Sectarian Politics Quotes

I think the Shiites want a theocracy.

Hezbollah will support Assad to the end because his continuing hold on power is critical to its own survival.

In Turkey, the Kamalist elite ignored the religious leadership, the countryside, and the Kurds. Creating groups of very unhappy people who cohered into a new political opposition. The same happened in Israel, and Menachem Begin connected with them. Today, both Erdogan and Netanyahu rule from a support base that is more religious, more rural, and less educated, where honor and nationalism are important. That makes the relationship between the two very hard.

American airstrikes...create risks, especially if our intelligence there is rusty. The crucial step, and the one we should apply diplomatic pressure to try to achieve, is for Maliki to step back and share power with Sunnis while accepting decentralization of government. If Maliki does all that, it may still be possible to save Iraq. Without that, airstrikes would be a further waste in a land in which we've already squandered far, far too much.

This current government in Iraq has never fulfilled the commitments it made to form a unity government with the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia. We have worked hard with them within the confines of our ability to do that but we can't dictate to them.

If a candidate at the MLA or chief ministerial level gets an advantage of belonging to a particular caste while fighting polls, that is one thing. But after having been elected, if you only look after the developmental needs of a particular caste or community, that is a different matter altogether. The BJP has never done that.

Sectarian political festivals are not the way Londoners want their money to be spent. Most of us, I suspect, just want to be trusted to get on with other people and not be instructed by activists about the dangers of racism.

People in Northern Ireland vote for their church, they don't vote with their heads; it is ridiculous.

Although BJP and Congress are two sides of same coin, BJP is far more communal. Since BJP came to power, there is an atmosphere of hatred, and there is a takeover of the democratic institutions.

Not surprisingly, in most Sunni regions there has little appetite for free U.S.-sponsored elections.

I don't want a political party in my government that interferes in Arab countries against other Arab countries.

If Iran seeks to meddle in domestic Indian politics by creating disaffection among the Shias of Uttar Pradesh, what better way to counter that by reminding all concerned that while the Shias maybe an important vote bank in U.P., they constitute only 10 per cent of Indian Muslims, while the Sunnis account for an overwhelming 90 per cent.

In Ulster every man's creed is known and noted and ninety-nine men in a hundred vote according to their creed.

Sectarian politics gets votes in Iraq. But sectarian government fails in Iraq.

In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect, from supporting him; but if he attacks all the sects together, every one abandons him and he remains alone.

The Alternative Vote is sectarian and self-serving and it will not improve people's lives.