Quotes by Uzodinma Iweala - Page 2

I find the sort of unwitting European American outsider who wants to come to Africa to help is a very problematic construction. It's problematic because you don't want to tell people don't aid, don't help, when people feel a need to.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Construction
People Feel Find
Aid
Problematic
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Lagos is a fascinatingly infuriating place that its residents love - and love to hate. Licence plates on cars here proudly display the state motto, 'Centre of Excellence,' in what often seems a sarcastic swipe at the place we live in.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Centre
Display
Excellence
Infuriating
Motto
Plates
Residents
Sarcastic
Love Hate Live
Licence
Proudly
Swipe
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Around the world, our cities are not the idealised open, accessible, and cosmopolitan spaces of our dreams. More often than not, they are sectioned and controlled purviews of the radically wealthy, surrounded by clusters of have-nots.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Cities
Clusters
Controlled
Our Dreams
Wealthy
Accessible
Cosmopolitan
Radically
Spaces
Surrounded
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In my senior year of high school, I read an article in 'Newsweek' about child soldiers in Sierra Leone. I felt a sense of shock - this was happening in the region where I'm from, and people don't know about it. I wanted to understand.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Senior
Senior Year
Shock
Sierra
Sierra Leone
People Know School
Article
People School Know
Newsweek
Region
Soldiers
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We grew up going to church, and I believe in God. I don't know that I have the ability to define what or who or how God is. You know, I think that religion kind of messes people up in that regard. That's just my own personal philosophy.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Church
Regard
God Religion Believe
Define
Messes
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When the HIV/AIDS epidemic first appeared, a lot of the reaction was that it's not happening here. It doesn't exist. It's not on the continent of Africa. Then we moved into this other phase, in which it was kind of like, it's everywhere.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Appeared
Continent
Epidemic
Phase
Reaction
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The denial with which many African leaders and communities greeted the appearance of HIV and AIDS across the continent in the 1990s is now considered a tragic mistake rather than a purposeful pushback against lingering colonial prejudice.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Aids
Appearance
Denial
Hiv
Lingering
Mistake
Prejudice
Tragic
Across
African
Considered
Colonial
Communities
Purposeful
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I think South Africa would be in a lot worse position had you not had visionaries like the Mandelas or the Oliver Tambos or the people there who came together after... both during apartheid and afterwards to create and structure their society.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Apartheid
South Africa
Visionaries
Afterwards
Society Together People
Oliver
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People just think Africa is this one thing. So if you're from Nigeria, then you're the same as somebody from Kenya; not realizing that within Nigeria, right, we have 250 different ethnic groups, right? Two hundred and fifty different languages.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Ethnic Groups
Nigeria
Realizing
Languages
Ethnic
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The images that we see of Africa are so... that are so engrained in our minds are of this place that is terrible - like hell on earth. And that doesn't acknowledge the positive things - the many, many, many positive things - that people are doing.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Acknowledge
Positive Things
Images
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When I speak about 'we,' it gets very complex very quickly. Having grown up in the United States, but also being very much a member of Nigerian societies and also different parts of Nigerian societies, I understand that we construct particular 'we's.'
Uzodinma Iweala /
Construct
Different Parts
Societies
Nigerian
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People don't talk about the amount of destruction in terms of human lives that happen, whether it's through slavery, or through, for example, what Belgium was doing in the Congo - the fragmentation of society that happened after that destruction of human life.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Belgium
Congo
Destruction
Fragmentation
Human Life
Life Society People
For Example
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War in Africa is hardly a new phenomenon, nor are voices telling its stories of terror and triumph. Yet some of the continent's most devastating conflicts - and the literature born from the experiences of their survivors - have often gone unnoticed in the West.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Phenomenon
Terror
Triumph
Unnoticed
Conflicts
Continent
Devastating
Hardly
Survivors
Voices
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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.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Adopted
Brutal
Nigeria
Remarkable
Succession
Tension
Dictatorships
Each One
Fraught
Shown
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Washington, D.C., is not a subtle city. Unlike the capitals of other once-great powers which, many hundreds of years old, present a more seamless meshing of monumental memory and daily life, D.C. is constructed to shout, 'Here I am! I am powerful!' to the world.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Daily Life
Seamless
Subtle
Life Daily World
Constructed
Unlike
Hundreds
Hundreds Of Years
Monumental
Powers
Shout
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When somebody says that six million people died in the Holocaust, there is nobody in the world who can understand that. It's only through story, reading books by Elie Wiesel or Primo Levi, that you really begin to understand the trauma and how horrible it actually was.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Died
Holocaust
Horrible
Reading
Reading Books
Six
Trauma
Begin
Understand
Actually
World People Nobody
Somebody
Books
Nobody
Through
Levi
Million
Million People
Says
Story
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I think the fact that we don't really... that the world really doesn't acknowledge how bad and how detrimental colonialism was; that people don't really try to explore it, you know, in popular media and news articles; that... that it's just kind of glossed over as this thing.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Acknowledge
Articles
Colonialism
Detrimental
World People Bad
Explore
Just Kind
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We are not living in the same world we were immediately after the Cold War, when there seemed to be a greater belief in the universality of human rights and there was enough prosperity to make us question why we had not committed more resources to upholding the values we claimed to hold most dear.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Belief
Cold
Cold War
Committed
Dear
Greater
Human Rights
Prosperity
Resources
Rights
Universality
War Enough World
War World Living
Claimed
Hold
Immediately
Question
Seemed
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Sensationalism only works for so long. Think of something like the Kony 2012 campaign. Its sensationalized, viral language got people all hot and bothered, but at the end of the day, there was so much it got wrong about the situation, and that did more damage to their cause than what they got right.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Bothered
Damage
Viral
Long Day People
End Of The Day Long Day
Works
Campaign
Cause
End Of The Day
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I'm not a propaganda machine. I tell things how I see them. When I say, for example, that corruption is not the only thing the West should think about when they think about Nigeria, I'm not saying it doesn't exist but that people have the complete wrong focus. There's music, there's art, there's culture.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Corruption
Nigeria
Propaganda
For Example
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Nigeria is a difficult place. It is not a country for the faint of heart. On a good day, when our larger cities such as Abuja, Lagos, and Kano are filled with the teeming masses going in so many different directions, flogged by the heat and sun, bumping down uneven roads all in the name of 'the hustle,' it can appear chaotic.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Chaotic
Different Directions
Filled
Good Day
Heat
Hustle
Nigeria
Appear
Directions
Faint
Masses
Roads
Teeming
Uneven
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Right after undergrad, I started doing low-level work on health issues in sub-Saharan Africa, and what struck me was the disconnect between how people in New York would speak about some of the issues people were facing. At the time, 2006-ish, there were a number of big media campaigns to raise awareness about HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.
Uzodinma Iweala /
New York
Health
Campaigns
Hiv
Low Level
Media
Speak
Sub Saharan Africa
Time Work Me
Time Work Health
Africa
Disconnect
Facing
Number
Work Health Time
Raise
Struck
Sub-Saharan
York
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I fundamentally believe that no one can teach you how to write - finding out how to write a story is part of the process of creating a story - but you can really learn through exposure to different writing, to different art forms, to different modes of storytelling, and with mentors who are able to get you to step outside your comfort zone.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Comfort
Comfort Zone
Exposure
Zone
Art Believe Your
Art Forms
Fundamentally
Mentors
Modes
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Whether as living humans or as mythological figures, ancestors have always played an important role in the African popular and literary imagination. Sometimes, as in Amos Tutuola's famous short novels, they directly influence events. More often, as in the works of Chinua Achebe, both living and dead ancestors are sages offering valuable advice.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Figures
Offering
Valuable
African
Ancestors
Directly
Literary
Important Role
Mythological
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I don't think that one should beat himself or herself over the head if immediately you're not like Jesus Christ or, you know, Gandhi or whoever. But I think the idea is to... to look at those examples and try to... try to operate in a way that every day you live or every interaction you have pushes you further along to operating with that mindset.
Uzodinma Iweala /
Jesus
Christ
Interaction
Jesus Christ
Mindset
Look Day Every Day
Beat
Examples
Further
Gandhi
Herself
Immediately
Operate
Pushes
Whoever
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Uzodinma Iweala Quotes - Page 2

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