Raul Julia Quotes

There was the situation in Nicaragua where the Sandinistas had taken over a couple of years earlier. There was a civil war going on in El Salvador and there was a similar situation in Guatemala. So Honduras was in a rather precarious geographic position indeed.

By the late 1970s, repression and economic chaos were causing increasing unrest throughout Latin America. Army strongmen were forced to cede power in Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

Peace should be understood in a human way - in a broad social, political and economic way. Peace is threatened by unjust economic, social and political order, absence of democracy, environmental degradation and absence of human rights.

Berta Caceres, a Lenca woman, grew up during the violence that swept through Central America in the 1980s. Her mother, a midwife and social activist, took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador, teaching her young children the value of standing up for disenfranchised people.

In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.

I started, actually, as an analyst on African affairs, mainly on Al Jazeera. I remember the first few series were about Saudi students, and the negotiations between the government and the Sudanese rebels in the south. And then, slowly, I was speaking about Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and a few other places.

When I was in Paris, all of the German refugees began to flow in and it was a very sad time.

Poverty must be reduced not only for reasons of moral and justice, but also of security.

And my approach has always been to stand up and speak out on behalf of the economic rights of people.

Almost certainly, however, the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.

As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.

Homelessness is a part of our American system. There should be nothing wrong with this condition as long as the individual is not sentenced to unnecessary suffering and punishment.

Today there are people trying to take away rights that our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers fought for: our right to vote, our right to choose, affordable quality education, equal pay, access to health care. We the people can't let that happen.

There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.

To me, Central America is one large plantation; and I see the people's struggle to be free as a slave revolt.

I believe in preferring the sanctity of human rights to the sanctity of property rights. I believe that the chief concern of government shall be for the poor because, as it is witnessed, the rich have ample means of their own to care for themselves.

Just because you are poor and have no voice does not mean that you don’t deserve police protection.

Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social and international peace.

…In certain parts of Latin America, the seizure of the vast majority of the wealth by an oligarchy of owners bereft of social consciousness, the practical absence or the shortcomings of a rule of law, military dictators making a mockery of elementary human rights, the corruption of certain powerful officials, the savage practices of some foreign capital interests constitute factors which nourish a passion for revolt among those who thus consider themselves the powerless victims of a new colonialism in the technological, financial, monetary, or economic order.

For Haitians to vote means more than in Western countries. It is the way for the millions, who live in dirt and poverty, to prove to themselves that they are human. It is the difference between eternal darkness and light.

If society is to be responsive to human needs, a vast restructuring of our laws is essential ... A vast restructuring of our society is needed if remedies are to become available to the average person.

Inequality is a fact. Equality is a value.

Humanity can not be made equal by declarations on paper. Unless the material conditions for equality exist

We are actually experiencing a dismantling of democracy. I didn’t think this was possible.

The treatment of Japanese in America is so grave that it may endanger our international relations and welfare.