The State of the World

"One illusion has been shattered on 11 September - that we can have the good life of the West irrespective of the state of the rest of the world. Once chaos and strife have got a grip on a region or a country, trouble will soon be exported...The dragon's teeth are planted in the fertile soil of wrongs unrighted, of disputes left to fester for years or even decades, of failed states, of poverty and deprivation."
-Tony Blair at the 2001 Lord Mayor's banquet.

"Widespread poverty and chaos lead to a collapse of existing political and social structures, which would inevitably invite the advance of totalitarianism into every weak and unstable area. Thus our own security would be endangered and our prosperity imperilled."
-John F. Kennedy arguing in 1961 for a big increase in America's aid budget.

"In the aftermath of September 11 people were fond of saying that 'the world had changed'; that life would never be the same again. What they meant, of course, was that life in the rich world, and especially in America, had changed. In the poor world nothing much had changed at all - except that many more countries would be regarded with suspicion and many more of their citizens seen as potential terrorists."

"If leaders like Tony Blair (and those that follow him) remain true to their words, then over the next forty years Africa might well look very different from the way I have had to portray it during the last forty years."
-George Alagiah, A Passage to Africa, 2001