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Colonialism Quotes

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Colonialism Quotes

“Another word we hear repeatedly is ‘tolerance’. Many people use this word positively in situations like ‘tolerating difference’… If you simply search the linguistic meaning of the word, the first definition you will get is (tolerance: noun): ‘to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of something that one does not necessarily like or agree with without interference.’ In this sense, using this word is disturbing because it suggests two things: first, the person who is doing the tolerating has the upper hand in everything; that they ‘tolerate’ others out of the kindness of their hearts. Second, it gives those doing the ‘tolerating’ the right to change their mind and stop ‘tolerating’ others any time they please, which could make them commit violence against those they deem ‘intolerable’, since they have the upper hand on matters. In brief, this leaves no voice, power, or agency to the tolerated. I never understand how any native English speaker could thoughtlessly use ‘tolerate’ as a positive word in such situations. How could they use the same word to tell us that they tolerate a medication, an immigrant, or another religion? We need a culture that teaches us to appreciate, to love, and to affirm others not to tolerate them!”

InspirationalWisdomRacismToleranceColonialismImperialismAmerican CultureDecolonizationLanguages And CultureLinguistic Hegemony
Author:Louis Yako
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“Stop calling it war, for war implies faults on both sides. It's an invasion, where the state of Russia is the aggressor and the people of Ukraine are the victim. And stop saying that your prayers are with the Ukrainian people, for prayers may give you comfort, but it does nothing to alleviate their suffering. Shred all hypocritical advocacy of human rights and be involved in a meaningful way that actually helps the victims of Russian imperialism.”

Human RightsOccupationColonialismInvasionWar And PeaceHumanitarian CrisisHumanitarian AidRussian ImperialismRussia And Ukraine Conflict
Author:Abhijit Naskar
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“All my life, I'd been accustomed to thinking of life as things that moved: rabbits, dogs, fish, other people. Life that mattered had been life like me, life that breathed and bled, life that ate and slept. I'd been aware of that other layer of life, of the still but living things that supported it all, but I'd thought of it as the lower layer, as the less important stratum of life. Empty prairie was for plowing or grazing; land that was too poor for farming or cattle was wasteland. I'd never lived near a forest like this, but when I'd come to one, I'd understood why it existed. The trees were to be taken for lumber. The land had to be cleared to become useful. The idea that forest or prairie or even wasteland should be left as it was had never occurred to me. What good was land until it was tamed? What good was a piece of earth that did not grow wheat or fruit or grass for cattle? The value of every bit of land I'd ever trodden, I'd reckoned in terms of how it could benefit a man. Now I saw it with the eyes of a forest mage. Here life balanced as it had for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Sunlight and water were all that was required for the trees to grow. The trees made the food that fed not only whatever moving creatures might venture through this territory, but also became the food that replenished the soil when their leaves fell to rot back into earth. This working system was as refined and precise as any piece of clockwork ever engineered by man. It worked perfectly.”

LifeScienceColonialismScience And ReligionPlants
Book:Renegade's Magic
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“Colonized painting, for instance, is balanced between poles. From excessive submission to Europe resulting in depersonalization, it passes to such a violent return to self that it is obnoxious and esthetically illusory. The right balance not being found, the self-accusation continues. Before and during the revolt, the colonized always considers the colonizer as a model or as an antithesis. He continues to struggle against him. He was torn between what he was and what he wanted to be, and now he is making of himself. Nonetheless, the painful discord with himself continues. In order to witness the colonized's complete cure, his alienation must completely cease. We must await the complete disappearance of colonization--including the period of revolt.”

ColonialismColonizationEmpireColonizerColonizedAlbert Memme
Book:The Colonizer and the Colonized
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“Nothing could better justify the colonizer's privileged position than industry, and nothing could better justify tge colonised 's destitution than his laziness. The mythical potrait of the colonized therefore includes an unbelievable laziness, and that of the colonizer suggests that employing the colonized is not very profitable, thereby authorizing his reasonable wages.”

ColonialismColonizedColonialist
Book:The Colonizer and the Colonized
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“Berlin of 1884 was effected through the sword and the bullet. But the night of the sword and the bullet was followed by the morning of the chalk and the blackboard. The physical violence of the battlefield was followed by the psychological violence of the classroom. But where the former was visibly brutal, the latter was visibly gentle … The bullet was the means of physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation.”

EducationViolenceColonialismDiscourseColonizationSymbolic Violence
Author:Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
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“Colors" A long time ago our national IDs had the word “wheat” next to the “skin color” category… Some people’s colors were associated with olives and chocolate… Eye colors were described as honey and pistachio colored… There was also the chestnut-colored hair – all descriptions reminding us that we are gifts from the same source: Mother Nature’s womb! As for the racist West, it insists on reducing humanity and painting it with politicized colors of which only one color matters! As for other colors, they are made to be equivalent to nobodies and nothingness… They insist on turning this world into a snow-covered wasteland Into one blank page and no more… [Original poem published in Arabic on October 31, 2023 at ahewar.org]”

HateCultureRacismColonialismImperialismDifferenceExclusionArabic PoetryDecoloniality
Author:Louis Yako
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“The Hollywood storylines almost always go something like: the Russians are dangerous spies planning to invade us, the Chinese are trying to pull the carpet from under our feet, the people of the Middle East are terrorists, and on and on goes the list of malicious and intentional misrepresentations. At the end of the storyline, the American heroes always win and save America and the world from ‘evil’. What is quite ironic – and often goes unnoticed by many – in these Hollywood storylines is that, while the American culture is engineered to dismiss valid and genuine critique of American life and foreign policies as being ‘conspiracy theories’, America’s relationships with the outside world is strongly based on threats, punishment, sanctioning, wars, and revenge, all done under pretexts like ‘they hate us’, ‘they hate our freedoms and values’, and other such nonsense. It never occurs to many Americans that representing the outside world as constantly ‘hating’ us or wanting to destroy our nation and values (unless, of course, they do as we say), is in fact nothing short of conspiracy theory. Overall, Hollywood’s storylines ensure keeping the myth of exceptionalism alive.”

HateRacismPropagandaForeign PolicyColonialismAmerican PoliticsConspiracy TheoriesMisrepresentationRepresentation Of MinoritiesHolywood
Author:Louis Yako
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“You have to hate them, you mean? You can’t decide: I will or I won’t hate them?” Amar did not completely understand. “But I hate them now,” he explained. “The day Allah wants me to stop hating them, He’ll change my heart.” The man was smiling, as if to himself. “If the world’s really like that, it’s very easy to be in it,” he said. “It will never be easy to be in the world,” Amar said firmly. “Er tabi mabrhach. God doesn’t want it easy.”

GodHateEasyColonialismMoroccoFrench Morocco
Book:The Spider's House
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“When two brothers are busy fighting, an evil man can easily attack and rob their poor mother. Mankind should always stay united, standing shoulder to shoulder so evil can never cheat and divide them.”

WorldLoveWarEarthHumanityFightingPeaceLeadershipJusticeUnitedMankindUnityCorruptionConquerDivisionDividedColonialismCheatWorld PeaceLieTogethernessWeapons Of Mass DestructionMother EarthGlobal CitizenBrothersAttackSynergyWorld CitizenStealDivide And ConquerGlobe
Book:Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
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“My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.”

WarEthicsTerrorismActivismAnti WarColonialismImperialismNoam Chomsky
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Decolonized History Lesson (Sonnet 1546) Early Arabs and Indians invented astronomy and algebra, Early white people invented genocide and massacre. Indigenous Latinos invented chocolate, Early Chinese invented printing. Early Caucasians invented cockiness, calling invasion as civilization-bringing. Modern Arabs build cities in the desert, Modern whites still burn down cities. Modern Indians democratize space exploration, Modern whites still manufacture disparities. Modern whites coddle hate and prejudice, and use free speech as justification. If any humane white ever questions hate, they're branded, woke traitor to the nation. Till this day, white people manufacture 99% of the world's human rights violations. If you right the wrong, it's cussed as wokeness, To support white terrorism is patriotism.”

Social JusticeActivismCivil RightsGenocideFascismColonialismWhite SupremacyWokeHuman Rights ViolationNeonazi
Book:World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets
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“What I learnt from haters (The Sonnet) In the recent years I've come to realize, when you stand firm on rights and equality, seeing you as threat, they brand you dictator. When you have no firm conviction whatsoever, you ain't someone worth noting, just a number. I'm flattered when they make serious time out to call me stupid, meaningless and narcissist. If intolerance of prejudice makes me a dictator, Hundred Hitlers fall pale to my God complex. I don't consider creatures like Winnie human, who have no regard for rights over tradition. If this makes you think, I'm megalomaniacal, it's alright, you are just lost children. I once said, no one is inferior to no one, except those who think of others as such. If this simple truth makes me the enemy, ecology 101: sun always repels the badgers.”

DiversitySocial JusticeActivismCivil RightsBigotryHumanistGenocideInclusionColonialism
Book:The Divine Refugee
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“...but I'm also talking about the colonizing of truth, the redesigning of the fabric of reality. I am talking about the imposition of a way of classifying, measuring, and quantifying the world, including everything from time, to temperature, to distance, to weight. All of these things became calculated and bounded by frameworks that were not only European but often peculiarly English ways of understanding reality. Today's activism responds to the world on these terms, operating on terrain already mapped out by white supremacy, Eurocentric logic, and colonialism. This would be less worrying if it was clearly identified, would not pose so grave a danger if there was awareness that the terms of engagement operate within a framework that we need to dissolve. However, that acknowledgement appears to be entirely absent, and we congratulate ourselves on 'speaking truth to power' (often, depressingly, via what we know call 'platform capitalism').”

RaceRacismActivismColonialismWhite SupremacyIdentity PoliticsAntiracismEurocentrismRace Theory
Book:What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition – An Empowering Guide to Interrogating Whiteness and Creating Justice
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“Amid the welter of vague political abstractions ... where meanings shift so quickly and so subtly, not only following changes of thought, but often manipulated artificially by political practitioners so as to obscure, expand, or distort ... a certain broad consistency in its relations to other kindred terms is the nearest approach to definition which such a term as Imperialism admits. Nationalism, internationalism, colonialism, its three closest congeners, are equally elusive, equally shifty, and the changeful overlapping of all four demands the closest vigilance.”

PoliticalCertainThreeTermFourDemandApproachRelationDefinitionsFollowingNationalismBroadsColonialismClosestConsistencyVagueObscureImperialismAbstractionElusiveVigilanceKindredOverlappingInternationalism
Author:J. Allan Hobson
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“The formal granting of independence created a more Manichean system of dependency and exploitation, since for those who practice it, it means power without responsibility and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress. In the days of old-fashioned colonialism, the imperial power had at least to explain and justify at home the actions it was taking abroad. In the colony those who served the ruling imperial power could at least look to its protection against any violent move by their opponents. With neocolonialism neither is the case.”

LooksMeanHomeActionMovingSufferingResponsibilityPracticeCasesIndependenceProtectionViolentOpponentsJustifyColonialismExploitationFormalOld FashionedRulingColonyDependencyRedress
Author:Kwame
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“The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and poor countries of the world.”

WorldCountryUsedPoorResultsRichDevelopmentIncreaseInvestmentGapsColonialismExploitationRich And PoorDecreasePoor CountriesCountries Of The World
Book:Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism
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“There is a structural difference between the way that Europe views Israel, and America views Israel. The European view is informed by the importance of colonialism in Europe's past. So for Europeans we are like Belgiums in the Congo, or the French in Alger, or the British in India. Strange interlopers in somebody else's land. But in fact, we [Israeli] have been here for 4,000 years. This is our ancestral homeland.”

WayYearsHas BeensFactsAmericaPastDifferencesViewsLandStrangeEuropeIndiaImportanceIsraelBritishColonialismIsraeliHomelandCongo
Author:Benjamin Netanyahu
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“The result of civilization, at the Sandwich Islands and elsewhere, is found productive to the civilizers, destructive to the civilizees. It is said to be compensation--a very philosophical word; but it appears to be very much on the principle of the old game, "You lose, I win": good philosophy for the winner.”

SaidPhilosophyFoundGamesWinningLosesResultsPrinciplesCivilizationPhilosophicalWinnerIslandsDestructiveProductiveElsewhereColonialismCompensationSandwichesGood Philosophy
Author:Herman Melville
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