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Liberation Quotes

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Liberation Quotes

“Call no man lucky until he is dead, but there have been moment of rare satisfaction in the often random and fragmented life of the radical freelance scribbler. I have lived to see Ronald Reagan called “a useful idiot for Kremlin propaganda” by his former idolators; to see the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union regarded with fear and suspicion by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (which blacked out an interview with Miloš Forman broadcast live on Moscow TV); to see Mao Zedong relegated like a despot of antiquity. I have also had the extraordinary pleasure of revisiting countries—Greece, Spain, Zimbabwe, and others—that were dictatorships or colonies when first I saw them. Other mini-Reichs have melted like dew, often bringing exiled and imprisoned friends blinking modestly and honorably into the glare. E pur si muove—it still moves, all right.”

“Anon from the castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head; And a shout ascends on high, For men's souls are tired of the Turks, And their wicked ways and works, That have made of Ak-Hissar A city of the plague; And the loud, exultant cry That echoes wide and far Is: "Long live Scanderbeg!”

“Consciousness is the opposite of indifference, of blindness, blankness. Promoting consciousness involves the general dissemination of the concept that each of us in part of a universal action and interaction; that poles are somewhere connected; that there are material causes for trauma, vertigo, degenerative disease. Connections, connections, cause and effect, clarity on their relation and interrelations, the connection with the past, continuity, flow, movement, the awareness that nothing, nothing remains the same for long. And it follows that if a thing is not building, it is certainly decaying – that life is revolution – and that the world will die if we don’t read and act out its imperatives. Not on its own will it die, but rather because the forces of reaction have created imbalances that will kill it: “The seeds of its own destruction.” Our destruction too – the epoch of the Bomb, the nerve gases, the massive precipitation of industrial wastes. Consciousness is knowledge, recognition, foresight; common experience and perception; sensibility, alertness, mindfulness. It stirs the senses, the blood, it exposes and suggests; it will objectify, enrage direct. There are no positive formulas for a thing so complex. We have guidelines only to help us with its growth. This means after we are done with our books, they must be put aside; and the search for method will depend on observations, correct analyses, creativity, and seizing the time.” – George L. Jackson Blood in My Eye (pages 22-23)”

“It must be clearly explained to the rebel that he must on no account be blindfolded by the enemy's concessions. [...] concessions are the cloak for a tighter rein. [...] colonialism never gives anything away for nothing. [...] Moreover, the native ought to realize that it is not colonialism that grants such concessions, but he himself that extorts them. [...] If need be the native can accept compromise with colonialism, but never surrender of principle.”

“We tend to assign a lesser social value to those whose doing cannot be enslaved into a given output. We should look to them as sacred guides out of the bondage of productivity. Instead, we withhold social status and capital, and we neglect to acknowledge that theirs is a liberation we can learn from.”

“In ancient times, the greatest source of freedom was believed to be self-knowledge, in the Middle Ages - self-discipline, in the modern era - self-determination, while today it is believed to be self-satisfaction. The first liberates the mind, the second the spirit, the third the will, while the fourth - the desire to get rid of the other three.”

“We are involved in a struggle for liberation: liberation from the exploitive and dehumanizing system of racism, from the manipulative control of a corporate society; liberation from the constrictive norms of 'mainstream' culture, from the synthetic myths that encourage us to fashion ourselves rashly from the without (reaction), instead of the within (creation).”

“Though the uprising had freed the vassals from any obligations they might have had to their former masters, it had yet to profit them. In fact, as the villagers had to man their new borders, build their own prisons, police their markets, and look after the judges they appointed, the amount of money that went to communal use steadily increased. Many ended up paying out more this way than they ever had under the deposed system. But the uprising was never undertaken for riches; it was about basic human dignity. Nor was it for revenge, but self-determination; not for shedding blood, but ending bloodshed. Above all, it was about realizing fair access to natural resources. Two years after discarding the old shackles, they kissed their wives and children good-bye and headed for the trenches, many of the village men would look back at the distances they had traveled and shake their heads in disbelief. Indeed, what an exhilarating feeling it must have been for someone who had never made a decision for himself to have, finally, his destiny firmly in his grasp: to grow the crop of his choice, to paint his home the color he fancied, to marry his daughter to the man he favored, and to be able to send his children to school, all without fear of repercussions from a feudal master. What is more, the peasant no longer needed to submit himself to the humility of waiting on his master’s guests while his wife and daughter labored in the kitchen, preparing food they were not allowed to sample. The peasant might die fighting to hold on to his newly gained freedom; in the past he had always been dying fighting for someone else’s cause. This was a feeling many outsiders, Duke Ashenafi and Reverend Yimam, above all, would never understand.”

“To have a home, a family, a property or a public function, to have a definite means of livelihood and to be a useful cog in the social machine, all these things seem necessary, even indispensable, to the vast majority of men, including intellectuals, and including even those who think of themselves as wholly liberated. And yet such things are only a different form of slavery that comes of contact with others, especially regulated and continued contact.”

“The belief in Limitation is the basis of all jealousy, and jealousy leads to Possession. Possession is the idea that you must hold tightly to that which you love or it might escape. In truth, it does not escape. It loses its value to the holder and often creates contempt. True power attracts the sweet pleasure of liberation within the harmony of love.”

“The antidote to this trap isn’t becoming selfish. It’s becoming whole. It’s allowing yourself to exist without justification. To rest without guilt. To take up space without proving your worth.”

“Actualization is not just the manifestation of your individual experience of the truth; it is your life interconnected with a tree’s life, a bird’s life, water’s life, spring’s life, autumn’s life, and the life of the whole universe.”

“Silence leads to acceptance, which leads to liberation. All of our conditioning is then suspended; so, too, are morals, manners, even simple courtesy. Dogmas, rules, commandments, churches, political parties, opinions, doctrines, ideologies, and gurus fall away. All that remains is reality. All that remains is truth. How free we suddenly feel!”

“The charity and ally models, on the other hand, are so strongly rooted in the ideas of 'I' and 'the other' that they force people to fit into distinct groups with preordained relationships to one another. According to ally politics, the only way to undermine one's own privilege is to give up one's role as an individual political agent, and follow the lead of those more or differently oppressed. White allies, for instance, are taught explicitly to not seek praise for their ally work--especially from people of color--yet there is often a distinctly self-congraulatory air to the work of allyship, as if the act of their humility is exaggerated to receive the praise they can't ask for. Many white allies do their support work in a way that recentralizes themselves as the only individuals willing to come in and do the hard work of fighting racism for people of color. Where ally politics suggest that in shifting your role from actor to ally you can diminish your culpability, a liberator or anarchist approach presumes that each person retains their own agency, insisting that the only way you can be accountable is by acting for your own desires while learning to understand and respond to the desires of other groups. Unraveling our socialized individualization until we can feel how our survival/liberation is infinitely linked to the survival/liberation of others fosters independence, and enables us to take responsibility for our choices, with no boss or guidance counselor to blame for our decisions. Original Zine: Ain't no PC Gonna Fix it, Baby. 2013. Featured in: A Critique of Ally Politics. Taking Sides.”

“But, despite everything, it was almost a pleasure to suffer those torments. I had crawled through life blindly and dully for so long, my heart had kept silent and had sat, impoverished, in a corner for so long, that even these self accusations, this horror, this whole ghastly emotion in my soul was welcome. After all, it was an emotion, flames were still rising, it showed that my heart was still alive! In a confused way, in the midst of misery I felt something like liberation and springtime.”