Mona Eltahawy Quotes

The regime is afraid of the people because it knows that free and fair elections will bring about its end.

The Arab spring reminds me a bit of the decolonisation process where one country gets independence and everybody else wants it. How about us, when do we get it, when do we make our move? And you have a situation where someone has been in power for decades, where the integrity of elections, democracy and security have really not been debated or discussed and most people suspect that elections are rigged and that the democratic rotation that elections are supposed to ensure doesn't really happen. And when this goes on for a while you are sitting on a powder keg.

I've never conspired to overthrow the government; all I did was report on the Arab Spring and suggest that something similar might happen in Ethiopia if the authoritarian regime didn't reform.

The transition from authoritarianism to democracy is not as easy as it appears in position papers – it is a rambunctious affair.

Muslims have been subjected to so many tyrants and oppressive regimes. That's what the Arab Spring was about, but the problem comes in trying to direct a revolution.

There is no scope for revolutions coming to Belarus.

Some consider the removal of Dr. Mohammed Morsi a coup by the army against an elected president. Others treat it as the second revolution, or the continuation of the January 25, 2011, revolution.

The old bastions of the post-communist regime collapsed before my very eyes. The monsters who had kept Ukraine in a criminal state left the stage.

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.

There is no chance of a revolution in Georgia.

None of us is certain about the outcome of the Arab Spring.

Mubarak's regime is dead and finished. People will not go back to this. This is a farce being propagated by the Muslim Brotherhood to say that this revolution was supported by the remnants of the Mubarak regime. They have gone against the whole Egyptian society, and this is why they were removed.

Revolutions do not always establish freedom.

Advancing democracy does not always foster political stability.

The end of some of the harshest dictatorships has not necessarily spelled a more free world. The extinction of the thing we despise is not giving rise to the democracy we hoped for.

Rebellions which overthrow the governments of Mexico cannot be called revolutions. A revolution is a radical change, and if there is anything that has never been changed in Mexico it is the method of putting new public functionaries into office by rebellion.

Beijing, much as it has done with Hong Kong, persists in equating 'people power' with instability.

The Arab Spring is a true phenomenon. Embrace Arab Spring; embrace the aspiration for freedom of the people of Egypt, Syria, and Yemen.

The news of Mubarak stepping down came as I was sitting in my Jordanian home away from home.

We have enough votes to run the country. And when the people say, We've had enough, we are going to take over.

Revolution? Unscrew the flag-staff, wrap the bunting in the oil covers, and put the thing in the clothes-chest. Let the old lady bring you your house-slippers and untie your fiery red necktie. You always make revolutions with your mugs, your republic--nothing but an industrial accident.

REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.

Given the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice.

The revolution has been dubbed The Orange Revolution, orange being the campaign color of Viktor Yushchenko. The demonstrators say they are tired of living under a corrupt government.

You can't, in the 21st century, continue to live in a system where people live under martial law for 30 years.