Non Fiction Authors

"Nationalism in the hands of the post-colonial state degenerated into statism: politically authoritarian, economically rapacious, internationally compradorial and nationally dictatorial. At best, the ideology of nationalism resolved into various ideologies of ; at worst it became ethnicism. The liberal constitutional order that the departing colonial masters bequeathed was a tragic joke, because it was superimposed on a despotic apparatus, which had been invented, strengthened and bequeathed by the colonial master. The despotic infrastructure endured while the liberal superstructure blew off into the winds of factional political struggles, or so-called development imperatives."

"African nationalism, as some of the fathers of African nationalism realised, is and must be pan-African. Pan-Africanism, they argue, is the nationalism of the era of globalisation; and only pan-Africanism can carry forward the struggle for national liberation in Africa. Without a pan-African vision, there is the danger that the resurgence of nationalism as a reaction to the new imperial assault could degenerate into narrow, parochial, nationalist chauvinism, even ethnicism and racism. But this new pan-Africanism must be a bottom-up people’s pan-Africanism, and not a top-down statist pan-Africanism. In the hands of the African state and its ‘leaders’, pan-Africanism will degenerate into ‘NEPAD-ism’, or phony African renaissance."

"NGO activism is presented and based on the ‘act now, think later’ mantra. Theory, and particularly grand theory, is dismissed as academicism, unworthy of activists. Yet, we know, that every practice gives rise to theory and that every action is based on some theoretical or philosophical premise or outlook. NGO action is also based on certain theoretical premises and philosophical outlooks. In their case however, theory is written off as ‘common sense’ and therefore not interrogated. [...] The ‘common sense’ theoretical assumption of the current period underpinning NGO roles and actions is neoliberalism in the interest of global imperialism. It is fundamentally contrary to the interests of the large majority of the people."

"We activists are not in the business of brokering power where expediency and compromise rule. Our business is to resist and expose the ugly face of power. We are guided and our work is informed by deeply held human values and causes. It seems to me that consistency of principles and commitment to humanity should inform all our work, thought, activism and advocacy."

"How can you make poverty history without understanding the history of poverty? We need to know how the poverty of the five billion of this world came about. Even more acutely, we need to know how the filthy wealth of the 500 multinationals or the 225 richest people was created. We need to know precisely how this great divide, this unbridgeable chasm, is maintained; how it reproduced itself, and how it is increasingly deepened and widened. We need to ask ourselves: What are the political, social, moral, ideological, economic and cultural mechanisms which produce, reinforce and make such a world not only possible, but seemingly acceptable?"

"Policy-making, an attribute of sovereignty for which the government of the day is supposedly accountable to its people."

"Needless to say, policy-making is a terrain of intense conflicts of interest, and has nothing neutral about it. The question is, as always, which interest is being served by a particular policy. A question about which there can be neither neutrality nor non-partisanship."

"The colonial infrastructure was the exact antithesis of a national economy. The only rationale behind individual African countries as loci of national independence was the fact that each one of them fell under the jurisdic tion of a different colonial power. In sum, the colonial rationale became the rationale of the national project: a contradiction in terms and a paradox. [...] The ideological genesis of lay in pan-Africanism. The locus of pan-Africanism was the continent itself, not the artificially created spaces bound by colonial borders called countries. Literally, therefore, pan-Africanism begat nationalism, rather than the other way round. Pan-Africanism preceded nationalism by almost half a century. Logic and history neatly coincided. The founding fathers of pan-Africanism were African-Americans, the , whose identity could only be African, and not Nigerian or Congolese or Kenyan. The leading lights of the independence movement – Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta – were incubated, conceived, propagated and organised in the pan-African movement by the likes of the great , W. E.B. DuBois and C. L. R. James."

"‘A better world is possible’ according to the NGO slogan. But to build a better world we must understand the world better."

"By 1885, when European kings, princes and presidents sat in Berlin to slice up the African continent with their geometrical instruments, the African people had already been devastated by the ravages of the West Atlantic slave trade. In West and Central Africa, the indigenous civilisations lay in ruins, from the sophisticated Saharan trade routes with at their centre, to the empires of . On the Eastern seaboard, the European invasion, led by the Portuguese, defeated and destroyed the city states of Swahili civilisation. All in all, some 40,000,000 souls are estimated to have perished in the triangular slave trade, which lasted for roughly four centuries, 1450–1850. The development of the European and North American industrial revolution and the global lead this gave to Europe and America was in no small measure built on the back of Africans. The colonial episode was thus the tail end of long and destructive contact between Europe and Africa. The slave trade tore apart the very social fabric of African societies, destroying their internal processes of change. It imposed on the continent a European worldview in which the peoples of Africa were at the lowest rung of the so-called civilised order. No other continent, including those that suffered formal European colonisation, had their social, cultural and moral order destroyed on this scale."

"Colonial and imperial history are at the heart of the present African condition. History is not about assigning or sharing blame. Nor it is about narrating the ‘past’, which must be forgotten and forgiven, or simply remembered once a year on remembrance of heroes or independence days. History is about the present. We must understand the present as history, so as to change it for the better; perforce, in the African context where the imperial project is not only historical, but the lived present. Just as we cannot ‘make poverty history’ without understanding the history of poverty, so we cannot chant ‘another world is possible’ without accurately understanding and correctly describing the existing world of five billion slaves and 200 slave masters. How did it come about and how does it continue to exist? Indeed to answer these questions, we must understand history as the philosophy and political economy that underpin the existing world and the vested interests – real social interests of real people – that ensure and defend its existence."

"Right from inception, the most important feature of colonialism was the division of the continent into countries and states cutting across ‘natural’ geographic, cultural ethnic and economic ties that had evolved historically. The consequences were thus. Boundaries were artificially drawn, with rulers literally reflecting the balance of strength and power among the imperial states. The boundaries divided up peoples, cultures, natural resources and historical affinities. Moreover, these newly created countries became subjects of different European powers with their own traditions of political rule, public administration, cultural outlooks, languages and systems of education. Africa was never Africa: it was Anglo-phone, Franco-phone, or Luso-phone."

"The underlying economic logic of the colonial economy was the exploitation of natural and human resources. Colonies became sites for generating surplus while the were sites of accumulation. The result was the development of the centres and the underdevelopment of the peripheries. Production processes relied heavily on coercion rather than on contractual consensus for reproduction: forced labour, forced peasant production, enforced cash-crop sales, restrictions on organisation and association and the criminalisation of ‘civil relations’."

"We do not judge the outcome of a process by the intentions of its authors. We aim to analyse the objective effects of actions, regardless of their intentions."

"On one side of the retaining wall were the dank, wonderful mangroves teaming with life; on the other side, sitting on landfill, were modern houses and manicured lawns. Why is it that building the Great Aussie Dream Home invariably involves destroying other creatures’ homes?"

"The wildlife follows the water."

"Everything seemed to be falling into place perfectly. That had to be a worry."

"As I settled into the sleeping bag in the back seat of the car, I revelled in the glorious stillness of the country at night. The first night away from the city you can feel the tension almost physically draining out of you as you gaze at the achingly beautiful sky and greedily inhale the invigorating fresh scent of the country."

"That was a pivotal moment in our relationship; that adolescent catharsis when you realise your parents cannot sustain you as they once did – the moment you leave the nest."

"The countdown clock tipped through to midnight and as the fireworks exploded, people erupted in a frenzy of cheering and drunken pashing. The Big Twitch was over. I was back in the real world. Looking around this world that I had turned my back on for a year, seeing the manic desperation of those around me to have a good time no matter what, suddenly my quest didn’t seem so absurd. In fact it seem to make more sense than any of the human behaviour I saw around me."

"When I hear of someone suffering a mental illness that causes them to be ridden with anxiety, socially isolated and prone to feelings of paranoia, I think, ‘yep, sounds like a twitcher to me.’"

"None of the locals I met could understand why I hadn’t immediately built on the land, the mentality being that if you weren’t putting your land to any discernible economic use then it was wasted land. Forget about aesthetics, forget about environmental values, unless you were running something on it, ploughing something into it or extracting something from it, then it was just a waste of space."

"I could see the same look of incomprehension on her face that my parents often wore: ‘this person cannot possibly be related to me.’"

"The Twitcher’s list is very democratic. Each bird counts as one tick. There are no extra points for beauty or rarity."

"Saying I was taking a year off to make a documentary seemed easier than saying I was spending a year birdwatching. In this society being a wanker is socially unacceptable. Filming yourself while being a wanker, however, seems perfectly legitimate."

"I remembered why I liked hanging out with the top rate twitchers – they might be freaks but they were awesomely brilliant freaks."

"There are a million ways to occupy your time on this planet. They are all pretty much absurd if you analyse them too closely. I chose twitching, one of the more outwardly absurd of them all I suppose but really no more ridiculous than anything else, yet that year of absurdity has had a profound effect on my life since."

"I was stained with a stigma that would take me the rest of school to shake for this was Homophobe High, where any difference was immediately stomped upon by that most conservative of bodies – the teenage peer group."

"Birding gave me the excuse to get out into the bush, to lose my self in the wider world of nature, detox my mind of everything that was going on. Without birdwatching who knows what sort of basket case I might have ended up? My God, I could even have become a lawyer."

"Actually, I think that is part of the appeal of birdwatching for me – you come away from an encounter with a bird with absolutely nothing tangible to show for it other than the memory of the experience and maybe a tick in your notebook. You indulge in the experience merely for the nature of the experience. It is conquering without violence, hunting without the kill."

"Cool people don’t bother becoming dictators; they’re too busy getting laid."

"The consequences of corruption are not reflected solely in the impoverishment of society and the state, but in the drastic decline in the trust of citizens in democratic institutions. In addition, corruption creates uncertainty and instability in the economy and has a negative impact on the level of investments."

"I am encouraged that my son let me know that life has been returning to China, more cars can be seen along the streets, as people start going to work, although the control is still rigorous. I am confident that you will overcome this."

"The success of the BRI lies in fully taking into consideration the political and cultural differences of various countries, and China will not collaborate with different countries in the same uniform mode. Instead, countries can negotiate with China from their own specific national condition."

"After more than a year since my election to the office of the President of Serbia and the appointment of the new government, which has rightly been subject to recent reconstruction, I am pleased to confirm that Serbia has unambiguously demonstrated an adherence to European values. I am pleased to note that this commitment by my country has been recognized by our international partners. In other words, Serbia has become a responsible, sincere and reliable partner, endeavouring to perceive problems realistically and approach solutions in a constructive and effective way in the spirit of dialogue and tolerance. We take pride in the visible results that we have achieved, despite the numerous challenges that Serbia has faced in the past."

"The consequences of climate change will only add to the tensions caused by stark inequalities across the world. In all fairness, imposing any limitations will have the strongest impact on the weakest - those who are yet to get their industry off the ground and improve the lives of their citizens. They need to be given an opportunity to grow."

"Scientists agree that the average global temperature will rise a few degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century. The severity of natural disasters will grow, as their frequency depends directly on the intensity of global warming. Not a single state, the size and economic growth notwithstanding, is immune to the whims of nature, which we "don't inherit from our ancestors, but borrow from our children.""

"We, the politicians, have to offer full support to research on the one hand, and a harmonized, coordinated response to climate change and extreme weather on the other. It is our first and foremost duty to plan and adjust the activities of the state and society to every possible scenario, including the worst of all possible cases."

"Nature has never deceived itself, but we tend to be in denial. Let's be honest, if for no other reason, then for our children; let's build self-respect by respecting the planet we harmed so seriously, and the earth, much cleaner and healthier when given to us to take care of..."

"I'm expecting Kosovo to declare independence. If they declare, we'll stop Kosovo Albanians coming to Serbia. We'll stop them traveling through Serbia. We won't recognize their passports ... we'll cut off the supply of goods to Kosovo."

"The independence of Kosovo has no base in international law. We won't take diplomatic action against any country that supports and respects the UN Security Council."

"The situation in the world is extremely complicated. And the position of Serbia is exclusively complicated. Sure, we were not able to follow it without the understanding from the Russian Federation regarding the efforts we have been undertaking in the attempts to keep the balance on the other side, too – in the West, by persuading them not to insist on breaking up relations with Russia, as this is not considered in the economic, or in political or in any other aspect."

"Serbia is a step away from a great opportunity, which I assure you we will not miss. We will use all our capacities to make Serbia a European country in every respect, in accordance with the basic values of the Council of Europe – the protection of human rights, the rule of law and democracy. Serbia is firmly committed to continue to co-operate, and to promote its relations, with the Council of Europe to reach such goals for the benefit of its citizens. I trust that we can count on your support along those lines."

"You can be at the same time both nationalist and pro-European, but I know this is difficult to explain to you in Europe because Serbian nationalism was always presented as something negative. But I love my country just like you love your country, and [I love] my people like you love your people."

"So under the pretext of fulfilling conditions for the European Union we are actually giving ourselves an opportunity to organise the country. I don’t want us to adopt laws [simply so they] will be approved by the European Union. I want them to be implemented, that they become part of everyday practice."

"We faced a dilemma regarding whether to be in a permanent conflict with the Albanians or to resolve this issue. We did not have too much power in our hands. We did have good arguments and justice on our side, but the international media supports the Albanians very openly. Over the years, our people were forced to leave Kosovo and if this was allowed to continue, we might wake up one day to find out that we have no more of our people there. That is why we have decided to raise the negotiations to the highest possible level and not to take off this territory that is Kosovo that is not fully under the power of Serbia anymore. In the same way we said to the Albanians there is no way to take Kosovo territory that is not under your power, and that is the northern part with the Serbian community. We ask for certain rights for this community. And now we are not waging war, we are negotiating."

"I am grateful to the citizens of Serbia for giving this chance to the government to do so much. But in foreign policy we will not change anything. We will do everything to be friends with all the countries in the world, both with those who have recognised and those who did not recognise the independence of Kosovo and Metohija, because we do understand that everyone leads their own country and people in the way they think is the best for their country and people."

"For seven years, we have been under the influence of Western Europe. We have done all that was asked of us by the West. That was our mistake. But the EU also made a mistake. They should have given us full membership straight away. Now we have a situation where the Russian Federation is recovering very well, and the EU is depending on Russia for gas. I think Serbia should be the place where Russian and Western power is balanced...."

"(What Mexican books deserve greater attention in the United States?) I read Spanish too slowly to have any expertise here. But I do love and admire the works of Elena Garro, Elena Poniatowska and Rosario Castellanos, and, most recently, Fernanda Melchor and Cristina Rivera Garza."

"(What moves you most in a work of literature?) I’m not yet the writer I aspire to be, but at my age, great books written by women over 60 give me hope. Diana Athill, Colette, Harriett Doerr, Marguerite Duras, Grace Paley, Elena Poniatowska, Jean Rhys, Mercé Rodoreda, to name but a few."