold/2011-February/070018.html (2011)
2010s

War , Way , Guy , Star

“You don't need to do nation building in Israel, we're already built. You don't need to export democracy to Israel, we've already got it. You don't need to send American troops to Israel, we defend ourselves… Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East, Israel is what is right about the Middle East… The tyranny in Tehran brutalizes its own people. It supports attacks against American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It subjugates Lebanon and Gaza. It sponsors terror worldwide… A nuclear-armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It would give terrorists a nuclear umbrella. It would make the nightmare of nuclear terrorism a clear and present danger throughout the world. I want you to understand what this means. They could put the bomb anywhere. They could put it on a missile. It could be on a container ship in a port, or in a suitcase on a subway… Now the threat to my country cannot be overstated. Those who dismiss it are sticking their heads in the sand. Less than seven decades after six million Jews were murdered, Iran's leaders deny the Holocaust of the Jewish people, while calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state. Leaders who spew such venom, should be banned from every respectable forum on the planet. But there is something that makes the outrage even greater: The lack of outrage. In much of the international community, the calls for our destruction are met with utter silence. It is even worse because there are many who rush to condemn Israel for defending itself against Iran's terror proxies… When we say never again, we mean never again! Israel always reserves the right to defend itself… In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo. This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace… No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land… Peace cannot be imposed. It must be negotiated. But it can only be negotiated with partners committed to peace.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

Address to joint meeting of the U.S. Congress http://www.c-span.org/video/?299666-1/israeli-prime-minister-netanyahu-address-joint-meeting-congress (24 May 2011).
2010s, 2011, Address to joint meeting of the U.S. Congress (May 2011)

God , People , World , Peace

“It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Daily Telegraph 10 January 2002
2000s, 2002

Love , Smile , Home , Imagination

“In short, once the RPF controlled the Rwandan state, it immediately turned its prodigious killing machine towards Zaire’s natural resources. This it may have done under cover of chasing the Hutu genocidaires, but the pillage of Zaire-the DRC worked out so well for the RPF that by the late 1990s it had “built up a self-financing war economy centered on mineral exploitation,” in the words of the UN Panel, with the pillage of resources so complete that it not only finances the RPF’s aggression, but generates annual surpluses back in Kigali as well. As the historian René Lemarchand sums up this system of blood and money: “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that by turning a blind eye to the profits drawn from the looting of the Congo’s wealth, the international community... is tacitly encouraging a colonial enterprise in the best tradition of European imperialism.””

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Of course, what is true of the “international community,” is true of academics as well.
Peterson and Herman, “Adam Jones on Rwanda and Genocide: A Reply” https://mronline.org/2010/08/14/adam-jones-on-rwanda-and-genocide-a-reply/, MR Online, August 14, 2010.
2010s

Money , War , Communication , Nature

“In this administration also it has been necessary at times to issue specific warnings — warnings that we could not stand by and watch the Communists conquer Laos by force, or intervene in the Congo, or swallow West Berlin, or maintain offensive missiles on Cuba. But while our goals were at least temporarily obtained in these and other instances, our successful defense of freedom was due not to the words we used, but to the strength we stood ready to use on behalf of the principles we stand ready to defend. This strength is composed of many different elements, ranging from the most massive deterrents to the most subtle influences. And all types of strength are needed — no one kind could do the job alone.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas

Freedom , Time , Success

“When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there. When the first slaver put out for the Congo, I stood on her deck. Am I not in your books and stories and beliefs, from the first settlements on?”

Stephen Vincent Benét book The Devil and Daniel Webster

Mr. Scratch
Source: The Devil and Daniel Webster (1937)
Context: When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there. When the first slaver put out for the Congo, I stood on her deck. Am I not in your books and stories and beliefs, from the first settlements on? Am I not spoken of, still, in every church in New England? 'Tis true the North claims me for a Southerner and the South for a Northerner, but I am neither. I am merely an honest American like yourself — and of the best descent — for, to tell the truth, Mr. Webster, though I don't like to boast of it, my name is older in this country than yours.

Books

“I am black: I am the incarnation of a complete fusion with the world, an intuitive understanding of the earth, an abandonment of my ego in the heart of the cosmos, and no white man, no matter how intelligent he may be, can ever understand Louis Armstrong and the music of the Congo. If I am black, it is not the result of a curse, but it is because, having offered my skin, I have been anle to absorb all the cosmic efflucia.”

Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks

I am truly a ray of sunlight under the earth...
Source: Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Ch. 2

Understanding , Intelligence , Heart , Music

“You can find it on almost any tree. As we made our way through the forest, it was literally raining rubber juice. Our clothes were full of it. The Congo has so many tributaries that a well-organized company can easily extract a few tons of rubber per year here. You only have to sail up such a river and the branches with rubber hang almost up to your ship.”

Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) Welsh journalist and explorer

Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 https://klara.be/leopold-ii-aflevering-8-0 ISBN 9789463962094 Stanley Points out to King Leopold II Of Belgium that the Congo free State which was a loss-making endeavor at that time that rubber extraction has a possibility to make the colony profitable.

Way , Clothes , Tree , Relation ships

“I will give them my Congo, but they have no right to know what i did there.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Quotes related to Congo
Source: King Leopold's Ghost https://vimeo.com/ondemand/kingleopoldsghost King Leopold Ii in Letter to aid, 1908.

“Hopefully they won't mess up my Congo!”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Quotes related to the Congo Free State
Source: Mémoires du Congo - Shame or Pride https://www.memoiresducongo.be/nl/schaamte-of-fierheid/

“Our country, our nation is built by two institutions, the state and the language. A language whose epicenter today is no longer on these banks of the Seine, but probably much more towards the Congo River basin.”

Emmanuel Macron (1977) 25th President of the French Republic

Macron lashes out at Zemmour: “Our identity is not built on narrow-mindedness" https://palnws.be/2021/09/macron-haalt-uit-naar-zemmour-onze-identiteit-is-niet-gebouwd-op-bekrompenheid/
2017, 2021

Country