Michael Ignatieff
Michael Ignatieff
Michael Grant Ignatieff, PCis a Canadian author, academic and former politician. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Toronto...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth12 May 1947
CountryCanada
memories afterlife forget
Memory is the only afterlife I have ever believed in. But the forgetting inside us cannot be stopped. We are programmed to betray.
real war believe
The disagreeable reality for those who believe in human rights is that there are some occasions-and Iraq may be one of them-when war is the only real remedy for regimes that live by terror,
want world states
There are lots of nations in the world or national peoples who don't yet have states. They're inside someone else's state and they want a state of their own.
moral consideration individual
...our species is one, and each of the individuals who compose it are entitled to equal moral consideration.
believe people causes
It's good for people to believe in causes larger than themselves.
war aim impunity
All war aims for impunity.
war historical bosnians
I was with the U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on the day that Srebrenica fell, which happened to be a huge historical turning point in the Bosnian war.
answers doe access
If you get the access to see history happen, do you understand the history when it does happen? And the answer to that question is no, you dont.
cutting pieces want
The reason that the Croats want a state of their own is that they fear being cut into little pieces by the Serbs.
ideas forget improvisation
Cynics who say power is all that counts in politics forget that power without ideas is just improvisation.
memories trying shapes
Family traditions are more than arguments with the dead, more than collections of family letters you try to decipher. A tradition is also a channel of memory through which fierce and unrequited longings surge, longings that define and shape a whole life.
america feelings patriotism
There's intense national feeling in America that could be called patriotism.
country communication community
Canadians want a country. They don't want a community of communities. I'm committed to the national unity of the country.
country war exercise
America's entire war on terror is an exercise in imperialism. This may come as a shock to Americans, who don't like to think of their country as an empire. But what else can you call America's legions of soldiers, spooks and special forces straddling the globe?