Toni Morrison To be a good writer matters. To know on what side you are on also matters, and in some cases it is more important than being a good writer. "Sad to read that Toni Morrison has passed away. Last met her and her son in Paraty, Brazil at a literary festival some years ago. While we were there Israel launched a serious attack on Gaza. A Palestinian poet an Egyptian novelist and myself wrote a short manifesto denouncing Israel in sharp language that would have failed the Labour Party test. Toni was the first to sign despite Christopher Hitchens attempt to stop her and others. Before I spoke I read out our statement and names of those who had signed it to loud applause. Met her again in New York and warned that Obama would be a huge disappointment to people like her. She wouldn't hear any of this, alas." —Tariq Ali, 06 August 2019
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51