Neil MacFarquhar > Quotes

“U.S. policy is too often shaped by the desire to tamp down that violence as fast as possible, rather than fostering the kind of deep-seated, long-term changes that would kill its roots.”
― Neil MacFarquhar, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday

“In Syria, as in much of the Arab world, most people worry about poverty and unemployment, and when they talk about reform, they usually mean curbing rampant corruption... As a correspondent, I viewed corruption as a local story, cases rarely rising to the level requiring coverage. Hence one point that probably does not come across strongly enough to outsiders is the reason that reformers lack popular resonance. Their issues of political freedom and transparency seem rather abstract to ordinary people who just want a little job security and to avoid having to bribe their way through every petty government transaction.”
― Neil MacFarquhar, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday

“In order of importance as reformers detailed them for me: the stifling control of the secret police; the absence of any rule of law even if the constitution seems to guarantee it; the fact that one tribe or one clique has controlled each government for so long; the inherent difficulty in working alone because organizing is mostly banned; the daunting power of the Muslim Brotherhood or other religious parties; and, finally, the keen disappointment that a new generation of rulers did not automatically introduce a new way of thinking.”
― Neil MacFarquhar, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday

“Rather than always holding up American traditions of democracy and freedom as the example, the U.S. should spend more time focused on what local traditions might be emphasized to help speed change. "You have to make the discussion indigenous, talk about justice and dignity... Democracy is discredited because it is too compromised and too identified with the West. You need something more rooted locally, so people know they have a stake in defining and constructing that.”
― Neil MacFarquhar, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday

“Of course Iraq became the biggest, messiest experiment in changing the practice of minority rule. The country's once metastasizing chaos pushed many Arabs to conclude that the systems they suffered under were just fine thank you, given the violence involved in creating an alternative.”
― Neil MacFarquhar, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday