Colonial Quotes - page 9
Puerto Ricans...castrate their children. As a reality check. Because they know the colonial systems will not allow their children to achieve all the things that they want in life. I saw that in my childhood. I saw this impotence that was imposed on me since my childhood. But I said, "I'm going to build an empire of uselessness. I'm going to take from the Americans the ingenuity, and I'm going to take from the Spaniards the wisdom.” And that's what I do. I mix wisdom and ingenuity.
Giannina Braschi
We, politely referred to as "underdeveloped," in truth are colonial, semi-colonial or dependent countries. We are countries whose economies have been distorted by imperialism, which has abnormally developed those branches of industry or agriculture needed to complement its complex economy. "Underdevelopment,” or distorted development, brings a dangerous specialization in raw materials, inherent in which is the threat of hunger for all our peoples. We, the "underdeveloped,” are also those with the single crop, the single product, the single market. A single product whose uncertain sale depends on a single market imposing and fixing conditions. That is the great formula for imperialist economic domination.
Che Guevara
A culture that is in the process of being swamped by another often reacts by physically grappling with the outsiders. But it may wage a cultural war as well. Such defensive actions have been given various labels by anthropologists: nativism, revivalism, revitalization, and messianism. All are deliberate efforts to erect a better culture out of the defeat or decay of an older one. ...The reactions of primitive peoples overpowered by Eurasian colonial empires have usually been much more extreme. Their lands appropriated, their social system ripped apart, their customs suppressed, and their holy places profaned-they tried to resist physically but they were inevitably defeated by the superior firepower and technology of the Whites. As hopelessness and apathy settled over these people, the ground was prepared for revivalistic and messianic movements that promised the return of the good old days.
Peter Farb
(Thanksgiving has) never been about honoring Native Americans. It's been about the origin story of the United States, the beginning of genocide, dispossession and constant warfare from that time-actually, from 1607 in Jamestown-until the present. It's a colonial system that was set up.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
We cannot forget what Lenin said about our great construction, which in large part depends on our succeeding in delaying the war with the capitalist countries. This war is inevitable, but it can be delayed until the proletarian revolution ripens in Europe, or until the colonial revolutions break out, or, finally, until the capitalists fight among themselves for the division of the colonies.
Joseph Stalin
The post-war period inaugurated a very different colonial policy. A deliberate attempt was made to divert colonial earnings from the wealthy class and use them instead generally to finance the ‘Welfare State'. As will be seen from the examples given later, this was the method consciously adopted even by those working-class leaders who had before the war regarded the colonial peoples as their natural allies against their capitalist enemies at home.
Kwame Nkrumah
