Jason K. Stearns > Quotes

“Such is the human being: when he is afraid, he sees enemies everywhere and thinks the only chance to stay alive is to exterminate them.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“I will not make any predictions. If the past is anything to judge by, Congolese politics will continue to surprise and bewilder, frustrate and inspire.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“Swahili saying: Shukrani ya punda ni teke (The gratitude of a donkey is a kick).”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“Mobutu’s kleptocracy had reversed the flow of time in the town, as buildings crumbled and the jungle reclaimed land. The novelist V. S. Naipaul portrayed the demoralizing aura of the city in his 1979 book, A Bend in the River: The big lawns and gardens had returned to bush; the streets had disappeared; vine and creepers had grown over broken, bleached walls of concrete or hollow clay brick. . . . But the civilization wasn’t dead. It was the civilization I existed in and worked towards. And that could make for an odd feeling: to be among the ruins was to have your time sense unsettled. You felt like a ghost, not from the past, but from the future. You felt that your life and ambition had already been lived out for you and you were looking at the relics of that life.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“Pastor Philippe to Jason Stearns: I asked him whom he blamed for their deaths. He shrugged. "There are too many people to blame. Mobutu for ruining our country. Rwanda and Uganda for invading it. Ourselves for letting them do it. None of that will help bring my children back.”
― Jason K. Stearns

“birthday. Step out of a car in many areas of the eastern Congo during the war, and you were often confronted with children suffering from kwashikor, or clinical malnutrition. It was a bizarre sight to see such listless children surrounded by lush hills. Congo is not Niger or Somalia, where famine and malnutrition are closely linked to drought. Here,”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“Even when a man with pristine political and ethical credentials tries to effect change, the results are poor.1”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“Such is the human being: when he is afraid, he sees enemies everywhere and thinks the only chance to stay alive is to exterminate them.” The war had created a new class of thugs and”
― Jason K. Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“The number of deaths is so immense that it becomes incomprehensible and anonymous, and yet the dying was not spectacular. Violence only directly caused 2 percent of the reported deaths. Most often, it was easily treatable diseases, such as malaria, typhoid fever, and diarrhea, that killed. There was, however, a strong correlation between conflict areas and high mortality rates. As fighting broke out, people were displaced to areas where they had no shelter, clean water, or access to health care and succumbed easily to disease. Health staff shuttered up their hospitals and clinics to flee the violence, leaving the sick to fend for themselves”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“(After relaying horrific stories that have been shared in popular news.) All of these stories are true. The conflict has seen acts of cannibalism . . . Journalists have a responsibility to report on these atrocities, and people are often jolted awake by such horrors. In addition, millions of dollars have gone to dedicated organizations and health centers in the region that are helping survivors to cope and restart their lives. These advocacy efforts have also, however, had unintended effects. They reinforce the impression that the Congo is filled with wanton savages, crazed by power and greed. This view, by focusing on the utter horror of the violence, distracts from the politics that gave rise to the conflict and from the reasons behind the bloodshed. If all we see is black men raping and killing in the most outlandish ways imaginable, we might find it hard to believe that there is any logic to this conflict. We are returned to Joseph Conrad's notion that the Congo takes you to the heart of darkness, an inscrutable and unimprovable mess. If we want to change the political dynamics in the country, we have above all to understand the conflict on its own terms. That starts with understanding how political power is managed.”
― Jason K. Stearns

“The population heeded the call. They pounced on a dozen people they suspected were rebels, looped tires around their necks, doused them in gasoline, and made them into human torches.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“In this context Mugabe was eager to maintain the loyalty of key allies, particularly in the security services. As the economy at home shrunk, so did opportunities for domestic patronage. The Congo war provided the opportunity he needed to keep his collaborators happy and busy elsewhere. This explains the urgency with which the Congolese and Zimbabweans set up their joint ventures and how easily Zimbabwean officials”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“No other sentiment has justified as much violence in the Congo as anti-Tutsi ideology.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“No matter how hard you throw a dead fish in the water, it still won’t swim. —CONGOLESE SAYING”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“No other image plagues the Congolese imagination as much as that of the Tutsi aggressor.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“As in much of central and western Africa, Lebanese traders had cornered the diamond trade, taking advantage of transnational family networks that reach from Africa to the Middle East and Belgium.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“Koffi Olomide sang: Lokuta eyaka na ascenseur, kasi vérité eyei na escalier mpe ekomi. Lies come up in the elevator; the truth takes the stairs but gets here eventually.”
― Jason K. Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“Once again, leaders had resorted to ethnic diatribe to rally the population behind them.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“in 2004, the charity estimated that 3.8 million had died because of the war since 1998.1”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“(After relaying horrific stories that have been shared in popular news.) All of these stories are true. The conflict has seen acts of cannibalism . . . Journalist shave a responsibility to report on these atrocities, and people are often jolted awake by such horrors. In addition, millions of dollars have gone to dedicated organizations and health centers in the region that are helping survivors to cope and restart their lives. These advocacy efforts have also, however, had unintended effects. They reinforce the impression that the Congo is filled with wanton savages, crazed by power and greed. This view, by focusing on the utter horror of the violence, distracts from the politics that gave rise to the conflict and from the reasons behind the bloodshed. If all we see is black men raping and killing in the most outlandish ways imaginable, we might find it hard to believe that there is any logic to this conflict. We are returned to Joseph Conrad's notion that the Congo takes you to the heart of darkness, an inscrutable and unimprovable mess. If we want to change the political dynamics in the country, we have above all to understand the conflict on its own terms. That starts with understanding how political power is managed.”
― Jason K. Stearns

“International Rescue Committee,”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“This is, in part, due to a structural deficit; institutions that could dig deep and scrutinize information—such as a free press, an independent judiciary, and an inquisitive parliament—do not exist.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“And I am not claiming that the salvation of the Congo lies in foreign hands; it doesn’t.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“I asked him whom he blamed for their deaths. He shrugged. “There are too many people to blame. Mobutu for ruining our country. Rwanda and Uganda for invading it. Ourselves for letting them do so. None of that will help bring my children back.”
― Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

“Beatrice Umutesi”
― Jason K. Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa