Democracy Movement Quotes

Opening China to the world has dramatically affected the movement for democracy. The process of opening up is a process whereby the government loosens its control of the people. On the other hand, simply opening the economy is not enough. Very few people are actually able to enjoy the economic reforms. The privileged classes, or those who have connections with the privileged classes, enjoy more benefits from an open policy.

We are not a failed Arab republic, so we should not fear Arab Spring. We should embrace Arab Spring. That's what I hope Saudi Arabia will do.

The Umbrella Movement was a legacy, not a victory, because there weren't any concrete policies or systematic reforms after it.

Let him who will, be he economic tyrant or sordid mercenary, pit his strength against this mighty upsurge of human sentiment now being crystallized in the hearts of thirty million workers who clamor for the establishment of industrial democracy and for participation in its tangible fruits. He is a madman of a fool who believes that this river of human sentiment can be damned.

Bin Laden always wanted to get rid of Mubarek and Ben Ali and Gaddafi and so on, claiming that they were all infidels working for America, and in fact, it was millions of ordinary people who peacefully, more or less - certainly in the case of Tunisia and Egypt - got rid of them.

The Arab Spring has heightened the ideological tension between Ankara and Tehran, and Turkey's model seems to be winning.

From horrific incidents of police brutality and complicity in indiscriminate attacks by triads on citizens to arbitrary mass arrests and the banning of demonstrations, the government has employed nearly every weapon in its war chest to intimidate Hong Kongers into silence and to suppress their popular struggle for democracy and freedom.

I hope those who previously only thought of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee regarding Hong Kong would now realise that the city is also a place fighting for democracy.

To Westerners, the students at Tiananmen may have given an impression of a solid and energetic consensus against dictatorship and for democracy, but they were an egotistical and fractious lot, riven by disagreements over tactics and money.

I am a pro-democracy activist asking for free elections in Hong Kong.

I will not stop fighting against Islam until I have achieved freedom for our country.

In my world, a woman was the most powerful thing that I knew. Still is. A woman made the money in my house; a woman made my food. A woman beat my ass when I wasn't a good kid. Women were behind a lot of what spurred South Africa toward democracy.

Many Americans do not realize that we could institute proportional representation for most elections in the U.S. without amending the Constitution. In helping to educate the public about the potential for voting system reform, CVD can play a central role in a pro-democracy movement right here in America!

It is hard to know exactly when the Arab Spring, a phrase used to describe the beginning of the Arab peoples' demand for democracy and human-rights reform, started.

I think that the drama of people rising up demanding their own freedom is one that resonates very deeply with America. I think that President Barack Obama has tried and would like to find a way to relate to the Arab Spring, but I think he also wants to be, rightly, very careful that we don't take it over. It is very important that they own this. He is trying to influence it this way but without, "We're so never going to go to the extreme of Iraq and putting boots on the ground again."

The anti-war movement should turn itself into a pro-democracy movement

All across the Middle East in the streets, people are demanding democracy. It's amazing. The only way in America you get people to get worked up like that is to threaten to give them health care.

The people on the streets of Egypt and Tunisia and Libya and Syria and Iran have done more to defeat the ideology of Al Qaeda than anything that the United States has done. They have shown that there is a third way, that with peaceful protest you can have an end to dictatorship and a role for human dignity, a role for your religious faith in society.

In December 2014, during the final days of the Umbrella Movement, prominent signs proclaiming We'll Be Back sprang up along Harcourt Road, one of the three major thruways occupied by peaceful pro-democracy protesters for nearly three months.

The Umbrella Movement can be described as an encyclopedia. Politicians and student leaders wrote it, and let the masses read it and react passively.

I think at the time, my radicalization was not through growing up Chinese, but through the role that the black people were playing at the beginning of World War II, when they had started the "Double V for Victory" movement - for democracy at home as well as abroad.

I've heard people in the Middle East tell me that the most inspiring thing for them as people struggling against dictatorship in the Middle East is the memory of the civil rights movement.

I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform.

The Arab awakening was driven by youth, organized by technology, and fired by a hunger for political change.

There are two clocks ticking in Iran. One is the democracy movement clock which is ticking now faster than it was but it's got a lot of catching up to do. And then there's the clock that's ticking towards a nuclear weaponry.