Belgians Quotes by Philip Gourevitch

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In 1933-34, the Belgians conducted a census in order to issue ‘ethnic’ identity cards, which labelled every Rwandan as either Hutu (85%) of Tutsi (14%) or Twa (1%). The identity cards made it virtually impossible for Hutus to become Tutsis,…

Philip Gourevitch

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“Like Leontius, the young Athenian in Plato, I presume that you are reading this because you desire a closer look, and that you, too, are properly disturbed by your curiosity. Perhaps, in examining this extremity with me, you hope for some understanding, some insight, some flicker of self-knowledge – a moral, or a lesson, or a clue about how to…

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“…the war about the genocide was truly a postmodern war: a battle between those who believed that because the realities we inhabit are constructs of our imaginations, they are all equally true or false, valid or invalid, just or unjust, and those who believed that constructs of reality can—in fact, must—be judged as right or wrong, good or bad. While…

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“As far as the political, military, and economic interests of the world’s powers go, (Rwanda) might as well be Mars. In fact, Mars is…

Philip Gourevitch

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“...great and sustained destruction requires great ambition. It must be conceived as the means toward achieving a new order, and although the idea behind…

Philip Gourevitch

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“An animal will kill, but never to completely annihilate a race, a whole collectively. What does this make us in this world?”

Philip Gourevitch

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“Killing Tutsis was a political tradition in postcolonial Rwanda; it brought people together.”

Philip Gourevitch

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The West's post-Holocaust pledge that genocide would never again be tolerated proved to be hollow, and for all the fine sentiments inspired by the memory of Auschwitz, the problem remains that denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.

Philip Gourevitch

“My definition of a good book is one that you would read for pleasure despite having no prior interest in the subject. The ostensible subject may be whale hunting, or survival in Auschwitz, or waking up as a cockroach—but you don’t read it because you’re into fisheries or Nazis or entomology: you read it because your life was poorer before…

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“Just as a state's police swear to prevent and punish murder, so the signers of the Genocide Convention [in 1948] swore to police a…

Philip Gourevitch

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“When you're that resigned and oppressed you're already dead. It shows the genocide was prepared for too long. I detest this fear. These victims…

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“Colonisation is violence, and there are many ways to carry out that violence. In addition to military and administrative chiefs and a veritable army…

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The people are living seperately together," he said. "So there is responsibility. I cry, you cry. You cry, I cry. We all come running,…

Philip Gourevitch

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