Humanitarian Leaders Quotes

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Be nice to people... maybe it'll be unappreciated, unreciprocated, or ignored, but spread the love anyway. We rise by lifting others.
Germany Kent
It bothered them [humanitarian aide workers] that the camp leaders might be war criminals, not refugees in any conventional sense of the word, but fugitives.
Philip Gourevitch (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families)
Let your light shine as an inspiration to humanity and BE THE REASON someone believes in the goodness of people.
Germany Kent
To be humble is to be teachable. Meek, not weak. The most humble people are the most aggressive leaders. Aggressive because to be truly taught, is to sincerely do. To lead. To start. To achieve. Willingly and urgently doing the work to make change.
Richie Norton
If I could remove one thing from the world and replace it with something else, I would erase politics and put art in its place. That way, art teachers would rule the world. And since art is the most supreme form of love, beautiful colors and imagery would weave bridges for peace wherever there are walls. Artists, who are naturally heart-driven, would decorate the world with their love, and in that love — poverty, hunger, lines of division, and wars would vanish from the earth forever. Children of the earth would then be free to play, imagine, create, build and grow without bloodshed, terror and fear.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
There are two kinds of people in the world - those who make things happen and those who watch things happen.
Abhijit Naskar (The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth)
As the sun lives on when it sets in the warmth it has given to others, you too will live on in the hearts of those whose lives you have touched.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Our evolution depends on our memory. If we keep forgetting the mistakes of the past, only to keep repeating them, then we will never change. And if we keep recycling through the exact same kind of leaders— the kind who do not propel us forward, but only hold us back—then perhaps what we really need now is a completely different style of leadership altogether. We need heart-driven leaders, not strictly mind-driven ones. We need compassionate humanitarians, not greedy businessmen. Peacemakers, not war instigators. We need unity, not division. Angels, not devils.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
For candidates to achieve any high office in our state or federal legislature, they are required to make loud, ambitious public promises during their campaigns, which can never be completely fulfilled, even by the greatest humanitarian intentions. Therefore, we’re starting off our relationship with each prospective leader on the wrong foot, a foot of mistrust.
Nick Offerman (Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers)
Progress means advancement in the path of upliftment – in the path of enlightenment – in the path of humanitarian glory.
Abhijit Naskar (The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance (Neurotheology Series))
Anybody can live in flesh and blood, but to live on long after the flesh has dissipated into nature – that’s the life I always wanted.
Abhijit Naskar (Sin Dios Sí Hay Divinidad: The Pastor Who Never Was)
I started off as a scientist, but the needs of the society turned me into a reformer.
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
To build a civilized society is no work of the weak-hearted or the prejudiced, it's the work of the living Gods, it's the work of humans without borders. And to build these humans is the work of my life.
Abhijit Naskar (Time to End Democracy: The Meritocratic Manifesto)
I walked through centuries after centuries in the bodily vessels of countless monks and philosophers, and still my work is not done - it is far from done. I still have a long way to go with my heart bleeding in agony and my feet burning and trembling in tiredness, but still I shall not stop till every single human on earth realizes in the very core of their being that they are humans above everything else, and to achieve this, if I have to go through the heartache of loneliness and the mortal misery of social indifference and mockery over and over again in countless more lives to come, I shall most willingly do so.
Abhijit Naskar (Saint of The Sapiens)
It affirmed that international law was not only law 'between States' but 'also the law of mankind'. Those who transgressed it would have no immunity, even if they were leaders, a reflection of the 'outraged conscience of the world'.
Philippe Sands (East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity")
The world needs not new governments - the world needs not new parties - the world needs not new dictators masquerading as leaders or entrepreneurs - what the world needs is thought, punned in the flames of reason, courage and humaneness.
Abhijit Naskar (Operation Justice: To Make A Society That Needs No Law)
Be the ocean of conscience in which others can bathe. Be the sacred river of service, that takes away selfishness from the society. Be the mountain of bravery that absorbs weakness from the heart of people. And you must do all this as a humble servant as well as a pride-less leader of the people.
Abhijit Naskar (Time to Save Medicine)
O my brave Almighty Human, with the ever-effulgent flow of courage, conscience and compassion, turn yourself into a vivacious humanizer, and start walking with bold footsteps while eliminating racism, terminating misogyny, destroying homophobia and all other primitiveness that have turned humanity into the most inhuman species on earth.
Abhijit Naskar (I Am The Thread: My Mission)
MY DREAM If I could remove one thing from the world and replace it with something else, I would erase politics and put art in its place. That way, art teachers would rule the world. And since art is the most supreme form of love, beautiful colors and imagery would weave bridges for peace wherever there are walls. Artists, who are naturally heart-driven, would decorate the world with their love, and in that love — poverty, hunger, lines of division, and wars would vanish from the earth forever. Children of the earth would then be free to play, imagine, create, build and grow without bloodshed, terror and fear. Our evolution depends on our memory. If we keep forgetting the mistakes of the past, only to keep repeating them, then we will never change. And if we keep recycling through the exact same kind of leaders— the kind who do not propel us forward, but only hold us back—then perhaps what we really need now is a completely different style of leadership altogether. We need heart-driven leaders, not strictly mind-driven ones. We need compassionate humanitarians, not greedy businessmen. Peacemakers, not war instigators. We need unity, not division. Angels, not devils.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
Earlier, I cited Oswald Spengler’s chilling century-old prophecy that “the era of individualism, liberalism and democracy, of humanitarianism and freedom, is nearing its end. The masses will accept with resignation the victory of the Caesars, the strong men, and will obey them.” This is the real danger posed by Putin: that he will be a model for other national leaders who want to retain their grip on power indefinitely, despite political and legal constraints.
Madeleine K. Albright (Fascism: A Warning)
Our evolution depends on our memory. If we keep forgetting the mistakes of the past, only to keep repeating them, we will never change. And if we keep recycling through the exact same kind of leaders— the kind who do not propel us forward, but only hold us back—then perhaps what we really need now is a completely different style of leadership altogether. We need heart-driven leaders, not mind-driven ones. We need compassionate humanitarians, not greedy businessmen. We need unity, not division. Angels, not devils.
Suzy Kassem
People often ask me, "you are not a believer in the common sense of the term, then why don't you call yourself an atheist", I tell them, "that's because atheists place all importance on facts, I place all importance on people". As a scientist, I am very much aware of the value of facts, but facts are never more important than the people, in fact, they are only valuable so long as they serve the welfare of people - in circumstances where facts go against the welfare of the people, a civilized human must always choose people over facts.
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
Allowing the war-prone individuals, bent on evil, to gain power in governments must be one of the most significant reasons that wars erupt. Individuals with prowar inclinations are naturally aggressive and seek power over others. As Friedrich Hayek argued in his book The Road to Serfdom, “the worst get on top.” The power seekers also convince themselves that they are superior to average people and have a moral responsibility to use force to mold the world as they see fit. The propaganda is that war is for the sake of “goodness and righteousness.” Isabel Paterson described it in her book The God of the Machine as “the humanitarian with a guillotine.” Those who are more prone to peace tend to be complacent and to not resist the propaganda required to mobilize otherwise peaceful people to fight and die for the lies told and the false noble goals proposed by the self-appointed moral leaders.
Ron Paul (Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity)
Criticizing the “corrupt, questionable, and unqualified leaders [placed] into key positions,” the argument rested on the principle of command responsibility: “The international community has enabled and encouraged bad governance through agreement and silence, and often active partnership.” Moving the issue away from the humanitarian terrain where it often resides, we made corruption relevant to war fighters by explaining its centrality to prospects of victory. “Afghans’ acute disappointment with the quality of governance . . . has contributed to permissiveness toward, or collusion with,” the Taliban, we wrote, laboring to stultify our language with a credible amount of jargon. In plain English: why would a farmer stick out his neck to keep Taliban out of his village if the government was just as bad? If, because of corruption, an ex-policeman like Nurallah was threatening to turn a blind eye to a man planting an IED, others were going further. Corruption, in army-speak, was a force multiplier for the enemy. “This condition is a key factor feeding negative security trends and it undermines the ability of development efforts to reverse these trends,” our draft read.
Sarah Chayes (Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security)
Exactly. Even then the possessing classes only suffer relatively. They put down their cars or close their country houses, thus adding to unemployment, but not greatly inconveniencing themselves. But the people starve. Then they will listen to you when you tell them they have nothing to lose but their chains, and when you dangle before them the bait of other people’s property the greed, the envy, which they’ve had to repress because they had no means of gratifying them, are let loose. With liberty and equality as your watchwords you can lead them to the attack. The history of the last five-and-twenty years shows that they’re bound to win. The possessing classes are enervated by their possessions, they’re humanitarian and sentimental, they have neither the will nor the courage to defend themselves; their counsels are divided, and when their only chance is in immediate and ruthless action they waste their time in recrimination. But the mob, which is the instrument of the revolutionary leaders, is a thing not of reason but of instinct, it is amenable to hypnotic suggestion and you can rouse it to frenzy by catchwords; it is an entity, and so is indifferent to the death in its ranks of such as fall; it knows neither pity nor mercy. It rejoices in destruction because in destruction it becomes conscious of its own power.
W. Somerset Maugham (Christmas Holiday (Vintage International))
One government policy that libertarians accept is provisions of national defense, since no private solution is likely to prove satisfactory. A private group that attempted to field an army and defend the country would find it difficult to exclude any individual person from the benefits of its protection, since any activities that deterred potential attacks or warded off actual attacks would defend everyone within the country. Thus, most people would not voluntarily pay for national defense provided by a private group, so it is hard for such an activity to be profitable enough to induce adequate private provision. That is, national defenses is what economists refer to as public good. The conclusion that government should provide some national defense applies to narrow self-defense activities, such as fielding an army that deters enemy attacks and responds to attacks that do occur. In practice, however, nations perform many inappropriate actions under the mantle self-defense, most of them harmful. On action that goes beyond strict self-defense is preemptive attacks on other countries, as in the invasion of Iraq. In rare instances preemptive strikes might be legitimate self-defense, and by moving first and preventing extended conflict, a government might save lives and property both at home and in the threatening country...In most instances of preemptive attack, however, the threat is not obvious, undeniable, or imminent. The justification for military action is therefor readily misused whenever leaders have other agendas but wish to hide behind the guise of self defense. Thus, preemptive national defense deserves extreme suspicion, and most such actions are not wise uses of government resources. Another problematic use of a country's self defense capabilities is humanitarian or national-building efforts that purport to help other countries. One objection to such actions might be that the helping country pays the costs while foreigners receive the benefits, but this is not the right criticism. The compassion argument for redistributing income holds that government should be willing to impose costs on society generally to raise the welfare of the least fortunate members. It is hard to see how logic would apply only to people who already residents of a given country.
Jeffrey A. Miron (Libertarianism, from A to Z)
The difference between a dictator and a true leader, is in intention. Given enough resources anybody can manipulate the minds of the masses and become their chosen authority, for the masses rarely look past the veil of the candidate's charm. And this is more evident today than ever, as a psychologically unfit misogynistic bully has swayed his way into the oval office with nothing but charm and charisma. So, basically we live in a society where a bully can become the authority of a great nation, the history of which is filled with true leaders who were the forerunners of humanitarian glory and real progress - these leaders were not simply the leaders of a country, or a party, but they were and still remain in the heart of the civilized humans as the leaders of humanity. They were the torch-bearers of egalitarianism and their light spread across the globe and touched countless lives with the warmth of humaneness. They lived among the masses but they didn't let the prejudices of the masses become their own, let alone infect the masses with more prejudices, unlike today's so-called leadership in America. They made America truly a great nation, by turning it into a symbol of liberty and acceptance, and today that very greatness is at stake, as the primitive evils of prejudices and discriminations have once again begun to creep into its backbone, through the words and actions of its very so-called leader. This is not a threat to democracy, for democracy itself at our current evolutionary stage, is a threat to our progress, rather it is a threat to the heritage of every single act of kindness, reasoning and acceptance ever committed in the history of humanity. The masses are existentially allowed to talk nonsense and advocate prejudices, but when an authority of the masses begins to talk nonsense and advocate prejudice and bigotry, it is an existential crisis for not just those masses but all humans around the world, with implications of catastrophic proportions. A leader is to take away prejudices from the psychological edifice of a country - a leader is to uplift a country, that is, a people, while warming their minds with the gentle flames of love, acceptance and reasoning. In fact, that's the only kind of true leadership there is, rest are just uncivilized tribalism that brings along more and more conflicts in the heart of the people within a country as well as outside of it.
Abhijit Naskar (Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana)
I am a simple candle burning in darkness and solitude, while giving light to the whole world.
Abhijit Naskar (Conscience over Nonsense)
Remember my friend, everybody wants to have a family of their own, but what about the greater family called humanity beyond the personal domain of individual existence! Who will take care of them, if not you! Your blood is full with vigor my brave soldier of destiny, so bring all that vigor out in the service of your family called humanity.
Abhijit Naskar (Fabric of Humanity)
There is a thirty-three page essay by Arundhati Roy on the issue yet it doesn't smell of the jungles. It smells of her. It stinks of her agenda. Why, I wonder? Why is it that most of the op-eds and essays from the so-called intelligentsia comprising editors, professors, historians, political analysts, social workers, NGO entrepreneurs, humanitarians, and civil society leaders favour the false Naxal
Vivek Agnihotri (Urban Naxals: The Making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam)
By April 23, 2014, thirty-four cases and six deaths from Ebola in Liberia were recorded. By mid-June, 16 more people died. At the time it was thought to be malaria but when seven more people died the following month tests showed that was the Ebola virus. The primary reason for the spreading of the Ebola virus was the direct contact from one person to the next and the ingesting of bush meat. Soon doctors and nurses also became infected. On July 2, 2014, the head surgeon of Redemption Hospital was treated at the JFK Medical Center in Monrovia, where he died from the disease. His death was followed by four nurses at Phebe Hospital in Bong County. At about the same time two U.S. health care workers, Dr. Kent Brantly and a nurse were also infected with the disease. However, they were medically evacuated from Liberia to the United States for treatment where they made a full recovery. Another doctor from Uganda was not so lucky and died from the disease. Arik Air suspended all flights between Nigeria and Liberia and checkpoints were set up at all the ports and border crossings. In August of 2014, the impoverished slum area of West Point was cordoned off. Riots ensued as protesters turned violent. The looting of a clinic of its supplies, including blood-stained bed sheets and mattresses caused the military to shoot into the crowds. Still more patients became infected, causing a shortage of staff and logistics. By September there had been a total of 3,458 cases of which there were 1,830 deaths according to the World Health Organization. Hospitals and clinics could no longer handle this crisis and patients who were treated outside died before they could get help. There were cases where the bodies were just dumped into the Mesurado River. The Ivory Coast out of compassion, opened carefully restricted humanitarian routes and resumed the previously suspended flights to Liberia. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf the president of Libera sent a letter to President Barack Obama concerning the outbreak of Ebola that was on the verge of overrunning her country. The message was desperate, “I am being honest with you when I say that at this rate, we will never break the transmission chain and the virus will overwhelm us.” Having been a former finance minister and World Bank official, Johnson Sirleaf was not one for histrionics however she recognized the pandemic as extremely dangerous. The United States responded to her request and American troops came in and opened a new 60-bed clinic in the Sierra Leone town of Kenema, but by then the outbreak was described as being out of control. Still not understanding the dangerous contagious aspects of this epidemic at least eight Liberian soldiers died after contracting the disease from a single female camp follower. In spite of being a relatively poor country, Cuba is one of the most committed in deploying doctors to crisis zones. It sent more than 460 Cuban doctors and nurses to West Africa. In October Germany sent medical supplies and later that month a hundred additional U.S. troops arrived in Liberia, bringing the total to 565 to assist in the fight against the deadly disease. To understand the severity of the disease, a supply order was placed on October 15th for a 6 month supply of 80,000 body bags and 1 million protective suits. At that time it was reported that 223 health care workers had been infected with Ebola, and 103 of them had died in Liberia. Fear of the disease also slowed down the functioning of the Liberian government. President Sirleaf, had in an emergency announcement informed absent government ministers and civil service leaders to return to their duties. She fired 10 government officials, including deputy ministers in the central government who failed to return to work.
Hank Bracker
They saw in their hearts a developed South Korea and asked God for a strategy to bring that about. He showed them that if they rallied Westerners to finance one child each through education, then this education would become a foundation for the future greatness of the country. They used this prophetic word to start one of the greatest humanitarian organizations for children in history: Compassion International. (How many readers, I wonder, have supported a child by sending money to a Compassion International child sponsorship project.) The first generation of Compassion International kids that graduated college had a knack for building, and they helped lay Korea’s foundation in government (one was even one of the first Supreme Court justices), education (many became teachers right away), religion (many became Christian pastors and leaders), and industry (many started businesses). It was such a pivotal movement that it is still referred to by many of the South Korean government leaders I have met. South Korea began its greater development into what it is today because God invested a vision of its future to Christians, organizations, and other groups. He gave them the faith to help Korea become what it is today.
Shawn Bolz (Translating God: Hearing God's Voice for Yourself and the World Around You)
I didn't wait for the world to happen to me. I stood up and happened to the world.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather)
When your family is in danger, you don't ponder, should I intervene - you just jump - that's what love does to a person. Only such love will save the world, not law. When the civilians of the world feel such love for the world as they feel for their family, the world leaders will have nothing left to do but direct traffic.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather)
High Voltage Sonnet Once upon a time I said to thee, Awake, Arise, Stop not till thou write thy destiny! Two score later I said to thee, Give me blood, and I'll give thee liberty! Time passed and some life got much fancier but, Division and disparity remain ever so horrid. We have made great strides on the outside yet, In the mental domain we remain ever so brutish. A twenty watt brain once accountable, Electrifies the universe. But when selfish and indifferent, Even 20 million of them cannot do diddly-squat. Fetch those cables from your spinal cord, Awake, arise, and electrify this dampened world!
Abhijit Naskar (High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination)
When Naskar speaks, even world leaders hold silence!
Abhijit Naskar (Woman Over World: The Novel)
We Are The Scientists (Sonnet 1214) Justifying human rights violation as necessary evil may be habit of politicians. Scientists must be wiser than that, otherwise, Science is just a weapon of mass destruction. Scientist without humanity is anything but scientist, Science without humanity is anything but science. Civilized scientists work for the progress of humanity, Primitive scientists work for the progress of science. Progress of science is not necessarily progress of humanity, Particularly when science advances trampling human life. World leaders may brush off such matter as collateral, To a scientist with spine nothing is higher than human life. Whole world is in our care, beyond all law and politics. We are capable, we are accountable - we are the scientists!
Abhijit Naskar (Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science)
A note on strategy Strategy is not a nice art. Nor is it a place for wishfulness, thinking well of people, hope, or overconfidence. It is an arena where extreme realists excel. You should not be a strategic leader if you cannot contemplate sacrificing 4,000 of your own soldiers or allowing a civilian population to remain under extreme humanitarian pressure from your enemy—say, starving and under siege—to achieve a strategic objective.
Mike Martin (How to Fight a War)
humanitarian grounds, failed to understand that the rapidly developing capitalism of the North was also an oppressive system. They viewed slavery as a detestable and inhuman institution, an archaic transgression of justice. But they did not recognize that the white worker in the North, his or her status as “free” laborer notwithstanding, was no different from the enslaved “worker” in the South: both were victims of economic exploitation. As militant as William Lloyd Garrison is supposed to have been, he was vehemently against wage laborers’ right to organize. The inaugural issue of the Liberator included an article denouncing the efforts of Boston workers to form a political party: An attempt has been made—it is still in the making—we regret to say—to inflame the minds of our working classes against the more opulent, and to persuade men that they are condemned and oppressed by a wealthy aristocracy … It is in the highest degree criminal, therefore, to exasperate our mechanics to deeds of violence or to array them under a party banner.58 As a rule, white abolitionists either defended the industrial capitalists or expressed no conscious class loyalty at all. This unquestioning acceptance of the capitalist economic system was evident in the program of the women’s rights movement as well. If most abolitionists viewed slavery as a nasty blemish which needed to be eliminated, most women’s righters viewed male supremacy in a similar manner—as an immoral flaw in their otherwise acceptable society. The leaders of the women’s rights movement did not suspect that the enslavement of Black people in the South, the economic exploitation of Northern workers and the social oppression of women might be systematically related. Within the early women’s movement, little was said about white working people—not even about white women workers. Though many of the women were supporters of the abolitionist campaign, they failed to integrate their anti-slavery consciousness into their analysis of women’s oppression.
Angela Y. Davis (Women, Race, & Class)
My legacy is not my literature, my legacy are the Gods I raise.
Abhijit Naskar (Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence)
Sacrifice is my illumination, Servanthood is my sultanet. People are the reason of my life, I got too much electricity to sit and wait.
Abhijit Naskar
A nation where private schools produce more leaders than public schools has failed in education.
Abhijit Naskar (The Humanitarian Dictator)
Malcolm X was ready to enter the international political stage, leaving the parochialism and backwardness of Yacub and the Nation of Islam far behind him.
Manning Marable
Whenever I hear and see a politician or a military leader, a bank of American flags at his back, trying to convince us of the rightness of a policy or a deed that will cause harm to others; when I am almost convinced myself that setting humanitarian concern in abeyance can be justified in the interest of a greater good, I pause and ask myself what my brain-smoked friends would have to say.
James Lee Burke (A Stained White Radiance (Dave Robicheaux #5))
In my consulting practice, I am astounded by the number of global executives who have developed or are developing business in emerging markets and lack even a rudimentary knowledge of, or interest in, frames that are historical, cultural, humanitarian, social, military, and political in nature. Not only do these business leaders not seek out these frames, they often dismiss such frames as being irrelevant, superfluous, and time consuming. Including diverse data, points of view, and perspectives in a strategic dialogue is essential to maintaining a competitive strategic edge. The implication of these missing frames is the emergence of blind spots, and their impact on long-term business strategy is the writing on the wall.
Julia Sloan (Learning to Think Strategically)
Sacrifice everything that is yours, to call up the humans in others.
Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
of course, American torture still goes on: from the force-feeding of strapped-down captives in Gitmo to the psychological and physical terror Obama inflicts on thousands of innocent people every day as they watch the lizard-eyed drones hovering over them and wonder if this is the hour they’ll be ripped to shreds or burned alive to whatever the hell goes on in the secret cells our humanitarian leaders still keep in bases, basements and hidey holes all over the world.
Anonymous
So effective has their propaganda been that an American official was moved to describe the Brotherhood as “a loose network of secular groups.”27 This kind of ignorance in the West about Egypt presents the Brotherhood with a tremendous opportunity for media manipulation. Scratch the surface, however, and you find a detailed political platform published in 2006. The president cannot be a woman because the post’s religious and military duties “conflict with her nature, social and other humanitarian roles.” A board of Muslim clerics would oversee the government. The freedom of association guaranteed civil organizations in the West would, in an Islamist Egypt, also be conditional, once again on their adherence to the strictures of Islamic law. Egypt would have a shura (consultative assembly) system, whereby a body of compliant old men nod through whatever the leader, who is assured “veneration,” sees fit, while a Supreme Guide presides benevolently over the personal morality of the masses.28 In Saudi Arabia and Iran, that system exists now.
John R. Bradley (After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked The Middle East Revolts)
Greece can balance its books without killing democracy Alexis Tsipras | 614 words OPINION Greece changes on January 25, the day of the election. My party, Syriza, guarantees a new social contract for political stability and economic security. We offer policies that will end austerity, enhance democracy and social cohesion and put the middle class back on its feet. This is the only way to strengthen the eurozone and make the European project attractive to citizens across the continent. We must end austerity so as not to let fear kill democracy. Unless the forces of progress and democracy change Europe, it will be Marine Le Pen and her far-right allies that change it for us. We have a duty to negotiate openly, honestly and as equals with our European partners. There is no sense in each side brandishing its weapons. Let me clear up a misperception: balancing the government’s budget does not automatically require austerity. A Syriza government will respect Greece’s obligation, as a eurozone member, to maintain a balanced budget, and will commit to quantitative targets. However, it is a fundamental matter of democracy that a newly elected government decides on its own how to achieve those goals. Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are. If the Greek people entrust us with their votes, implementing our economic programme will not be a “unilateral” act, but a democratic obligation. Is there any logical reason to continue with a prescription that helps the disease metastasise? Austerity has failed in Greece. It crippled the economy and left a large part of the workforce unemployed. This is a humanitarian crisis. The government has promised the country’s lenders that it will cut salaries and pensions further, and increase taxes in 2015. But those commitments only bind Antonis Samaras’s government which will, for that reason, be voted out of office on January 25. We want to bring Greece to the level of a proper, democratic European country. Our manifesto, known as the Thessaloniki programme, contains a set of fiscally balanced short-term measures to mitigate the humanitarian crisis, restart the economy and get people back to work. Unlike previous governments, we will address factors within Greece that have perpetuated the crisis. We will stand up to the tax-evading economic oligarchy. We will ensure social justice and sustainable growth, in the context of a social market economy. Public debt has risen to a staggering 177 per cent of gross domestic product. This is unsustainable; meeting the payments is very hard. On existing loans, we demand repayment terms that do not cause recession and do not push the people to more despair and poverty. We are not asking for new loans; we cannot keep adding debt to the mountain. The 1953 London Conference helped Germany achieve its postwar economic miracle by relieving the country of the burden of its own past errors. (Greece was among the international creditors who participated.) Since austerity has caused overindebtedness throughout Europe, we now call for a European debt conference, which will likewise give a strong boost to growth in Europe. This is not an exercise in creating moral hazard. It is a moral duty. We expect the European Central Bank itself to launch a full-blooded programme of quantitative easing. This is long overdue. It should be on a scale great enough to heal the eurozone and to give meaning to the phrase “whatever it takes” to save the single currency. Syriza will need time to change Greece. Only we can guarantee a break with the clientelist and kleptocratic practices of the political and economic elites. We have not been in government; we are a new force that owes no allegiance to the past. We will make the reforms that Greece actually needs. The writer is leader of Syriza, the Greek oppositionparty
Anonymous
O my mighty sisters and brothers, forget not that the ideal of humanity is the search of truth. In this pursuit, countless souls have sacrificed themselves in the past. And in this pursuit, countless more shall need to sacrifice themselves.
Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
Corruption is usually classified as a humanitarian aid problem, to be handled by donor agencies, not mainstreamed into overall foreign and defense policy. And while governments may support across-the-board efforts on a multilateral level, they almost never consider acute corruption as they shape their approach to specific countries. Human rights, religious freedom, protections for the LGBT community may enter the conversation, but corruption rarely does. Tools to raise the cost of kleptocratic practices exist—in abundance. It’s just a matter of finding the courage and finesse to use them. All the levers and incentives listed below can be further refined, and new ones imagined, in specific contexts. Particular corrupt officials or structures have unique vulnerabilities and desires; and timelines and windows of opportunity for effective action will be specific to individual cases and will suggest even more potential actions as they are examined. Many of the actions below can and should be routinized—folded into the everyday activities of relevant bureaucracies—so as to reduce the onus on leaders to sign their names to audacious and thus potentially career-threatening moves. But in other cases, a strategy may need to be carefully thought through and tailored to the specific conditions of a given country at a specific point in time.
Sarah Chayes (Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security)
Arise O lion-heart! Awake, O great soldier! Misery has come upon the world. It is wailing for help. It is wailing for redemption. Won’t you do anything, my friend!
Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
I dont want anything, I havent destroyed #TREASON45 #allmurderofeverythingincludingnothing Real empathetic leaders work for soundness stability seeking an existential balance and its resources for all living things on this planet including the climate and its health Real leaders work for peace for the truth to prevail for real democratic practices to engage self- determination maintaining societal stability and the example of esteeming connectedness principally by defending all human rights for all human beings on this planet and beyond and not by placating racist lies for a treasonous dictatorship. a dictator is not democracy. A dictatorship is a bland void devoid of real cogent reality based processes. a dictatorship is unsound racist banality profiteering off of racist lies a slave hole colonialism brutality its dehumanization of human beings for racist lies and its profiteering off of the unsound murdering of brown black lives in the world. a dictatorship threatening the world is not a democracy. Stop threatening the world its had enough of your racist bitch lies and its doing its very best to protect itself defend itself against your unsoundness the world will defend democracy and international humanitarian laws and its regard for the real truth peace and order.
Gwen Calvo
A short time later, with the establishment of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the Palestinians started to be treated as humanitarian cases in need of relief rather than as refugees. The refusal to recognize the Palestinians as a nation with the basic right of self-determination was at the heart of the matter and my father knew it. It was also becoming clear to the Palestinians that there was another favored partner, King Abdullah, who was willing to recognize Israel’s takeover of Palestine in return for Israel’s recognition of the expansion of his borders by incorporating part of Mandate Palestine. The king was not ideologically against the recognition of Israel, he was only waiting for the right moment to do it. For that reason, Palestinian leaders believed that it was imperative for the Palestinians to be represented in these negotiations, otherwise their rights would be overlooked.
Raja Shehadeh (We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir)
Immortality is cosmic heirloom of the mortal who is martyred for humanity.
Abhijit Naskar (Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans)
Make A Name (The Sonnet) Make a name to give hope, Not to have control over people. Make a name to lift another, Not to look down on the people. Be a symbol that burns bright, Even when you are not around. Selfish self is septic self, Be an epitome of sacrifice unbound. Only fools dream of ruling the world, Sapiens dream of self-annihilation. I dream, breathe and live as servant, Servanthood brings sanctification. Fall without fail at the feet of the forgotten. Lend a hand to lift a heart, together we are beacon.
Abhijit Naskar (Ingan Impossible: Handbook of Hatebusting)
I ask you not to chant my name, Be free from all such ritual lame. Hold my hand and come with me, Together we'll be a timeless flame.
Abhijit Naskar (Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission)
You know why there is so-much power outage in the world? Because the humans are unaware of their own electricity, both metaphorically and literally. And one who realizes their inner electricity and brings it out to electrify the whole world, is the true CEO of the world. I don't care for being the CEO of some puny anti-humanitarian company, for I am already a CEO - I am the CEO of planet earth - I am the Chief Evolution Officer of the human world - so is every single human whose responsibility towards society outweighs their primeval drive for narcissism and self-preservation. In every age, in every time, there'll come ten of us Chief Evolution Officers to make mincemeat of the megalomaniacal ploy of anti-humanitarian giants while driving human evolution in a humane direction.
Abhijit Naskar (High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination)
As regards the subject class, we gets the following relations: 1. When the subject class contains a number of indviduals desposed to use force and with capable leaders to guide them, the governing class is, in many cases, overthrown and another takes its place. That is easily the ase where governing class are inspired by humanitarian sentiments primarily and very easily if they do not find ways to assimilate the exceptional individuals who come to the front in the subject classes. A humanitarian aristocracy that is closed of stiffly exclusive represents the maximum of insecurity. 2. It is far more difficult to overthrow a governing class that is adept in the shrewd use of chicanery, fraud, corruption; and in the highest degree difficult to overthrow such a class when it successfully assimilates most of the individuals in the subject class who show those same talents, are adept in those same arts, and might therefore become the leaders of such plebeians as are disposed to use violence. Thus left without leadership, without talent, disorganized, the subject class is almost always powerless to set up any lasting regime. 3. So the combination residues (Class I) become to some extent enfeebled in the subject class.
Vilfredo Pareto (The mind and society)
Book of Destiny (The Sonnet) The book of destiny is the being, Who doesn't believe in destiny. The epitome of victory is the one, Who doesn't care for victory. Victory and destiny all are born, Of the sweat and blood of the determined. Annihilate the self for a purpose, And you'll be the icon of universal uplift. You don't fall by falling at someone's feet, You fall by climbing on top of others' head. You don't rise by being superior to others, But by losing sense of high 'n low divisiveness. Mark me well, human is neither person nor species. Designation Human is the highest of all responsibilities.
Abhijit Naskar (Bulldozer on Duty)
Make No Sect of Me (The Sonnet) Don't you dare pledge obedience to me! Don't you turn me into another religious band! I want you to endeavor into unknown, I want you to explore and expand. My work is with human nature, I know how things are gonna turn out. Many will come and peddle me as savior, They'll thrust me as society's way out. By not addressing it all my predecessors, Inadvertently became fodder for sectarianism. True Naskareans of earth are them alone, Who ain't no Naskarean but plain human. To make a sect of me is to dishonor me. Dump all glorification, and be light to humanity.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather)
No Priest No Prostitute (The Sonnet) In my eyes there is no priest, No prostitute, only people. In my eyes there is no pope, No pedestrian, only people. In my eyes there is no royalty, No subject, only people. In my eyes there is no leader, No follower, only people. There is no intellectual, No layman, only people. In my eyes there is no superior, No inferior, only people. Hierarchy is malarkey maintained by fools. Oneness maketh civilization across silly schools.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather)
Be the breeze, be the water, be the serene shade of a heartful tree. In character be an elephant, gentle, unafraid and forever free.
Abhijit Naskar (Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables)
Honor He Wrote Sonnet 85 Enough with leaving this world, In the hands of old fuddy-duddies. Mark you, I ain't talkin' about age, I am talkin' about mental maturity. Long enough we've allowed tradition, To wreak havock on our precious planet. It's time for reason and nonrigidity, To stand up and take charge, all unbent. Inhumanity persists in our world, Because the humans give a consensual wave. It's time for the grown-ups to grow up and, Redeem reins from those with both feet in the grave. Ancient relics belong in museum, not in driver's seat. It's for the young of head 'n heart to get the society lit.
Abhijit Naskar (Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables)
Crisis reveals character.
Abhijit Naskar
Mediocre minds discuss people, smart minds discuss ideas, gods discuss less and lift others more.
Abhijit Naskar (Generation Corazon: Nationalism is Terrorism)
Pro Government or Pro Human Rights (Earth Administrative Service, Sonnet 1304) Either pro government or pro human rights, A civilized human cannot be both. Doesn't mean you're always anti government, It means you pledge no one blanket support. Gaza has made it more evident than ever, No politician got the guts to rock the boat. When the chips are down and balloon goes up, Politicians hide behind the diplomacy door. World leeches masquerading as world leaders, Would sell their mothers if the price is right. Sheeply civilians don't do much to change things, So they seek comfort in snobbish arguments on AI. Dump all autocratic nonsense of law-abidance, Tell the right from wrong by conscience rule. If you want human rights to reign supreme, Wake up and be the world leader of your hood.
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets)
Citizenry is the problem, Citizenry is the answer. When citizenry decides on peace, Albeit reluctant, world leaders wither.
Abhijit Naskar (Yaralardan Yangın Doğar: Explorers of Night are Emperors of Dawn (Sonnet Sultan))
Citizenry is the problem, Citizenry is the answer. When citizenry decides on peace, Albeit reluctant, world leaders wither. I know no constitution but conscience, I know no tradition but compassion. Belonging is my Bible, kindness is my Quran - The living need no handbook to right and wrong. Recognition or no recognition, Human never forgets to be human. The entire Abhijit Naskar legacy was created without any recognition. Then why did I continue you ask, Because I never wrote for admiration. I write to provide shelter to all, And electrify their veins into action. Whining might suit the spineless, Bravehearts are ever vigilant in duty. Once you make people your life's cause, Nothing can diminish your tenacity.
Abhijit Naskar (Yaralardan Yangın Doğar: Explorers of Night are Emperors of Dawn (Sonnet Sultan))
World leeches masquerading as world leaders, would sell their mothers if the price is right.
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets (Sonnet Centuries))
Strange "circulus vitiosus," which I already foresaw in my twentieth year, when I wrote my drama Meister Olaf, and which has constituted the tragedy of my life. Why be tormented during thirty years in order to be taught by experience what one had already foreboded? When young I was sincerely pious, and you have made me a freethinker. Out of the freethinker you have made an atheist, and out of the atheist a religious man. Inspired by humanitarian ideas, I have been a herald of socialism. Five years later, you have shown me the absurdity of socialism; you have made all my prophecies futile. And supposing I become again religious, I am sure that, in another ten years, you will reduce religion to an absurdity. Ah! what a game the gods play with us poor mortals! And therefore, in the most tormented moments of life, we too can laugh with self-conscious raillery. How is it that you wish us to take earnestly what is nothing but a huge bad joke? For whom was Christ the Saviour? Consider the most Christian of all Christians, our pious Scandinavians, these amæmic, wretched, timid creatures, who look as though they were possessed. They seem to carry an evil spirit in their hearts, and observe how most of their leaders have ended in prison as criminals. Why has their master delivered them over to the enemy? Is religion a punishment, and Christ an Avenger?
August Strindberg (Inferno)
Reformer holds no allegiance to ideology, Reformer holds no allegiance to culture. Reformer doesn't have such primitive luxury, Reformer's sight draws the humanitarian picture.
Abhijit Naskar (Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World)
The Reason Revolution has no formal leaders, no central planning, no headquarters, no founding documents, and no funding. It is an organic movement whose participants envision a better, more humanitarian world without religion. As our numbers and proportional representation increase, and as the supernaturalist theology of religionists arcs toward irrelevance, reason will overtake faith. It is only a matter of time.
Dan Dana (The Reason Revolution: Atheism, Secular Humanism, and the Collapse of Religion (Atheism and Secular Humanism))
Be the paradigm-breaking anomaly, That elevates all of humankind. Be the epoch-shattering anchor, That tethers time to light.
Abhijit Naskar (Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World)
A thousand years from now, there'll be no trace of your millions of followers. But my words will keep burning bright as the sun, lighting the course of assimilation generation after generation.
Abhijit Naskar (Her Insan Ailem: Everyone is Family, Everywhere is Home)
Ben seni rahat etmeye gelmedim, Ben seni berbat etmeye geldim. I have come to destroy every last trace of the prehistoric you, so that a new human can usher into a new world - a kind world, a curious world, a human world.
Abhijit Naskar (Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo)
The world can never heal unless a handful of bravehearts are ready to bleed.
Abhijit Naskar (The Centurion Sermon: Mental Por El Mundo)
Let the world bathe in your light, let them learn to love in your sight, let them learn to live in your might.
Abhijit Naskar (Servitude is Sanctitude)
Leaders are not to reason why, leaders are to do or die.
Abhijit Naskar (No Foreigner Only Family)
Here are the ominous parallels. Our universities are strongholds of German philosophy disseminating every key idea of the post-Kantian axis, down by now to old-world racism and romanticist technology-hatred. Our culture is modernism worn-out but recycled, with heavy infusions of such Weimarian blends as astrology and Marx, or Freud and Dada, or “humanitarianism” and horror-worship, along with five decades of corruption built on this kind of base. Our youth activists, those reared on the latest viewpoints at the best universities, are the pre-Hitler youth movement resurrected (this time mostly on the political left and addicted to drugs). Our political parties are the Weimar coalition over again, offering the same pressure-group pragmatism, and the same kind of contradiction between their Enlightenment antecedents and their statist commitments. The liberals, more anti-ideological than the moderate German left, have given up even talking about long-range plans and demand more controls as a matter of routine, on a purely ad hoc basis. The conservatives, much less confident than the nationalist German right, are conniving at this routine and apologizing for the remnants of their own tradition, capitalism (because of its clash with the altruist ethics)—while demanding government intervention in or control over the realms of morality, religion, sex, literature, education, science. Each of these groups, observing the authoritarian element in the other, accuses it of Fascist tendencies; the charge is true on both sides. Each group, like its Weimar counterpart, is contributing to the same result: the atmosphere of chronic crisis, and the kinds of controls, inherent in an advanced mixed economy. The result of this result, as in Germany, is the growth of national bewilderment or despair, and of the governmental apparatus necessary for dictatorship. In America, the idea of public ownership of the means of production is a dead issue. Our intellectual and political leaders are content to retain the forms of private property, with public control over its use and disposal. This means: in regard to economic issues, the country’s leadership is working to achieve not the communist version of dictatorship, but the Nazi version. Throughout its history, in every important cultural and political area, the United States, thanks to its distinctive base, always lagged behind the destructive trends of Germany and of the rest of the modern world. We are catching up now. We are still the freest country on earth. There is no totalitarian (or even openly socialist) party of any size here, no avowed candidate for the office of Führer, no economic or political catastrophe sufficient to make such a party or man possible—so far—and few zealots of collectivism left to urge an ever faster pursuit of national suicide. We are drifting to the future, not moving purposefully. But we are drifting as Germany moved, in the same direction, for the same kind of reason.
Leonard Peikoff (The Ominous Parallels)
I still have a long way to go with my heart bleeding in agony and my feet burning and trembling in tiredness, but still I shall not stop till every single human on earth realizes in the very core of their being that they are humans above everything else.
Abhijit Naskar (Saint of The Sapiens)
In 378, the emperor Valens confronted roving war bands of Germanic Goths at Adrianople near Constantinople. With a massive cavalry charge, the Goths shattered Valens’s army and killed the emperor. It was a disaster of the first order.28 The capital managed to shut its gates against the German invader. However, the price of the Eastern Empire’s survival was the loss of the West. One Germanic tribe after another—Goths, Vandals, Franks, Allemanni, Burgundians—shot westward through the Balkans, overrunning the Rhine frontier and the Roman provinces on the other side, including Italy. The basic framework of imperial government, like the Roman road system dating back to Caesar Augustus, collapsed under the strain. So did law and order. Only the Church held firm. In virtually every town, starting with Rome itself, its leaders became symbols of resistance. Like the young Genovefa (later canonized Saint Genevieve) in Paris, they rallied citizens to stand fast and defend their cities; like Pope Leo I with Attila the Hun, they struck deals with the invaders to spare their congregations. When negotiations failed they organized humanitarian relief for the devastated areas and offered words of comfort and hope when everything looked its bleakest. The Catholic bishop became the one upholder of a social and cultural order to which the people living in his diocese, including pagans, could still cling.
Arthur Herman (The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization)
For fear to take hold of you, it needs to be given room to run in your mind. As a leader, all the room in your mind is taken up by a focus on your men.
Eric Greitens (The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL)
There is only one anthem for the leader - for the lionhearted builder of world - sacrifice.
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
Either I'll lift the world or perish in the attempt.
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
Even if you are retired, you still have a responsibility to be a servant leader in society. Your talents are needed in the community. Live on purpose. Thrive, give back, and make a difference where you are.
Germany Kent
If you want to lead, help others to live.
Abhijit Naskar (When Veins Ignite: Either Integration or Degradation)
Even before the first Soviet tanks crossed into Afghanistan in 1979, a movement of Islamists had sprung up nationwide in opposition to the Communist state. They were, at first, city-bound intellectuals, university students and professors with limited countryside appeal. But under unrelenting Soviet brutality they began to forge alliances with rural tribal leaders and clerics. The resulting Islamist insurgents—the mujahedeen—became proxies in a Cold War battle, with the Soviet Union on one side and the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia on the other. As the Soviets propped up the Afghan government, the CIA and other intelligence agencies funneled millions of dollars in aid to the mujahedeen, along with crate after crate of weaponry. In the process, traditional hierarchies came radically undone. When the Communists killed hundreds of tribal leaders and landlords, young men of more humble backgrounds used CIA money and arms to form a new warrior elite in their place. In the West, we would call such men “warlords.” In Afghanistan they are usually labeled “commanders.” Whatever the term, they represented a phenomenon previously unknown in Afghan history. Now, each valley and district had its own mujahedeen commanders, all fighting to free the country from Soviet rule but ultimately subservient to the CIA’s guns and money. The war revolutionized the very core of rural culture. With Afghan schools destroyed, millions of boys were instead educated across the border in Pakistani madrassas, or religious seminaries, where they were fed an extreme, violence-laden version of Islam. Looking to keep the war fueled, Washington—where the prevailing ethos was to bleed the Russians until the last Afghan—financed textbooks for schoolchildren in refugee camps festooned with illustrations of Kalashnikovs, swords, and overturned tanks. One edition declared: Jihad is a kind of war that Muslims fight in the name of God to free Muslims.… If infidels invade, jihad is the obligation of every Muslim. An American text designed to teach children Farsi: Tey [is for] Tofang (rifle); Javed obtains rifles for the mujahedeen Jeem [is for] Jihad; Jihad is an obligation. My mom went to the jihad. The cult of martyrdom, the veneration of jihad, the casting of music and cinema as sinful—once heard only from the pulpits of a few zealots—now became the common vocabulary of resistance nationwide. The US-backed mujahedeen branded those supporting the Communist government, or even simply refusing to pick sides, as “infidels,” and justified the killing of civilians by labeling them apostates. They waged assassination campaigns against professors and civil servants, bombed movie theaters, and kidnapped humanitarian workers. They sabotaged basic infrastructure and even razed schools and clinics. With foreign backing, the Afghan resistance eventually proved too much for the Russians. The last Soviet troops withdrew in 1989, leaving a battered nation, a tottering government that was Communist in name only, and a countryside in the sway of the commanders. For three long years following the withdrawal, the CIA kept the weapons and money flowing to the mujahedeen, while working to block any peace deal between them and the Soviet-funded government. The CIA and Pakistan’s spy agency pushed the rebels to shell Afghan cities still under government control, including a major assault on the eastern city of Jalalabad that flattened whole neighborhoods. As long as Soviet patronage continued though, the government withstood the onslaught. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, however, Moscow and Washington agreed to cease all aid to their respective proxies. Within months, the Afghan government crumbled. The question of who would fill the vacuum, who would build a new state, has not been fully resolved to this day.
Anand Gopal
Live as a lamp, not a lamb.
Abhijit Naskar (Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood)
You are the God, you are the King, you are Queen Mother of the living. Yours is not to pamper puritanical pests, yours is to rise and roar, o citizen of dream.
Abhijit Naskar (Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim)