Quotes from Ryszard Kapuscinski

The Cold War in Africa is one of the darkest, most disgraceful pages in contemporary history, and everybody ought to be ashamed.

I remember that during the period leading up to independence in Angola in 1975, I was the only correspondent there at all for three months.

Amin managed to invite both the US and Soviet ambassadors to his palace at the very same time and then deliberately kept them together in his waiting room.

Be careful: they have arms, and no alternatives.

The extent of one man's guilt may be defined by how much of it is experienced by the party he injured.

The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.

There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God.

I'll tell you what colonial experience is.

There is a fundamental difference between the Polish experience of the state and the Russian experience. In the Polish experience, the state was always a foreign power. So, to hate the state was a patriotic act.

This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves, as a possession.

Amin knew that neither West nor East would criticize him for fear that he would support the other side. He felt he was untouchable and he said so openly.

The Cold War was waged in a particularly brutal and cynical way in Africa, and Africa seemed powerless to do anything to stop it.

Most correspondents came from the former colonial powers - there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians.

on war and conquest: in the realm of human affairs one also needs a pretext. it is important to give it the rank of a universal imperative or of a divine commandment. The range of choices is not great; either it is that we must defend ourselves, or that we have an obligation to help others, or that we are fulfilling heaven's will. the optimal pretext would link all three of the motives.

In order to feel contempt, you generally need to cherish some kind of feelings.

When man meets an obstacle he can't destroy, he destroys himself

in reference to Persepolis and all palaces, cities and temples of the past: could these wonders have come into being without that suffering? without the overseer's whip, the slave's fear, the ruler's vanity? was not the monumentality of past epochs created by that which is negative and evil in man?

Photographing expresses human desire to preserve passing time. It is like a man struggling with time that elapses, and in general - a desire to preserve oneself.

When is a crisis reached? When questions arise that can't be answered.

Amin is the shame of the whole world. The fact that he managed to rule so long and commit so many crimes was only possible thanks to the hypocrisy of the East and the West who were waging the Cold War for world domination.

In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated.

Do not be misled by the fact that you are at liberty and relatively free; that for the moment you are not under lock and key: you have simply been granted a reprieve.

In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.

Amin hid nothing. Everybody knew everything. Yet the American Senate only introduced a resolution breaking off trade with Amin three months before his overthrow.