Olara Otunnu quotes

Compelled to become instruments of war, to kill and be killed, child soldiers are forced to give violent expression to the hatreds of adults
-- Olara Otunnu

#Children #War #Expression

My mandate...is to promote the protection, rights and welfare of children...
-- Olara Otunnu

#Children #Rights #Protection

The time has come to make the protection of children - all our children - a common cause that can unite us across the boundaries of our political orientation, religious affiliation and cultural traditions. We must reclaim our lost taboos, and make the abuse and brutalization of children simply unaccepetable.
-- Olara Otunnu

#Religious #Children #Political

When we look at a child, we see that sense of fullness, of intrinsic aliveness, of joy in being, is not the result of something else. There is value in just being oneself, it is not because of something one does or doesn't do. It is there in the beginning, when we are children, but slowly it gets lost.

Inculcating the various competing - competing, note - falsehoods of the major faiths into small children is a form of child abuse, and a scandal.

A broadsheet obituarist once pointed out to me that veteran soldiers die by rank. First to go are the generals, admirals and air marshals, then the brigadiers, then a bit of a gap and the colonels and wing commanders and passed-over majors, then a steady trickle of captains and lieutenants. As they get older and rarer, so the soldiers are mythologised and grow ever more heroic, until finally drummer boys and under-age privates are venerated and laurelled with honours like ancient field marshals. There is something touching about that.

It is said about Lord Buddha sadaya-hrdaya darsita-pasu-ghatam. He saw the whole human race going to hell by this animal killing. So he appeared to teach ahimsa, nonviolence, being compassionate on the animals and human beings. In the Christian religion also, it is clearly stated, 'Thou shall not kill'. So everywhere animal killing is restricted. In no religion the unnecessary killing of animals is allowed. But nobody is caring. The killing process is increasing, and so are the reactions. Every ten years you will find a war. These are the reactions.

War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life.

The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.

No war is inevitable until it breaks out.

This book has been a catalogue of mistakes by politicians, moral and practical disasters which led to wars, enslavement and wretchedness on a scale which no previous age could have dreaded or dreamed of.

We must become expressions of, not consumers of, realization.

People who think of children's nudity as a tool don't need freedom of expression.