--- title: "1 Civil Wars Quotes By Philip Gourevitch" description: "1 Civil Wars quotes by Philip Gourevitch. Plus more from Philip Gourevitch and more Civil Wars sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/301/philip-gourevitch-17484_books_when-i-first-went-to-rwanda-i-was-readin_2476875.jpg" --- > [“When I first went to Rwanda, I was reading a book called Civil War, which had been receiving great critical acclaim. Writing from an immediate post-Cold War perspective, the author, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, a German, observed, “The most obvious sign…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/when-i-first-went-to-rwanda-i-was-reading-a-book-called-civil-war/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/301/philip-gourevitch-17484_books_when-i-first-went-to-rwanda-i-was-readin_2476875.jpg) ## More by Philip Gourevitch > [“Like Leontius, the young Athenian in Plato, I presume that you are reading this because you desire a closer look, and that you, too,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/like-leontius-the-young-athenian-in-plato-i-presume-that-you-are/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [“…the war about the genocide was truly a postmodern war: a battle between those who believed that because the realities we inhabit are constructs…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/the-war-about-the-genocide-was-truly-a-postmodern-war-a-battle/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [“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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/as-far-as-the-political-military-and-economic-interests-of-the-world/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [“...great and sustained destruction requires great ambition. It must be conceived as the means toward achieving a new order, and although the idea behind…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/great-and-sustained-destruction-requires-great-ambition-it-must-be/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [“An animal will kill, but never to completely annihilate a race, a whole collectively. What does this make us in this world?”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/an-animal-will-kill-but-never-to-completely-annihilate-a-race-a-whole/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [“Killing Tutsis was a political tradition in postcolonial Rwanda; it brought people together.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/killing-tutsis-was-a-political-tradition-in-postcolonial-rwanda-it/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/the-west-s-post-holocaust-pledge-that-genocide-would-never-again-be/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/my-definition-of-a-good-book-is-one-that-you-would-read-for-pleasure/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [ “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… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/just-as-a-state-s-police-swear-to-prevent-and-punish-murder-so-the/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [“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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/when-you-re-that-resigned-and-oppressed-you-re-already-dead-it-shows/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [“Colonisation is violence, and there are many ways to carry out that violence. In addition to military and administrative chiefs and a veritable army…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/colonisation-is-violence-and-there-are-many-ways-to-carry-out-that/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [The people are living seperately together," he said. "So there is responsibility. I cry, you cry. You cry, I cry. We all come running,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/the-people-are-living-seperately-together-he-said-so-there-is/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [Political corruption is to Rhode Islanders as smog is to people who live in Los Angeles: nobody complains of its absence, but when it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/political-corruption-is-to-rhode-islanders-as-smog-is-to-people-who/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/genocide-after-all-is-an-exercise-in-community-building/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) > [“So there is responsibility. I cry, you cry. We all come running, and the one that stays quiet, the one that stays home, must…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/so-there-is-responsibility-i-cry-you-cry-we-all-come-running-and-the/) [Philip Gourevitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/philip-gourevitch/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/civil-wars/philip-gourevitch/#itemlist", "name": "1 Civil Wars Quotes By Philip Gourevitch", "numberOfItems": 1, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“When I first went to Rwanda, I was reading a book called Civil War, which had been receiving great critical acclaim. Writing from an immediate post-Cold War perspective, the author, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, a German, observed, “The most obvious sign of the end of the bipolar world order are the thirty or forty civil wars being waged openly around the globe,” and he set out to inquire what they were all about. This seemed promising until I realized that Enzensberger wasn’t interested in the details of those wars. He treated them all as a single phenomenon and, after a few pages, announced: “What gives today’s civil wars a new and terrifying slant is the fact that they are waged without stakes on either side, that they are wars about nothing at all.” In the old days, according to Enzensberger—in Spain in the 1930s or the United States in the 1860s—people used to kill and die for ideas, but now “violence has separated itself from ideology,” and people who wage civil wars just kill and die in an anarchic scramble for power. In these wars, he asserted, there is no notion of the future; nihilism rules; “all political thought, from Aristotle and Machiavelli to Marx and Weber, is turned upside down,” and “all that remains is the Hobbesian ur-myth of the war of everyone against everyone else.” That such a view of distant civil wars offers a convenient reason to ignore them may explain its enormous popularity in our times. It would be nice, we may say, if the natives out there settled down, but if they’re just fighting for the hell of it, it’s not my problem. But it is our problem. By denying the particularity of the peoples who are making history, and the possibility that they might have politics, Enzensberger mistakes his failure to recognize what is at stake in events for the nature of those events. So he sees chaos—what is given off, not what’s giving it off—and his analysis begs the question: when, in fact, there are ideological differences between two warring parties, how are we to judge them? In the case of Rwanda, to embrace the idea that the civil war was a free-for-all—in which everyone is at once equally legitimate and equally illegitimate—is to ally oneself with Hutu Power’s ideology of genocide as self-defense.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Philip Gourevitch" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/philip-gourevitch/when-i-first-went-to-rwanda-i-was-reading-a-book-called-civil-war/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/301/philip-gourevitch-17484_books_when-i-first-went-to-rwanda-i-was-readin_2476875.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/301/philip-gourevitch-17484_books_when-i-first-went-to-rwanda-i-was-readin_2476875.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/301/philip-gourevitch-17484_books_when-i-first-went-to-rwanda-i-was-readin_2476875.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“When I first went to Rwanda, I was reading a book called Civil War, which had been receiving great critical…” — Philip Gourevitch", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/civil-wars/philip-gourevitch/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/civil-wars/philip-gourevitch/", "name": "Civil Wars Quotes by Philip Gourevitch", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/civil-wars/philip-gourevitch/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/301/philip-gourevitch-17484_books_when-i-first-went-to-rwanda-i-was-readin_2476875.jpg" }, "description": "1 Civil Wars quotes by Philip Gourevitch. 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