Mohsen Makhmalbaf Quotes

Despite the advances in technology and communications that link us more closely than ever before, there remains the reality of division at so many levels in our world. We see these divides between rich and poor, between women and men, between different religions or ethnic groups, between citizens and migrants. We know as well that these divides are at the core of so many of today's conflicts.

I was a supporter of the desire, in my section of Nigeria, to leave the federation because it was treated very badly with something that was called genocide in those days.

Afghan women, as a group, I think their suffering has been equaled by very few other groups in recent world history.

I confront the European elite's self-image as tolerant 'while under their noses women are living like slaves.

The international community is pushing things forward in Bosnia... but it is doing it at expense of the Muslim people. I feel it as an injustice, these are the things that I cannot live with.

Women in Somalia face almost unimaginable oppression.

I was a woman in a man's world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.

In too many instances, the march to globalization has also meant the marginalization of women and girls. And that must change.

There are many different rivers that lead into despair: there's poverty; there's political repression; there's gender apartheid - there's a sense of culture loss; there's religious fanaticism.

Democracies are often run by ethnically based groups prepared to do terrible things to other ethnic groups... or they can be very corrupt, dominated by elites...

Disenfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.

The misery of being under observation and being unduly criticized is what I remember most. Visitors in the gallery couldn't help seeing one woman among so many men, but they made no effort to disguise the fact that I was a curiosity...

The Armenians [have] been decieved and ... their rights have not been recognized.

One of the problems is that there are people in the shadows. There are people afraid of their own government

I am a woman, and as such, I experience the ever-increasing restrictions on our liberty in our country through the development of Islamic fundamentalism.

Women have been the most persecuted people throughout all of recorded history, more than any race or religion.

The problem with Muslim women is less that we cannot speak the language, but that no one listens to us.

One needs determination to bring in changes in the lives of Devadasis. I would approach them wearing pants and t-shirt and without a bindi, they would chase me away. When I narrated the experience to my father, he told me to don traditional wear and dress like them. After bringing in changes in my dressing style, the Devadasis welcomed me.

People who have no stake in society are the least likely to have respect for it.

We need to understand why there is a void of participation in public life from the Muslim community and why it is a growing issue, and we need to understand the impact of this on wider civil society.

If you are Black or Brown, or a liberal or immigrant or Democrat, or a woman unwilling to quietly submit, then Ailes was the ultimate villain. You were the object of mockery and scorn - sometimes overt, often subtle. You were the thing to be gawked at, pawed at, jeered at, propositioned or feared.

One of the real problems of society is that its far too atomized, what sociologists call secondary associations.

Strangers are an endangered species.

Any woman who has a great deal to offer the world is in trouble. And if she's a black woman, seh's in deep trouble.

Someone sent an email to Reverend Joanna Watson [an American missionary] saying that I'm gay, and she sent it to all the anti-gay pastors in Uganda. One of them said, "We're going to take care of this guy." When I was confronted by them I didn't know what they were going to do, but they decided to pray over me. They said they were going to cure me. That didn't work, of course.