Political Activists

"If I win, you will gain. So you will have to bear all my election expenses. I will not spend a single taka from my own pocket here and I will not use a single taka from your money for my personal expenses. Exactly 25 lakh taka is required to run the election campaign. I have also opened bank accounts, bKash, Nagad, Rocket numbers. You will have to pay the entire 25 lakh. In the first 10 days of this December, people have sent me money in various ways and means. The amount is 6 lakh 24 thousand 880 taka. Since the start of the election campaign till December 10, I have received a total of 21 lakh 65 thousand 292 taka from the public"

"21-day account of donations sent by supporters: From November 7 to November 30, his election campaign received 13 lakh 31 thousand 557 taka in bank account; 1 lakh 98 thousand 989 taka in bKash; 6 thousand 28 taka in cash; 3 thousand 838 taka in Rocket. In total, a total of 15 lakh 40 thousand 412 taka has been deposited. After the election, the full account, including bank statements, will be published, maintaining the confidentiality of donors."

"Awami League, killer league, millitant-terrorist League, their birth in India will also be in India. This is why our language has become bad, looking at the blood of July, there is no such disgusting language, people did not apply it to Sheikh Hasina. Because the abuse of the oppressed against the mass murderer has become his epic. Now again some intellectuals are standing up, you slang them, then what will we give them, kiss? Bring me Hasina, we will give her a kiss.. Bustard.. Now our boys who are giving the f*ckin' slangs with her like chudling pong fong, by saying naraye takbir, she is supposed to slang them, but she is not giving it, she is not supposed to be that good at this age.. how strange it is..."

"I have slanged many times, I will not do it again, I repent, I want to leave, I have a son of my own, now there is an age coming, there is a stage of slang, but even if I don't give in, now there is a stage where not giving slang becomes a sin..."

"Get ready for a heart attack soon. Five Indian fishermen rammed to death by Kanglu (Bangladesh) navy; there will be a cost, a much bigger one."

"The people of this country want Zakir Naik, invite him, and they that he should be handed over to India; after 15 years of hiding and murder, the murderer (Sheikh Hasina) go to sleep in India, but they don't return the murderer, while they ask us to hand Zakir Naik over to them, what a shame, what a third-class state!"

"Ponderalo (Ponder (anus) + Alo, a sarcastic name for Prothom Alo) calls it a 'movement' in July. If it calls it a 'mass uprising', Delhi will stop all Dhonesan (Dhon (slang for penis) + Ashan, a sarcastic pronunciation of donation)."

"Sajeeb Wazed Joy should be fired and his eyes should be opened and his hands should be touched, let him see what kind of bloodshed happens in the heart of a mother when she plucks out her child's eyes. This procession goes to Karwan Bazar and says Joy and goes to Jatrabari and says Bangla. Sajeeb Wazed Joy, it's not even right to call it a name, its name is Autistic Joy."

"These so called people of civil society should be fed to the crows by tearing their ugly thing."

"I want you to bear witness that I die as a Soldier of the Irish Republic."

"If I die the fruit will exceed the cost a thousand fold. The thought of it makes me happy. I thank God for it."

"I am confident that my death will do more to smash the British Empire than my release."

"He is an ambitious fellow, but I don’t think he was really passionate about sports."

"I will be asking them to waste their vote. It would have been nice to have an African (FIFA) president though, but I think it’s too late for him,"

"In a physical contest on the field of battle it is allowable to use tactics and strategy, to retreat as well as advance, to have recourse to a ruse as well as open attack; but in matters of principle there can be no tactics, there is one straightforward course to follow, and that course must be found and followed without swerving to the end."

"Opposition parties will not take over a government while divided. Batswana need united opposition parties. I don’t think it will be wise for any party to move out of the UDC. What is very important is for all the two parties to agree to involve a neutral mediator to help them solve their differences within the UDC. They all need to swallow their pride and look at the bigger picture"

"It is not those who can inflict the most but those that can suffer the most who will conquer."

"That's a great question to ask here in America. Because there were times when people didn't believe that women are capable to be leaders at all."

"Look, this is-- I think it's an American, very old saying that suggests that wolves have teeth, but not all animals with teeth are wolves. You cannot judge a person based on appearance."

"But this is exactly the same. How can one judge me and say what, I was too smart for my age? I think that is what is praised in America. When a young person takes his or her destiny in his own hands and fights."

"You take my dress and give me your trousers. You men are cowards. Our leader is in there. Let's get him."

"I want to vote... I want to vote because I can't stand them anymore... I can't stand them anymore! [...] It's thanks to the Five Star Movement that there isn't... we have channelled participation into beautiful, beautiful democratic paths! [...] I want citizens to vote!"

"(Addressed to the Renzi Government) With this agenda, which you consider populism and we consider practicality, we demand that Members of Parliament earn €5,000 gross, or approximately €3,100 net per month, which is more than enough to live a dignified life. [...] This is a different idea that we have of the country compared to you. Don't complain, though, if you no longer have consensus, don't complain if Renzi has to be defended by his security detail every day, he who said, “the people defend me”, but perhaps meant “the agent”. Don't complain anymore if they throw manure at you – and we condemn this, for God's sake – if they don't let you enter a square without bodyguards. Don't complain! We walk with our heads held high and carry on with this battle. We ask you to be part of this project, to allocate this money to small and medium-sized enterprises, because doing your duty improves the quality of life. If you want to do it well, otherwise you take responsibility, but know that when we are in those seats, as the governing force, the first thing we will do in a single day will be this cut, and seeing you as the minority that day will be a pleasure."

"The problem, and I don't know if Italians are aware of this, is that today the Bank of Italy, which is supposed to supervise private banks and prevent them from failing, is no longer a public bank, because it is controlled by the very private banks it is supposed to supervise."

"(After the announcement of Maurizio Lupi's resignation from his position as Minister of Infrastructure and Transports) Do you know what corruption means? It means breaking into many pieces. Corruption has broken this country into many pieces, crumbling it and guaranteeing abundant feeding troughs for a few and crumbs for everyone else. Corruption has produced cancer in the “land of fires” and the abandonment of Italy by its best young people; it has caused sleepless nights for fathers who do not know how to pay for their children's studies, panic attacks for recent graduates who do not know how to find work. Corruption has produced the tragedy of entrepreneurs who would rather hang themselves than tell anyone they are going bankrupt, and the tears of sick people forced to wait months to find a bed in a hospital. Corruption has turned Italy into a jungle where criminals obtain contracts, million-pound bank accounts, dream homes and luxury boats moored on the coasts of Liguria, Sardinia or in some port in the Gargano. Liguria, Sardinia and the Gargano, where thousands of Italians wait for crumbs from a corrupt state that cannot even protect them from the rain."

"If the poor or migrants were banks, you would have already saved them."

"I would like Boschi to remain in government, firmly entrenched in her position, so that the PD loses votes."

"(Addressed to the MPs of the Democratic Party) I would like to remind you that the Five Star Movement does not receive a single euro of public funding for political parties. Zero! What you have screwed up, and you are not even able to pay for the party headquarters in Rome. And tell that freeloader Orfini to cough up the money. Secondly, we want to know how much money the criminal Buzzi gave to the Democratic Party through Mafia Capitale and whether he was present at your fundraising dinners. Until you answer, shut up."

"Travelling is an investment in happiness."

"Berlusconi is angry with the Five Star Movement because our anti-corruption law is emptying his party."

"We should stop considering terrorists as inhuman beings with whom it is not even worth engaging in discussion. This is a complex but decisive point. In the era of drones and total arms imbalance, terrorism is, unfortunately, the only violent weapon left to those who rebel. [...] If my village is bombed by a remote-controlled aircraft, I have only one way to defend myself apart from non-violent techniques, which are the best: to load myself with explosives and blow myself up in a underground station. I am neither justifying nor approving this, far from it. I am trying to understand. Due to their nature as subjects who respond to violent actions against them, terrorists cannot be defeated by sending more drones, but by elevating them to the status of interlocutors. This is a difficult but necessary task, otherwise the phenomenon will only grow."

"It is important for us to identify a common enemy today, and that enemy is centralised power: a sort of centralised, Northern European Nazism that is destroying us. They are creating – with the Jobs Act and the TTIP, among other things – a sort of Walmart generation, or 300 euro generation, which will produce more and more slaves. They essentially want to colonise Southern Europe."

"Nigeria, go to Wikipedia: 60% of the territory is in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists from Boko Haram, the rest is Ebola."

"[...] we know perfectly well that war exists solely and exclusively for economic interests, which are always the same, and that it is always a small number of people who determine the choices of entire populations!"

"(Addressed to Minister Gentiloni, on possible military intervention in Libya) A sovereign country, Minister Gentiloni, tells the truth even if it is uncomfortable, it is not something you can hide under the carpet, sweeping it under the rug and trying, as always, to tell convenient lies, as if it were methadone that you give to a public opinion that is in fact dormant, anaesthetised, accustomed to everything."

"Italy should treat terrorism like cancer. Cancer is fought by eliminating its causes, not by dealing exclusively with its effects."

"We must not go to war in Libya because if we go to war in Libya, the only result we will achieve is to reunite terrorist factions, tribes and counter-tribes, all against Italy, which has already betrayed them once and a second betrayal would never be forgiven. So, if you want another Vietnam, go to Libya, the responsibility will be yours alone, otherwise we should not go to war in Libya, especially if there is no government of national unity."

"In this Parliament, even as subjects of the United States of America, the concept of “preventive war” has been theorised and endorsed, which is an international disgrace that has caused damage in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and everywhere else. Today, you are moving from the concept of preventive war to war “without the knowledge of the Italian people”, all without their knowledge, and we do not trust the words of the Prime Minister, who has always contradicted himself. We cannot trust your words either, but we do trust the Italian people, who are more alert than you and who know that this war would be yet another infamous war and could lead to a new Vietnam. The Italian people do not want this war."

"The day the Five Star Movement (but that will never happen) were to form an alliance with the parties responsible for the destruction of Italy, I would leave the Five Star Movement."

"You yourselves have now become victims of a certain system because you no longer have the slightest freedom to oppose financial capitalism. Why? Because the “bankocracy” has effectively placed its people within the institutions, which is why, in the last four years alone, dozens of decrees have been passed in favour of private banks and no decrees in favour of citizens who are suffering."

"(About Isis) We know perfectly well who finances them, how they are financed, which war industries help them, who gives them money, but we cannot intervene because our hands are tied, because we were put there by the same powerful forces that control these international trafficking operations. It is called a conflict of interest; you are regularly in conflict of interest and never act in the interests of the Italian people. [...] If the first casualty of war is truth, the barrage of lies that are told daily about the Libyan issue show us that we are at war, and the Five Star Movement will oppose this war in every way possible."

"What is the difference today between the PD and a bank? Banks manage our money in a murky way, just like the parties that have pocketed billions in public funding by changing the name to “electoral reimbursements”. Banks then sell toxic products, taking the piss out of citizens by saying ‘don't worry, this bond is safe’, and then many people have lost all their savings. And isn't the PD doing the same thing? Isn't it selling toxic products and passing them off as safe? Isn't the Jobs Act a toxic product? Aren't the “Good School” and Bail-In toxic products? Isn't the constitutional reform made by Renzi-Boschi-Verdini a toxic product? Isn't Renzi taking us for a ride when he says, “We will abolish Equitalia”? The M5S presented the law to abolish Equitalia in Parliament, and the PD rejected it."

"I can't manage to be completely vegetarian. I can give up meat for months, but then I inevitably fall back into old habits. Nevertheless, I have reduced my consumption considerably, which is good from a physical, mental and political point of view. Physically, because eating less meat makes you feel better; mentally, because eating dead animals is not good for the soul; and politically, because the social and economic consequences of meat abuse are unimaginable. [...] Eating less meat is a political choice that each of us must make. It is difficult, at least for me it is, and that is precisely why legislators (the M5S environment and agriculture committees are addressing the issue with various bills) must urgently address the issue."

"The M5S is a phase of my life that is now over, but if they were to come back into favour, it would depend on the Movement's political agenda. Clearly, the battles that were a priority for me were not a priority for others. I consider myself a political activist. Leaving the M5S has given me a freedom that I did not have before. I believe it is my duty and right to exercise that freedom and to take political positions that are often and willingly contrary. [...] I realised that almost no one on television has the courage to take a clear stance in favour of the Palestinian people because there is a conformism that does not even exist in the United States. [...] Israel's policy towards the Palestinians is a policy of apartheid. To date, there are no two states, Letta says, but because he does not know what to say, he does not have the courage to take a stand. Didn't Foreign Minister Di Maio do the same? I told him publicly that I disagree with the Movement's foreign policy. If I were part of the Italian institutions today, I would immediately recognise the State of Palestine. There was more freedom among politicians in the first Republic than there is now."

"Responding to ‘Do you intend to found your own party?’ I haven't thought about it yet. To those who tell me to return to the M5S, I reply that I would only sit down at the table if they left the Draghi government.[...] If it does not return to political battles, it risks becoming nothing more than a party of power."

"Behind Gianroberto Casaleggio there is only Gianroberto Casaleggio. An ordinary citizen who, with his work and his (limited) resources, seeks, without any public or private funding, perhaps deluding himself, sometimes even making mistakes, to improve the society in which he lives."

"I am here. I am here, that is my name. Beppe Grillo and I are on the same level. Whether I write or he writes, it does not matter. We are the founders of the ive Star Movement. This happened yesterday morning. Neither I nor Beppe Grillo have ever drawn up lists for municipal and regional elections. Neither I nor Beppe Grillo have ever written a municipal or regional programme. Neither I nor Beppe Grillo have ever given instructions for council votes, nor infiltrated people into the Five Star Movement."

"An idea is neither right-wing nor left-wing. It is an idea, good or bad."

"Show me a modern politician who doesn't understand the internet, and I'll show you a loser.ù"

"Every time you break a rule, you practically cancel it out."