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Philip Gourevitch Quotes

The West's post-Holocaust pledge that genocide would never again be tolerated proved to be hollow, and for all the fine sentiments inspired by the memory of Auschwitz, the problem remains that denouncing evil is a far

The West's post-Holocaust pledge that genocide would never again be tolerated proved to be hollow, and for all the fine sentiments inspired by the memory of Auschwitz, the problem remains that denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.

Philip Gourevitch
Memories, Evil, Holocaust
Philip Gourevitch (2015). “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Picador Classic”, p.122, Pan Macmillan

Denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.

Philip Gourevitch
Tyrants, Evil, Social Justice
Philip Gourevitch (2015). “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Picador Classic”, p.122, Pan Macmillan

What distinguishes genocide from murder, and even from acts of political murder that claim as many victims, is the intent. The crime is wanting to make a people extinct. The idea is the crime.

Philip Gourevitch
Ideas, People, Political
Philip Gourevitch (2015). “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Picador Classic”, p.142, Pan Macmillan

Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building.

Philip Gourevitch
Exercise, Community, Building
Philip Gourevitch (2015). “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Picador Classic”, p.72, Pan Macmillan

In 1933-34, the Belgians conducted a census in order to issue ‘ethnic’ identity cards, which labelled every Rwandan as either Hutu (85%) of Tutsi (14%) or Twa (1%). The identity cards made it virtually impossible for Hutus to become Tutsis, and permitted the Belgians to perfect the administration of an apartheid system rooted in the myth of Tutsi superiority… Whatever Hutu and Tutsi identity may have stood for in the pre-colonial state no longer mattered; the Belgians had made ‘ethnicity’ the defining feature of Rwandan existence.

Philip Gourevitch
Ethnicity, Order, Issues

I'm not pro-war. But I think war has been the dominant condition of humankind, and peace has been the anomaly - certainly sustained periods of peace that profit great masses of people - and I think war has worked, even awful hellish wars: worked to staunch fascist aggression in Europe, worked to preserve the Union after secession in the United States, etc. Not always, maybe not often, but to say never is to reject history in favor of a wishful unreality.

Philip Gourevitch
War, Thinking, Europe
"Ask the Author Live: Philip Gourevitch on Osama Bin Laden". The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. May 4, 2011.

The people are living seperately together," he said. "So there is responsibility. I cry, you cry. You cry, I cry. We all come running, and the one that stays quiet, the one that stays home, must explain. Is he in league with the criminals? Is he a coward? And what would he expect when he cries? This is simple. This is normal. This is community.

Philip Gourevitch
Running, Responsibility, Home
Philip Gourevitch (1999). “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories From Rwanda”, p.34, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The piled-up dead of political violence are a generic staple of our information diet these days, and according to the generic report all massacres are created equal: the dead are innocent, the killers monstrous, the surrounding politics insane or nonexistent...The anonymous dead and their anonymous killers become their own context. The horror becomes absurd.

Philip Gourevitch
Political, Insane, Information

A serious pacifist approach can't win wars against enemies whose only program is violence. That doesn't mean I think the US has fought terrorists so wisely most of the time since 9/11. But there are some enemies that need to be destroyed by force lest they destroy much much more.

Philip Gourevitch
War, Mean, Winning
"Ask the Author Live: Philip Gourevitch on Osama Bin Laden". The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. May 4, 2011.

The photographs of one dead terrorist mastermind carry no real news or information about the nature or horror of war. They just create sensation instead of deeper understanding.

Philip Gourevitch
Real, War, Our World
"Ask the Author Live: Philip Gourevitch on Osama Bin Laden". www.newyorker.com. May 4, 2011.

Political corruption is to Rhode Islanders as smog is to people who live in Los Angeles: nobody complains of its absence, but when it rolls around everyone feels right at home.

Philip Gourevitch
Home, People, Political
"Can You Forgive Him?" by Philip Gourevitch, www.newyorker.com. September 2, 2002.

Mike Stanton is our preeminent aficionado and raconteur of Rhode Island’s flamboyantly criminal political follies, and The Prince of Providence is the chronicle of a great American rogue, Mayor Buddy Cianci—a paragon of charisma and corruption.

Philip Gourevitch
Rhode Island, Islands, Political

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