Rem Koolhaas Quotes

If Greece had gone through a very normal political life, I may have not been in politics. But just the fact that I lived through huge upheavals and very difficult struggles and polarization and the barbarism of dictatorships - that made me feel that we had to change this country.

Nigeria first entered...'the dismal tunnel' on January 15, 1966, when the military overthrew all the institutions of a democratically elected government... If there is light at the end of this tunnel, it is imperceptible to anyone not paid to see it.

I'm still very interested in the things that happened in the '80s and the '70s because I think that they were very important years for Nigeria. In the '80s, we were under a military dictatorship for quite a while, and I think that the way we engage with our country as citizens was shaped in many ways by the events that took place in that time.

Only two countries in this hemisphere are not democratic, but many countries in both Central and South America, and in the Caribbean, are really fragile democracies.

Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.

Gadhafi has established no national institutions, not even allowing a fake parliament of the Mubarak or Ben Ali variety that could perhaps be turned into something real.

This is the first time in 10 years I don't know what I'm doing next, and I'm rather enjoying it. Soon I'll be climbing the walls no doubt, but right now, it's not clear, I'm just enjoying the freedom.

There is a very long history of oppression in the Arab world, particularly in the states he mentions: Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, as well as in Sudan and Tunisia. These regimes are not based on democracy and their legitimacy comes from military dictatorships or inherited systems. The basic right of an individual to voice his or her opinion is not granted in any kind of form in the Arab world.

Military governments make promises they don’t keep.

Strongmen? You have to have strong people to rule. South America is a rough place.

He [Rafael Trujillo] had his torture chambers. He had his political assassinations. But he kept law and order, cleaned the place up, made it sanitary, built public works, and he didn’t bother the United States. So that was fine with us.

I visited Libya in September 1996 for the 27th anniversary of the 'revolution' - a military coup that a 27-year-old Gadhafi led to topple the monarchy and since which he has ruled. Some were optimistic that Gadhafi's 'revolution' could herald a new Libya, but it didn't take long for his brutality to stamp out any such hopes.

In Pakistan, there have been two real powers - one is Bhuttoism, and one is the worshipers of dictatorship. I call them the supporters of the establishment.

I've been through so many different phases, partly because I moved around so much. I never found my identity based on where I was from. It was always pick up and explore something else.

Nigeria shed the last of a succession of brutal military dictatorships in 1997 and adopted a democratic form of government only in 1999. Our elections of 2003, 2007, and 2011 were complicated and fraught with tension, but each one has shown remarkable progress.

The Cuban people do not live in freedom.

Every successful career I've ever known was filled with long periods of meandering, months or even years when no one knew what would happen next. Look at me: I started as a geology major turned failed realtor.

In the Franco era, we couldn't defend our ideas.

Europeans have sometimes been beguiled by a despotism that comes concealed in the seductive form of an ideal – as it did in the cases of Hitler and Stalin. This fact may remind us that the possibility of despotism is remote neither in space nor in time.

Everything Mengistu has done since 1977 has been to place himself in a position of uncontestable power. Neither Haile Selassie nor any of the previous emperors had this insatiable thirst for power.

Fascism is the consequence of economic jam and dictatorship is the product of Fascism, for Fascism cannot be managed save by a dictator.

The problem in Burma is the problem in Egypt, the problem you refer to in Yemen, and the problem in a lot of these countries in the world: that you can get stuck in the process of transition, in what’s been called a competitive authoritarian… a pseudo democratic regime.

The dictatorship needs to be entirely dismantled. All the rest of the old guard must go.

Saddam Hussein, influenced by fascism, ordered the deaths of tens of thousands of people, fought two disastrous wars, turned his nation into an international pariah and ruined his country’s economy. In other words, his record is identical to George W. Bush’s.

Saddam Hussein's regime is a gray and gathering danger.