Political Activists

"I have been considering this move [to leave EDL] for a long time because I recognise that, though street demonstrations have brought us to this point, they are no longer productive. I acknowledge the dangers of far-right extremism and the ongoing need to counter Islamist ideology not with violence but with better, democratic ideas."

"I apologise for the fact that what I've represented and said has not resonated individually with Muslims. From day one in the English Defence League, we've wanted to embrace everyone: all colours and all creeds."

"Previous prime ministers, be it William Gladstone who said, 'There will never be peace on this earth as long as we have the Koran, it's an accursed and violent book.' Then we have Winston Churchill who said, 'Islam in a man is like rabies in a dog.' And then we have David Cameron, who says Islam is a religion of peace. What's changed? Because the Koran] hasn't changed."

"Since last night I've had countless threats to cut my head off. I have [contacted] police over 200 death threats. No arrests."

"Non-Muslim working-class communities do not have a voice. It's not going to end pretty. There is a massive undercurrent of anger across this country."

"Islam is not a religion of peace. Islam is fascist and it's violent and we've had enough! They're chopping our soldiers' heads off. This is Islam. That's what we've seen today. They've cut off one of our army's heads off on the streets of London. Our next generation are being taught through schools that Islam is a religion of peace. It's not. It never has been. What you saw today is Islam. Everyone's had enough. There has to be a reaction, for the government to listen, for the police to listen, to understand how angry this British public are."

"I'd stop the building of mosques in this country until Islam reforms in such a way and works in this country with Western democracy and freedom."

"As a father, I have serious concerns about what life will be like for my kids, if I'm even here. Am I scared of the death threats, and people who want to kill me and the attacks against me, etc? Yeah, I am. Of course, I am. I wouldn't be human if I wasn't. But I am terrified for the entire next generation of this country, and its history, its culture, its identity – it's all under attack."

"I made sure that extremists were never allowed into that party. [...] They then got a leader that thought Tommy Robinson was the great saviour of this country. Now, he might be a working class hero to some but I'm afraid the truth of it is he's an out of control yob. He's been in prison four times for four separate offences. When you get someone like that involved in a political party, their fortunes will literally fall off a cliff and I warned them, and I warned them, and I warned them."

"We need strong leadership, not cowards who are begging petrol dollars and wanting a block Islamic vote. We need a leader not an appeaser. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. Stand up for what u believe. Never be intimidated by anyone #english #nosurrender."

"Every single Muslim watching this... on 7/7 you got away with killing and maiming British citizens... you had better understand that we have built a network from one end of the country to the other end... and the Islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our British citizens killed, maimed, or hurt on British soil ever again."

"We stand against extremism and we condemn all acts of violence but at the same time you have to give people in our community that are concerned about the threat of Islam, which is a genuine threat, you have to give them an opportunity to have a voice. I share the same fact that Islam is a threat but we completely condemn any acts of violence against innocent people. What has happened over there (Norway) is horrific and will be remembered for the rest of eternity as a disgusting, deranged attack."

"Phil Kemp: Are you non-violent then?"

"You knew perfectly well that you were not welcome in the United States. You knew that because you tried before and you had not got in, and you knew the reason for that - because, rightly or wrongly, the US authorities do not welcome people in their country who have convictions of the kind that you have. With that full knowledge, you equipped yourself with a passport. I am told that it was given you by way of a loan from your friend Andrew McMaster, to which you bore, I am told, some resemblance. And by use of that passport you did what you could to get into the United States. [...] What you did went absolutely to the heart of the immigration controls that the United States are entitled to have. Had it been known in this country that you were proposing to leave under a false passport, you would not have been accepted on to the plane and you would not have been permitted to leave this country on a false passport. It's not in any sense trivial."

"In the past decade, there has been some fascinating research on the brains of transgender people. What is most remarkable about this work is not that trans women’s brains have been found to resemble those of cisgender women, or that trans men’s brains resemble those of cis men. What the research has found is that the brains of trans people are unique: neither female nor male, exactly, but something distinct."

"But what does that mean, a male brain, or a female brain, or even a transgender one? It’s a fraught topic, because brains are a collection of characteristics, rather than a binary classification of either/or."

"And yet scientists continue to study the brain in hopes of understanding whether a sense of the gendered self can, at least in part, be the result of neurology. A study described by author Francine Russo in Scientific American examined the brains of 39 prepubertal and 41 adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria. The experiment examined how these children responded to androstadienone, a pungent substance similar to pheromones, that is known to cause a different response in the brains of men and women. The study found that adolescent boys and girls who described themselves as trans responded like the peers of their perceived gender. (The results were less clear with prepubescent children.)"

"Gender is many things, but one thing it is surely not is a hobby."

"You know, don’t you, that no amount of wishing that this were not the case can make it not the case. No amount of praying that you are not transgendered will make you something other than what you are. No amount of love from anyone will make you fit inside a body that does not match your spirit."

"The Tank Man represents the independence and the liberties. Now I call him a hero, but today who are our "heroes"? I mean, from the media? They're always people in our military who have killed a lot of other people: the people who are great sharpshooters, the people who drop bombs, the people who run drone missiles. And they never get criticised in the major media for killing innocents. But they become "hero." Everybody that has a uniform now is a "hero." But what about somebody who wants to tell the truth? What if you have an Edward Snowden who finally speaks out and talks about the truth? He becomes a "traitor" in their eyes. I call Edward Snowden a true hero like the Tank Man."

"Twenty years ago, on June 5, 1989, following weeks of huge protests in Beijing and a crackdown that resulted in the deaths of hundreds, a lone man stepped in front of a column of tanks rumbling past Tiananmen Square. The moment instantly became a symbol of the protests as well as a symbol against oppression worldwide — an anonymous act of defiance seared into our collective consciousnesses."

"On June 5th, 1989 one individual had enough of the oppression he and others had long-endured from one of the biggest and most ruthless gangs ever to exist. Left with few other options after decades of rights-usurpations, the man stood up to the aggressors and very literally put his life on the line by standing in front of a column of tanks. Though never identified with absolute certainty, he became known as The Tank Man."

"He risked a good and honorable death to stand up nonviolently for what is right."

"Go back! Turn around! Stop killing my people!"

"I don't think this man was killed by the tank. I can't confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not. I think that he was never killed."

"Why are you here? My city is in chaos because of you!"

"He was never arrested. I don't know where he is now."

"By putting his life on the line in front of his government's tanks, he provided not only one of the most memorable images of the last 35 years but one of the most inspiring too. The free China of the future owes him a statue or two."

"Putin's system is much weaker than it seems."

"It was also in May that Putin as inaugurated for his third term as president. We know now that the crackdown that has characterized his third term began with the arrest of Pussy Riot. We also know that the August 2012 trial of Pussy Riot drew the lines in the culture war that Putin has launched."

"This man thinks that if you sing and dance in an inappropriate way you get two years in prison!"

"Thank you Madonna! Thank you Red Hot Chili Peppers! Thank you Björk! Thank you Green Day! And a gigantic punk feminist thank you to all musicians, activists, to everyone around the world who have stood up together to fight for our right to be free. Start the Pussy Riot! And never stop! The fight for freedom is an endless battle that is bigger than life."

"This man think that you can’t criticise your government."

"Pussy Riot – Vladimir Putin Message. This man thinks that if you sing and dance in an inappropriate way you get two years in prison!"

"We’ve been fighting for the right to sing, to think, to criticise. To be musicians and artists, ready to do everything to change our country, no matter the risks. We go on with our musical fight in Russia and our country is dominated by evil man. These men think its illegal to call yourself a feminist and to sing Punk music"

"This man thinks it’s illegal to stand up for the right of the gay and lesbian community."

"When we were jailed, Pussy Riot immediately became very popular and widely known, and it turned from just a group to essentially an international movement. Anybody can be Pussy Riot, you just need to put on a mask and stage an active protest of something in your particular country, wherever that may be, that you consider unjust. And we’re not here as the leaders of Pussy Riot or determining what Pussy Riot is and what it does or what it says. We are just two individuals that spent two years in jail for taking part in a Pussy Riot protest action."

"It's not a question of courage, it's a question of your development. Everything interesting begins with conflict."

"I am no believer in foreign propaganda as it is commonly understood, i.e., in the sense of establishing an agency or even sending peripatetic deputations. But the foreign propaganda that Sarojini Devi would carry on during her tour in the West would be the propaganda that would tell more than anything that could be done by an established agency whose very existence would be unknown to the indifferent and would be ignored by those whose opinion would matter to us. Not so India's Nightingale. She is known to the West. She would compel a hearing wherever she goes. She adds to her great eloquence and greater poetry a delicate sense of the true diplomacy that knows what to say and when to say it and that knows how to say the truth without hurting. We have every reason to expect much from her mission to the West. With the instinct of a gentlewoman she has gone with the resolution not to enter upon a direct refutation of Miss Mayo's insolent libel. Her presence and her exposition of what India is and means to her would be a complete answer to all the untruth that has been dinned into the ready ears of the American public by agencies whose aim is to belittle India and all that is Indian."

"Is not just a faded echo of the feeble voice of decadent romanticism but an authentic Indian English utterance exquisitely tuned to the composite to Indian ethos, bringing home to the unbiased reader all the opulence, pageantry and charm of Indian life, and the spenders of Indian scene."

"She intimately knows more Mussalmans than I do. She has access to their hearts, which I cannot pretend to. Add to these qualifications her sex, which is her strongest qualification in which no man can approach her. For peace-making is woman's special prerogative. Sarojini Devi has deliberately cultivated that special quality of her sex. She showed it to perfection at the time of the disgraceful rioting in Bombay in 1921. Her personal bravery and her tireless energy had become infectious. Wherever she went, the rioters laid down their arms. She has been a veritable angel of peace in East Africa and South Africa. The best welcome India can extend to her is to pray that God may give her the strength to continue her mission of peace and that she may become an indissoluble cement between the two communities. May the so-called weaker sex succeed where we, the so-called stronger sex, have failed."

"Sarojini Naidu writes instant poetry where images and metaphors come rolling ready on the hot plates of imagination. Her poetry is intensely emotionally, at times passionate to the point of eroticism and always has a spring."

"Stand here with me...with the stars and hills as witness and in their presence consecrate your life and talent, your song and your speech, your thought and your dream, to the motherland. O poet see visions from hill –tops and spread abroad the message of hope to the toilers of the valleys."

"God presses not pride but humility in His service. Man knows how to destroy, it is woman`s prerogative to construct. May Sarojini be the instrument in God`s hands for constructing real unity between Hindus and Mussalmans."

"Her work has a real beauty Some of her lyrical work is likely, I think, to survive among the lasting things in English literature and by these, even if they are fine rather than great, she may take her rank among the immortals."

"Stand here with me with the stars and hills for witness and in their presence consecrate your life and your talent, your song and your speech, your thought and your dream to the Motherland. O Poet, see visions from the hill tops and spreads abroad the message of hope to the toilers in the valley."

"Awake Hindus: Mother! The flowers of our worship have crowned thee! Parsees: Mother! The flame of our hope shall surround you Mussulmans: Mother! The sword of our love shall defend thee Christians: Mother! The song of thy faith shall attend thee All creeds: Shall not our dauntless devotion avail thee? Harken! O Queen O!goddess, we hail thee!"

"Having traveled, having conceived, having hoped, having enlarged my love, having widened my sympathies, having come into contact with different races, different communities, different religions, different civilizations, friends, my vision is clear. I have no prejudice of race, creed, caste, or colour.... Until you students have acquired and mastered the spirit of brotherhood, do not believe it possible that you will ever cease to be sectarian... if I may use such word.... you will ever be national."

"I am not ready to die because it requires infinitely higher courage to live."

"Caprice You held a wild flower in your finger -tips, Idly you pressed it to indifferent lips, Idly you tore its crimson leaves apart... Alas! It was my heart You held wine-cup in your finger-tips, Lightly you raised it to indifferent lips, Lightly you drank and flung away the bowl…, Alas! It was my soul. Page 153"