Latest Eliza Griswold Quotes from Interviews

• I was examining what religious identity meant in Africa. Along the edge of the Islamic world, what patterns were shaping identity? And the truth is, when I looked at the rise of violent forms of religion, no single identity was prevalent. It's central to note that in Nigeria, that tree is rooted primarily in Christianity. It's not just Islamic militants in the Middle Belt.

  Eliza Griswold

  Religious, Islamic, Tree

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• We know what war means, and we know what poverty means. We need to develop a better model for reaching out to the world than we have.

  Eliza Griswold

  War, Mean, World

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• My upbringing was pretty interesting. It was a rigorous, intellectual upbringing, but with the idea that we were a part of an important and legitimate enterprise. What that meant was sitting around the dinner table from a really early age with people from all different backgrounds who believed in God. When I was reporting in the wake of September 11th in Iraq and elsewhere, I felt I had the capacity to talk to people whose beliefs might sound outlandish to more secular journalists. I felt like I could be a translator between those two worlds.

  Eliza Griswold

  Interesting, People, September 11

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• In most of the world, poetry has such a different reputation than it does in Western culture. Poetry is a popular genre in Afghanistan. If you turned on the radio, there would be a poetry program that would be as popular as The Real Housewives. People aren't listening to poetry as if they're taking their vitamins. Instead, it's a popular vessel you can fill with anything. You could fill it with sass. You could fill it with rage. You could fill it with political statements.

  Eliza Griswold

  Real, People, Political

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The future of Afghanistan is incredibly dark, and decisions are happening incredibly quickly. Speculation is a fool's game, but I've seen many political projections that look like the Taliban could hold most of the country, and possibly Kabul, within perhaps a short time. I can't imagine how Afghanistan's fall isn't going to be ten times faster than Iraq's. The role of women in that space is terrifying, and the idea of retribution is a nightmare.

  Eliza Griswold

  Country, Fall, Dark

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• When I would ask women to tell me landays, and they were comfortable enough to do so, they'd tell me ones that reflected the state of their own lives.

  Eliza Griswold

  Enough

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• If we were to see Western landay poems, we'd see them out of disenfranchised populations, maybe out of the legacy of slavery. Spirituals, rap music - that would be the space we'd find American landays in.

  Eliza Griswold

  Rap, Legacy, Slavery

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I think most good poetry is about suffering; I think that's what underlies the love in these landays pieces - suffering and longing.

  Eliza Griswold

  Thinking, Suffering, Longing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• One of the things about landays is that they thrive in a modern context. Early on I went to this incredible Pashtun novelist, Mustafa Salik, who is a bestselling novelist in Afghanistan and works for the BBC in Pashto. With the question of the sanctity of the poems in mind, I asked him, "Aren't you worried? They've been posted on Facebook and such." And he said, "Just the opposite. This is a folk form; they survive and thrive as people share them."

  Eliza Griswold

  People, Mind, Incredibles

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The power of the voice in rap is about the expression of truth, rather than the expression of some kind of artifice. Landays, they're about love and pleasure and oppression and levels of oppression within a family. And because of that, I think rap music is probably closely related.

  Eliza Griswold

  Rap, Thinking, Kind

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• If we think about folk forms, they belong to disenfranchised people, people who have not been allowed access to the poetry of literature or the leisure time that comes with the pursuit of poetry. Instead, this is ceremony. This is a highly charged way to create a sacred space that isn't necessarily about God, but is about human experience at its most profound levels - whether that's love or grief, separation, or homeland. All are altered states.

  Eliza Griswold

  Grief, Thinking, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Poetry allows me to write about what I don't know, whereas journalism demands a higher level of certainty to be worthy of being written.

  Eliza Griswold

  Writing, Levels, Demand

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• You can't be wrong in journalism. Take a wrong turn in journalism, and you are writing fiction. You can take a wrong turn in poetry, and something wonderful can happen.

  Eliza Griswold

  Writing, Fiction, Journalism

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The truth is, terrorism flourishes in places of injustice rather than in places of poverty.

  Eliza Griswold

  Poverty, Injustice, Terrorism

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I was surprised by the level of sophistication of the Special Operation forces. Among them were anthropologists and PhD candidates. I felt because I understand the patterns of nineteenth-century jihad in West Africa that I was definitely going to be more advanced than they were in comprehending what the militant rallying cry was.

  Eliza Griswold

  Rallying Cry, Special, Patterns

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The most dangerous thing I've ever encountered was a run-in with Boko Haram around 2007 in a small town in Nigeria. I got caught along with the photographer I was working with, the same one I worked with on the Afghanistan book, Seamus Murphy. We were caught in an attack by a mob after Friday prayers. And the level of violence was so extreme. It was more violent than any other mob violence I have ever seen.

  Eliza Griswold

  Friday, Running, Prayer

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Islam doesn't have a monopoly on violence in Africa. And violence plays a particularly critical role in places where statehood is weak at best, such as the Maghreb.

  Eliza Griswold

  Play, Islam, Roles

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• It's important to understand that violent Islam is only one face of violent religion.

  Eliza Griswold

  Islam, Important, Faces

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The future of Afghanistan is incredibly dark, and decisions are happening incredibly quickly.

  Eliza Griswold

  Dark, Decision, Afghanistan

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Speculation is a fool's game, but I've seen many political projections that look like the Taliban could hold most of the country, and possibly Kabul, within perhaps a short time.

  Eliza Griswold

  Country, Games, Political

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Poetry isn't as relevant in the Western world as it is in Afghanistan. And not many people make time for something that doesn't feel relevant.

  Eliza Griswold

  People, World, Making Time

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I can't imagine how Afghanistan's fall isn't going to be ten times faster than Iraq's.

  Eliza Griswold

  Fall, Iraq, Imagine

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• In most of the world, poetry has such a different reputation than it does in Western culture.

  Eliza Griswold

  Western Culture, Doe, Different

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Poetry is a popular genre in Afghanistan. If you turned on the radio, there would be a poetry program that would be as popular as The Real Housewives.

  Eliza Griswold

  Real, Would Be, Radio

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Seeing the Afghan women in their burqas, it's easy to say, "Well, they're not as fully aware as I am, so why do I have to worry so much about their plight?" But that's a misunderstanding. They are brutally aware of their station.

  Eliza Griswold

  Worry, Plight, Easy

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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