Social Activists

"We get our knowledge by balloon ascensions into the spiritual clouds for a few moments, and we are provided with parachutes to let us down easily again into the material world."

"Let us be tolerant, courteous, and just to each other...Let us be entirely free from personalities, and yet have freest discussions."

"If it were generally understood that Christianity and Mohammedanism were genuine daughters of Israel, we might hope for less unfilial treatment"

"Religion is the expression and evolution of the most divine thought that has ever burst into consciousness in the mind of man, revealing the soul, at one with the Soul of the Universe"

"At our Congress a minor tone resounded for the affliction of our co-religionists in Russia. The only answer to our prayers was a mournful echo of our own helplessness, and to-night our hearts go out to our fellow-beings in Armenia. Would we know the details of their suffering, let us read our own History, where torture, famine, and cold track with dead bodies our pilgrimage through the centuries. Let us hope for a time when the pure robe of Religion will no more be trailed in the dust to cover national sins, greed, and ambition."

"We, drops of blood from one great artery, who have come from distant homes"

"In all our efforts in the widest fields we must aim at the elevation of the home, that bulwark of society, remembering the standard established by our fore-fathers. We must train the children to love the higher things of life — the treasures that cannot be bought and sold — thus securing for them the consolations of thought-life that never fail."

"In the pages of history, in the lives of the heroes and heroines, the destinies and possibilities of a people are written. In them, we have been trying to discover ideals for ourselves, our daughters and granddaughters."

"woman's sphere is the whole wide world."

"Dr Mohamad, 65, who conducted an in-depth study on the migration of Kerala’s Muslims to radical path after 21 youths joined Islamic State territories in Afghanistan, feels that counter radicalisation efforts by the state have checked the problem effectively. “Less than 60 persons from Kerala have joined the IS, with another 100 from the Gulf. These numbers do not reflect the mindset of the majority of Muslims in Kerala. In fact, there is an effort by certain vested sects to brand Kerala as breeding ground of Islamic terror outfits to meet political targets. They paint the actions of a tiny section of people as the mindset of the community,” he points out. He adds that the fall of Afghanistan into hands of Taliban forces again triggers debate on the links between some of Kerala’s people with radical Islamic groups. “Gulf money, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the ban on SIMI led to the mushrooming of radical Islamic outfits in Kerala. Ex- SIMI members raised various platforms and recruited youths to serve their purpose,” he concluded."

"Interreligious dialogue has not yielded any meaningful results. It is time we tried something else."

"The attempt on the part of US to police freedom in other countries . . . amounts to violation of the sovereignty of other nations. While it is understandable that the US would want to undertake exercise of this kind, citizens of other nations cannot aid and abet this process without compromising their national pride and patriotism."

"We must add our voices to those who cry out that there is a standard below which we will not allow human beings to live, and that that standard is not at the freezing nor starving point....In a democracy all are responsible."

"“Islamic radicalisation is not a new phenomenon in Kerala, where Muslims account for 26.56 per cent of the total population or around 9 million people,” says Dr N.P. Hafis Mohamad, a sociologist and author based in Kozhikode. “When the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was established in 1977, a few students in Kerala joined it and the organisation had units in many campuses in the state. However, during the past four decades, only a tiny section within the community has opted for a radical path, while 99 per cent of Muslims in Kerala remained secular and contributed to the social-cultural-economic development of the state.”"

"Religion is needed in the world. Whatever may be said against its methods in the past, to-day with the light of science removing all superstition, it is capable of producing the very best. Religion is needed to strengthen and reinforce our moral and ethical leanings."

"A fuller knowledge of our History and Literature will bring to many faith and trust in the good of the world, the joy of living, content in attaining all the possibilities of our present existence — all fundamental principles of our religion."

"Let us realize the power of individuals, joined for good purposes."

"In basing their demands on a claim of justice-women are human beings; therefore they ought to possess all the rights and privileges of human beings-the anarchist-feminists refused to make any extravagant claims for social and political benefits that would flow from equality. But they thereby lost an opportunity to appeal to men on the grounds most likely to gain their attention, those of self-interest. The early feminists had faced the same problem and their arguments also had failed to win masculine support. As a result, the suffragists at the end of the century often felt it necessary to exploit their womanhood in an attempt to render feminism more palatable to men. Such tactics were unacceptable to the anarchist-feminists, but a few of them did try to persuade their male comrades that women's equality was essential to a radical platform. Gertrude B. Kelly, for example, argued that a successful revolution would depend on a commitment to feminism, contending that unless radical men began to take steps to end the oppression of women, their attempts to remake the world would end in failure. She agreed with her male comrades who said that there was "properly speaking no woman question as apart from the question of human right and human liberty." But men often used such statements to try to persuade women to mute their demands for sexual equality until after the liberation of the "people" had been accomplished, implying that while the concerns of male revolutionaries were by their very nature universal, those of women were at best parochial. Kelly, on the other hand, insisted that without sexual equality no liberation could take place. Men hurt themselves as well as women by their refusal to recognize this: "No wrong can be done to any class in society without part at least of the evil reverting to the wrong-doers."...Gertrude Kelly's earnest attempt to enlist male support through appeals to self-interest was unusual. The anarchist-feminists recognized for the most part that women must seek their own emancipation. They placed (accurately as it turned out) little faith in the enlightenment of radical men. The significance of their approach may be seen most clearly by an examination of the anarchist-feminists proposals for the reorganization of society based on the premise of economic and psychological independence from men."

"Anarchist-feminists found it difficult to persuade their male corevolutionaries to take the Woman Question seriously...Gertrude Kelly berated them because she believed that by ignoring the demands of women radical men were actually retarding the revolution"

"Dr. Gertrude Kelly, a surgeon of great skill and a supporter of the Irish Republic."

"It is our duty to truth to cultivate the spirit which questions all things"

"We still have no evidence on record to prove that great men are endowed with more than the ordinary share of common sense, which is so necessary in conducting the ordinary affairs of life. Indeed, if the gossip of history is to be in any way trusted, great men have usually obtained less than the ordinary share of this commodity. Frederick the Great is reported to have said that, if he wished to ruin one of his provinces, he would hand its government over to the philosophers. Is it into the hands of a Bacon, who had no more sense than to expose himself (for the sake of a little experiment which could have been made just as well without the exposure), a Newton who ordered the grate to be removed when the fire became too hot for him, a Clifford, who worked himself to death, that the direction of the affairs of a people is to be given, with the assurance that they will be carried on better than now?"

"The enthusiasms of the social feminists for example temperance, protective legislation for women and children workers, and social purity usually drew a negative response from the anarchist-feminists, both communists and Individualists. Although like the more conventional feminists they abhorred prostitution, anarchists believed it to be a predictable result of both capitalism and societal repression of sexuality that could only be removed by the overthrow of both. The Individualist Gertrude Kelly argued in 1885 that social purity advocates possessed the evidence to show "that destitution is the chief cause of prostitution" but that they refused to follow the logic of their findings. "When we come to examine the remedies proposed, we find not a word on the subject of... making their wages equal to those of a man for the same work.""

"Will advance by having no opinion protected from discussion and agitation, by having the greatest possible freedom of thought, of speech, and of the press."

"As Leslie Stephen has demonstrated, to suppress one truth is to suppress all truth, for truth is a coherent whole."

"In these times of ours, when all classes in society, from the Bowery Socialists to the highest professors of science, seem to vie with one another in demanding State interference, State protection, and State regulation, when the ideal State to the workingman is that proposed by the authoritarian Marx, or the scarcely less authoritarian George, and the ideal State to the scientist is the Germany of today, where the scientists are under the government’s special protection, it would seem idle to hope that the voices of those who prize liberty above an things, who would fain call attention to the false direction in which it is desired to make the world move, should be other than “voices crying in the wilderness.” But, nevertheless, it is not by accident that we who hold the ideas that what is necessary to progress is not the increase, but the decrease, of governmental interference have come to be possessed of these ideas. We, too, are “heirs of all the ages,” and it is our duty to that society of which we form a part to give our reasons for the “faith that is in us.”"

"It is always important that the position of devil’s advocate should be well filled."

"Voltairine de Cleyre possessed one of the best minds among the American anarchists, and her essays, particularly in the early twentieth century, were sophisticated and subtle. On the other hand, the other anarchist-feminists who attempted to explain anarchist ideas tended to approach every problem as a separate issue without reconciling, or in some cases even noticing, disharmonies and contradictions. They espoused feminism and the standard anarchist remedies for social ills without troubling to look for connections. It almost seems as if they deliberately avoided those questions that would force them to confront anarchist ideology as a whole. Gertrude B. Kelly, for example, concentrated on questions of finance when she was not writing about women. She was enthusiastic about the innovation of checking accounts, which she viewed as the harbinger of the Mutual Bank, an institution that, for Individualists, was at the heart of anarchist economics. Yet she not only found it unnecessary to explain the effect of new bank practices on the overall power structure, but she also failed to connect monetary issues with questions about the redistribution of wealth or the economic role of women.'..Where Gertrude B. Kelly had confined herself to specific details of anarchist thought without attempting an inclusive analysis, Florence Finch Kelly offered sweeping generalities without touching on their application."

"Meanwhile, another musketeer of the Christian Mission in India was trying to engage Arun Shourie into another duel. Vishal Mangalwadi with headquarters in Mussoorie, U.P., wrote ten letters to the author of Missionaries in India between 8 August 1994 and 21 September 1995. Arun Shourie glanced at the first letter and consigned it to where it belonged - the waste-paper basket. The others that followed remained unopened and met the same fate. He had better things to do than go through the garbage collected by a professional practitioner of suppressio veri suggestion falsi. Mangalwadi published his letters in the form of a book in early 1996. “I had hoped,” he mourned, “that Mr. Shourie would reply to my letters, so that eventually we could publish our dialogue - perhaps jointly. However, since he chose not to, these letters are now placed before the reader as a monologue.”"

"Vishal Mangalwadi is an Indian American evangelist with a strikingly Eurocentric message of Christianity. He claims that colonialism under the British was very good for India, and has written a book specifically praising one of the nastiest evangelists of the British colonial era, William Carey. His thesis is that India’s suffering has been caused by its heathenism. India is one of the societies which has ‘looked to many local and regional gods’, or have ‘postulated that life’s goal is to achieve oneness with the absolute nothingness that constitutes ultimate reality’, or have somehow got lost in ‘esoteric philosophic and religious mysteries’. On the other hand, ‘the only civilization that has looked largely to the Bible for its inspiration, the West, has been able to conquer human cruelty, hopelessness and degradation’, and this should become the role model for all Indians. He laments that the West has become complacent in its success, forgetting that the Bible was ‘the book that catapulted the West to the forefront of world economics, politics, and culture’... He informs his readers with obvious delight that ‘at least one good American Christian (presumably, unaware of the Christian-Maoist nexus) has asked his Congressman if he should help Christians in Orissa buy guns.’ Blaming India’s ills on ‘Hinduism’s gods that require appeasement’, he mourns that Hindus have corrupted the ‘clean institutions built up by British Christians’..."

"Responsibility is the parent of morality"

"Do you think that a country, one of whose most distinguished professors, Virchow, is afraid of giving voice to the doctrine of evolution, because he sees that it inevitably leads to Socialism (and Socialism the government has decided is wrong, and must be crushed out), is in the way of long maintaining its supremacy as a scientific light, when the question which its scientific men are called upon to decide is not what is true, but what the government will allow to be said?"

"The Bible teaches that the human problem is moral , rather than biological or metaphysical. God created human beings good. (Would you expect anything different from an almighty Creator?) Our first parents [Adam and Eve] chose to disobey God and thereby became sinners. That trait has been transmitted to us all . . . From childhood our tendency is towards evil . . . Our central problem, according to the Bible is that we are sinners. We need a divine Savior who will forgive our sins and transform our hearts – the core of our being."

"The Indian philosophical tradition, in spite of all its brilliance, could not produce a culture that recognized human rights and the intrinsic worth of the individual. Nor could yogic monism give to Indian society a framework for moral absolutes, a strong sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair. Yogic exercises indeed gave flexibility to our bodies but unfortunately the yogic philosophy gave too much flexibility to our morals – making us [i.e. Indians] one of the most corrupt nations in the world."

"But now that the Christian influence has diminished in India, the old tantric cult is coming back openly on the surface. There are around fifty-two known centers in India where tantra is taught and practiced. In its crudest forms, it includes worship of sex organs, sex orgies which include drinking of blood and human semen, black magic, human sacrifice and contact with evil spirits through dead and rotting bodies in cremation grounds, etc."

"Pro-Christian Maoists in Orissa have already warned a number of specific Hindu leaders responsible for anti-Christian violence, that they are next on their hit list. A few hundred ‘Christian-Maoist’ guerillas will change the power-equation in Orissa."

"Secular democracy has failed but there is no forum in India that teaches biblical economic and political thought. The Church should be training its youth to reform and run the institutions of justice that Hindu secularism has corrupted. Christ and Mao have come together in Orissa because people oppressed for thousands of years have decided to stand up against the Hindu socio-economic system."

"Besides launching a Jihad against Animism and Hinduism, the Maoists are also active in supporting evangelists. At times, Maoists escort evangelists into remote villages where police officers are afraid to go. They summon everyone to hear the Gospel. The evangelists may show a film such as the ‘Jesus Film’. Half-way through the film the Maoists would stop the film and give a lecture on Maoism. Then they would resume the film and ask an evangelist to give Alter Call. Following a fellowship meal the evangelists would be escorted back to their base! I have heard at least one credible report that Christians and some Maoists spent two days together fasting and praying. Christian leaders have not reported these stories to their supporters because (a) many of them can’t make sense of what they are hearing, and (b) they are also embarrassed by the fact that their mission is supported by ‘terrorists’."

"Among these revolutionary giants was stalwart Albertina Sisulu who played a formative role in the opposition to apartheid and in building a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa...we celebrate the centenary anniversary of the life of Mama Sisulu – who took on the mantle of leadership during our darkest hours and remained a selfless servant of the people throughout her life. For her bold role in the fight for freedom, she suffered immensely at the hands of the apartheid regime. She was jailed several times for her political activities and constantly harassed by the apartheid’s security police."

"She deserves so much credit for the quality of a life of service that Walter led. Her own sacrifice and service deserve as much of our respect and recognition. The naming of this Center after Walter is a tribute to her as well."

"An inspirational leader. An activist. A passionate educator. A philanthropist. A woman, inspired by the idea that one can change the world, the idea that one can change the existing conditions of the people – that all South Africans are treated equal. A champion of the rights and emancipation of women."

"Public political leadership among Spanish-speaking women was not limited to an aspiring middle class or an elite gentry. Organized by Luisa Moreno, El Congreso de Pueblos de Hablan Española (the Spanish-speaking Peoples Congress) represented the hopes and dreams of many working-class Latinos. By the late 1930s, Moreno was cognizant of both the strength of local institutions and the distance between immigrants and citizens as she endeavored to bring together community networks under the umbrella of a national civil rights congress. El Congreso de Pueblos de Hablan Española was the first national civil rights assembly for Latinos in the United States…El Congreso brought together two dynamic women-Luisa Moreno and Josefina Fierro de Bright-whose life-long friendship was forged in the fire of community organizing."

"While Luisa Moreno took the lead in organizing the 1939 national meeting of El Congreso, Josefina Fierro de Bright proved instrumental in buoying the day-to-day operations of the fragile southern California chapters…Moreno and Fierro de Bright believed in the dignity of the common person and the importance of grass-roots networks, reciprocity, and self-help...The two women also shared an awareness of the positionality of women in U.S. Latino communities. El Congreso created a woman's committee and a woman's platform, a platform that expressly recognized the "double discrimination" facing Mexican women."

"Luisa Moreno spent her storied career advocating for Latino workers' rights, organizing thousands of Louisiana sugarcane workers, Texas pecan shellers, Colorado sugarbeet workers, and a multiethnic union of thirteen thousand cigar makers in Florida."

"As the union's official representative, Moreno organized the strikers into a united, disciplined force that employers could no longer ignore."

"Women are the people who are going to relieve us from all this oppression and depression. The rent boycott that is happening in Soweto now [in the 1980s] is alive because of the women. It is the women who are on the street committees educating the people to stand up and protect each other"

"Fear that slowly brews into terror as the Smith Act blankets the land, covering under its legal cloak, persecutions unheard of in America."

"the new Bridges case is a warning signal for all West Coast labor – that it symbolizes a desperate effort to tear down union conditions built in 15 years of struggle."

"the golden carrot that dangles, from the hands of reaction, covers a vicious rattlesnake; for no scab, stoolpigeon or renegade has ever been known to serve the interests of the people."

"How poor is the memory of those right wing leaders that are blind to reason — who refuse to see that the interests of labor and the people are one"