Random Quotes

Gerrard Winstanley (1609-1676) was a protestant reformer and political activist in England.

Gerrad Winstanley (1649): The new law of righteousness, p. 158.

Winstanley was active in the Diggers movement which consisted mainly of landless farmers who were demanding land for the general population in which to grow their food. He aspired to a society without money and wage labour. In this quote, Winstanley pointed out that violent structures and relationships tended to be reproduced over and over again. People subject to violence and oppression were generally those most likely to notice this fact. And these people usually did not belong to the dominant race, class, gender, sexuality, and so on categories, i.e. the poor, women, homosexuals, racialised people, transgender, and so on.

*Maria Mies (1986): Patriachy and Accumulation on a World Scale. Women in the International Division of Labour. London & New York: Zed Books.

Pericles (ca. 495 – 429 BC) was an Athenian general and politician.

Dr. Fani Mallouchou-Tufano (2006): “The Restoration of the Athenian Acropolis.” Lecture at LSA.

Athenian democracy is often seen as the basis of contemporary Western democracy. Within it, a significant part of the population took part in certain types of voting. However, women and enslaved people were excluded from voting, and Pericles is also credited with saying ‘The best woman is the one who speaks the least.’ The city-state of Athens had numerous colonies in the Mediterranean and along the Black Sea’s coasts. The so-called Great Colonisation took place mainly from the mid 8th to the mid 6th centuries B.C.E. Initially Greek traders settled, and they were then followed by others, while existing populations were expelled. During the debt crisis of 2009, the situation in Greece was described as post-colonial, because Greek domestic policy was externally determined (by the troika of the IMF, European Commission and Central Bank, Samaddar 2015).

*Ranabir Samaddar (2015): “The Postcolonial Bind of Greece.” Viewpointmag.

Palestine, Gregory of Nyssa (around 335/340 – after 394)
Nyssa was born in Caesarea in the 4th century. He was ordained bishop of Nyssa in 372 and enjoyed the reputation of a saint and doctor of the church in the Orthodox Church.

Gregor von Nyssa, Patrologie grecque de Migne, 46,685; quoted in Leon Poliakov, History of Antisemitism, Vol. 1 From antiquity to the Crusades, Worms 1979, 21.

His doctrine of God became known primarily through the merging of Christian and Platonic thought. His main work, the “Great Catechetical Prayer” emphasizes the correctness of Christian teaching towards Jews and Gentiles.

Gregor von Nyssa – Wikipedia

Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566) was a member of the Dominican Order and active as a bishop in the Spanish colonies in America. The Valladolid dispute (1550-1551) between de las Casas and the philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda dealt with the question of the legitimacy of the enslavement of the indigenous population of America. Sepúlveda represented the interests of Spanish landowners, de las Casas pointed out the violent acts of the Spaniards. The missing dates are 1494 and 1508, a period of 14 years.

Howard Zinn (1980): The People’s History of The United States. New York: Harper Collins.

In the first century of America’s occupation, the population decreased by approximately 75 million (95% in some areas) as a consequence of imported disease and murder (Federici 2009: 85f.). As early as the 1560s, there were resistance movements against the Spaniards. For example, members of the Taki Onqoy movement (1560-1572), which arose in what is now Peru, were opposed to any cooperation with the Europeans and advocated an alliance of Andean indigenous peoples to end European colonisation. They rejected Christianity and Christian names as well as food or other consignments from the Spaniards, they paid no tribute and did not work for the conquerors (Stern 1982: 50ff.).

*Steven J. Stern (1982): Peru‘s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest. Huamanga to 1640. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, S. 50ff.
*Silvia Federici (2009): Caliban and the Witch. Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Autonomedia.

Achille Mbembe (*1957) is a post-colonial theorist, philosopher and historian. He is a professor at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.

Quote: Achille Mbembe (2017): Critique of Black Reason. Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 176-177.
Picture: Wikimedia. Creative Commons.

Mbembe develops a critical reflection on the Western notion of reason and rationality. He examines current dynamics of colonialism, racism and resistance and attempts to explore possibilities for a more just and solidary world order. He attempts to show the extent to which the goal of anti-colonial liberation struggles, the right to equal participation for all, remains relevant for the present day.

*Achille Mbembe (2017): Critique of Black Reason. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
*Achille Mbembe (July 1, 2021): Notes on Late Eurocentrism. Translated by Carolyn Shread. Critical Inquiry.

USA, Henry Ford (1863-1947)
Henry Ford was an American industrialist and automobile manufacturer, best known for founding the Ford Motor Company.

Henry Ford, Der internationale Jude, Leipzig 1937.

Ford’s technological, socio-political and economic approaches, in which in particular the expansion of production through the division of labor and rationalization were conceived, defined the production of goods after the First World War to a large extent under the term “Fordism”. Ford published a large number of anti-Semitic publications, including the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which was then known as a forgery.

Judenhass in den USA: So antisemitisch war Henry Ford – WELT

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), born in Frankfurt am Main as Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund, was a philosopher and co-founder of the Frankfurt School, known for studies on the authoritarian character.

Theodor W. Adorno (1975): Schuld und Abwehr. Gesammelte Schriften Band 9/2. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

In 1933, Adorno was banned from teaching by the Nazis because he came from a Jewish family on his father’s side. He therefore emigrated to the USA. After his return in 1953, he observed how in post-Nazi Germany the term “race” had become taboo and was gradually being eliminated from everyday usage. Together with Max Horkheimer in their Dialectic of Enlightenment, he developed a critique of the Enlightenment and progressive thinking in the context of German society after Auschwitz. Etienne Balibar and Stuart Hall later built on observations made by Adorno in their research on “cultural racism” and “racism without race”.

*Stuart Hall (1990): Cultural Identity and Diaspora.

Calle 13 is a Puerto Rican rap duo known for the song Atrévete-te-te! (“Dare yourself!”). The band consists of René Pérez Joglar and his half-brother Eduardo José Cabra Martínez. Their songs are often political and critique US policy towards Latin American countries, amongst other things.

Calle 13 (2010): Latinoamérica. In: Entren Los Que Quieran. Sony Music Latin.

Many social and indigenous movements in Latin America have long opposed privatisation and the sale of natural resources. In Bolivia, for example, water rights were sold to the US company Bechtel. Prices rose by 300 percent and people were even banned from collecting rainwater. Resistance against this attempt at water privatisation was successful despite the great repression it was met with.

*Democracy Now (05.10.2006): Bolivian Activist Oscar Olivera on Bechtel’s Privatization of Rainwater and why Evo Morales should Remember the Ongoing Struggle over Water.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was a British novelist and author of The Jungle Book.

Rudyard Kipling (1899): “The White Man’s Burden”, first published in McClure’s Magazine on 12.02.1899.

“The White Man’s Burden” expresses the colonial sense of mission, which first emerged before the end of the 19th century when Kipling wrote the poem. European colonisation and Christian missions had been justified as civilising missions for centuries before that (Teno 2004). Shortly after Kipling published his work, a satire appeared, a poem called The Brown Man’s Burden by the British Henry du Pré Labouchère. In it, the poet wrote that colonialism was not a civilising mission and did not have a positive impact on the lives of the colonised, but instead constituted imperialist domination of others: ‘The brown man’s loss must ever. Imply the white man’s gain. (…) Let all your manifestoes. Reek with philanthropy. And if with heathen folly. He [the brown man] dares your will dispute. Then, in the name of freedom. Don’t hesitate to shoot.’

*Henry Labouchère (1899): The Brown Man’s Burden. London: Truth.

Chief Powhatan, 1545-1618, whose actual name was Wahunsenacawh, leader of the Algonquian-speaking Native Americans in what is now Virginia, where British colonists landed in the late 16th century.

Howard Zinn (1980/2003: 13).

The historian Howard Zinn wrote about how Native Americas in Virginia were initially friendly to European settlers, with some Europeans even living with them during a famine in 1610. However, Zinn also described violent retaliation on the part of the British: ‘When one of them [Native Americans] stole a small silver cup, Grenville [the leader of the British settlers] burned an entire village’ (Zinn 2003: 12). According to historian Edmund Morgan, the Europeans’ strategy was to exterminate the Native Americans. As the latter knew the area better and were difficult to make contact with, the English held sham peace negotiations, allowed the Native Americans to settle, and then killed as many as possible, burning their crops just before harvest (Morgan 2003: 100). Chief Powhatan’s brother Opechancanough led the resistance against the British.

*Glen Sean Coulthard (2014): Red Skin, White Masks. Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
*Edmund S. Morgan (1975/2003): American Slavery, American Freedom. New York: Norton.
*Howard Zinn (1980/2003): A People‘s History of the United States. 1492 – present. New York: Harper Collins.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a social theorist, philosopher and economist and is considered an important theorist of the workers’ movement.

Quote: Karl Marx (1843-1844): On the Jewish Question. Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 3, 1843-1844, p. 185.
Picture: By John Jabez Edwin Mayal – International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Public Domain, Wikimedia, Creative Commons.

In “On the Jewish Question”, Marx deals with the struggle of Jews for equal rights in modern society. He interprets liberal human rights as defensive rights intended to protect against state encroachment or conflict. In this respect, from Marx’s point of view, they implicitly assume a primarily hostile relationship between people and are an expression of the bourgeois social order characterized by competitive relationships. Human rights thereby cement such a society instead of helping to overcome it. Against liberal human rights that conceale economic exploitation, Marx therefore advocated their abolition. Both the workers’ movement and anti-colonial liberation movements refer to Marx’s critique.

*Stephen Brown (2003): The problem with Marx on rights. Journal of Human Rights, 2(4), 517–522.
*David McLellan (2006): Karl Marx. A Biography. London: Papermac.

This quote is from Genesis, the creation story of the Bible’s Old Testament. The Bible’s texts can be dated back to about 1200 BC was canonised until 135 CE. Christianity took all the books of the Tanakh, rearranged them, and set them out as the Old Testament (OT) which came before the New Testament (NT).

Genesis, The Bible. URL: BBC

It was only from the late 18th century onwards that the extensive and evident long-term effects of industrialisation and urbanisation became apparent in Central Europe. Colonial conquest and “discovery” were shaped by an understanding of nature informed by domination. Hence this quote’s biblical command guided these kinds of actions which were, at the same time, inspired by an interest in scientific and Enlightenment knowledge and in securing economic advantage. The well-known Enlightenment figure René Descartes also described humans as ‘rulers and owners of nature’ (Descartes, 1637, Discours de la méthode, VI, 2). In colonial history, dominion over nature was linked with dominion over people who lived close to nature and who were, in the eyes of colonisers, “primitive” (Müller 2017).

*Franziska Müller (2017): Von grüner Hölle und grünem Gold. (Post)Koloniale gesellschaftliche Naturverhältnisse. In glokal: Connecting the dots. Lernen aus Geschichte(n) von Unterdrückung und Widerstand. Berlin.
*Franziska Müller (2020) “Can the Subaltern Protect Forests? REDD+ Compliance, Depoliticisation and Indigenous Subjectivities“ Journal of Political Ecology 27(1), p.419-435.

Lucía Muriel is a psychologist, activist and networker in Berlin who works to ensure that global justice is understood in a way that is decolonial critical of racism.

move global (2017): Versuch eines Paradigmenwechsels, p. 17.

The colonial power to define black and white discourses, politics, culture and the body was denounced by the psychiatrist Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), who advocated decolonisation at several levels. Decolonisation means recognising, challenging and overcoming colonial patterns. It refers not only to the independence of formerly colonised states, but also to social, cultural and individual dimensions of colonisation, e.g. not letting majority society dictate what migration means for a migrant, as Lucía Muriel makes clear in this quote. Decolonisation means empowerment and liberation from domination.

*Ismahan Wayah (2017): Wir schreiben Geschichte. In: glokal: Connecting the Dots. Lernen aus Geschichte(n) zu Unterdrückung und Widerstand. S. 10.
*Raykamal Kahlon (2017): Du hast gesagt, es würde nicht wehtun. Verkörperte Pädagogik. In: glokal: Connecting the Dots. Lernen aus Geschichte(n) zu Unterdrückung und Widerstand. S. 82.

Interview partner:in Iman in an article by Alisha Qamar (2020). Alisha Qamar is a medical student in Bochum and an activist in the field of human rights, including with “The ONE Campaign”.

Thieme.de (Alisha Qamar), 12.08.2020:“Black Lives Matter – Racism in the healthcare sector“

Due to colonial continuities, Black people are still inadequately considered in medical care today and often receive poorer care.

At that time, terrible acts of enslavement were justified and justified by the fact that black skin was supposedly thicker and more resistant to pain than white skin. Medicine is still influenced by this idea today. The scientific journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” from the USA published an article on the unequal treatment of black patients back in 2016, stating that the majority of doctors prescribe less pain medication to black patients than to white patients (57% to 74%). The study by Staton et al examined the different perceptions of pain among patients by doctors. In the study, the underestimation of pain felt by black patients was 47%, compared to 33.5% for white patients. On average, black patients wait longer in the emergency room and their concerns are not taken seriously. (Thieme 12.08.2020)

BIPOC are also exposed to stigmatizing diagnoses, such as the so-called Mongolian spot or Mediterranean disease. These stigmatizing diagnoses can sometimes have fatal or health-damaging consequences, as sometimes serious clinical pictures can be detected too late and preventive measures can only be taken inadequately(Ärztezeitung, 21.04.2015). This question of representation is closely linked to the fundamental issue of global inequality in the distribution of medical care, which has become particularly evident during the coronavirus pandemic.

*The New England Journal of Medicine (LaShyra Nolen), June 25, 2020:“How Medical Education Is Missing the Bull’s-eye“

Rabbi Dovid Feldman, Neturei Karta spokesman. Neturei Karta is an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group with around 5000 members worldwide.

Speech on January 27, 2014 in Berlin.

They reject the establishment of the State of Israel for religious reasons, and use Holocaust denial and other anti-Semitic narratives in their argumentation models.

Wer sind die Ultraorthodoxen Juden, welche regelmässig Antisemiten unterstützen? – Audiatur-Online

From the Declaration of Independence of the Philippines.

Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista (1898): Declaration of Independence.

The Philippines was a Spanish colony from 1571 until, as an outcome of anti-colonial liberation struggle, it declared independence in 1898. At the time, however, the USA wanted to incorporate the islands, and a fifth of the population lost their lives in the ensuing Philippine-American War of 1899 to 1902. The islands then became a US colony until 1942 when they were occupied by Japanese troops. The left-wing anti-Japanese People’s Liberation Army was then formed, a partisan movement made up of 30,000 fighters and 70,000 reservists. They collaborated with the US against the Japanese, but opposed US colonial rule. According to writer Ricardo Trota Jose, 80% of Filippin@s were in the resistance or supported it: ‘One million Filipinos fought in various guerrilla movements’ (RJB & recherche international 2008: 132). Although the Philippines gained independence in 1946, a US-friendly government was then installed. It was only in 1990, under President Corazon Aquino, that the resistance fighters were finally recognised as such (ibid.: 100f.).

*Rheinisches JournalistInnenbüro & recherche international (2008): Die Dritte Welt im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Unterrichtsmaterialien zu einem vergessenen Kapitel der Geschichte. Köln.

Walter Charleton (1616-1707) was an English natural philosopher and doctor.

Walter Charleton (1659): Ephesian Matron. Quotet by Silvia Federici (2004: 163).

Time and again, women are used as scapegoats: from the biblical story in which Eve seduced Adam into taking a bite of the apple, to the witch hunts, where women were held responsible for all the social ills of the time. In this quote, women are accused, amongst other things, of driving men crazy through their sexual attractiveness. This inversion of responsibility is still used today, e.g. when a victim of sexual violence, rather than its perpetrator, is held culpable for the violence inflicted on them.

*Silvia Federici (2004): Caliban and the Witch. Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Autonomedia.

Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) was a German Marxist, women’s rights activist and KPD parliamentarian until 1933. She was a gifted orator and arch enemy of Paul von Hindenbrug, then President of the Reich, whom she described as a servant of capital. She died in exile in Moscow.

Clara Zetkin (1924): Die Intellektuellenfrage. In: Protokoll. Fünfter Kongress der Kommunistischen Internationale, Bd. II, S. 946-982.

The workers’ movement put pressure on the German imperial government, especially in the 19th century. Chancellor Bismarck introduced reforms and improvements for workers in an attempt to placate them. As a Marxist, for Zetkin there was a connection between the prosperity and emancipation of workers in the Global North and the exploitation of workers in the Global South. Marxist historians like Silvia Federici and Walter Rodney further claim that the industrial revolution in Europe would not have been possible without slavery and the plantation system in the Global South, the enslaved workers and export-oriented production (Federici 2014: 129, German edition). Rodney described European workers as being bribed with “colonial profits” (Rodney 1972).

*Walter Rodney (1972): How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications.
*Maria Mies (1986): Patriachy and Accumulation on a World Scale. Women in the International Division of Labour. London & New York: Zed Books.
*Silvia Federici (2014): Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Automedia (auch in deutscher Übersetzung)
*Anne McClintock (1995): Imperial Leather. Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge.

Anonymous enslaved person in Barbados.

Quote: Anonym (1676): Great Newes from the Barbadoes, Or, A True and Faithful Account of the Grand Conspiracy of the Negroes against the English and the Happy Discovery of the Same with the Number of Those That Were Burned Alive, Beheaded, and Otherwise Executed for Their Horrid Crimes. With a Short Discription of That Plantation. London: L. Curtis, p. 6
Picture: Wikimedia

England appropriated the island of Barbados in 1625, continuing to control it until 1962. Over the course of the previous century, its inhabitants had either been kidnapped and enslaved or driven out by the Portuguese. Working on the plantations, English and Irish serfs, enslaved Africans and American indigenous peoples were settled, exploited, tortured and murdered in the cultivation of sugar cane. They defended themselves, often together, through flight, arson, murder and revolt. In the Caribbean, as in other parts of the Americas, resilient formerly enslaved people formed what were called Maroon communities (Linebaugh & Rediker 2008).
.

*Peter Linebaugh & Marcus Rediker (2000): The Many-headed Hydra. New York: Verso.

Wolfgang Welsch (born 1946) is a German philosopher and advocate of transcultural approaches.

Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (1995): Migration und Kultureller Wandel. Schwerpunktthema der Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch, 45. Jg., 1. Vierteljahr.

The transcultural approach emerged from criticism of the intercultural approach and attempts to develop it further. One of its central characteristics is that it does not conceive of cultures as separate units, but rather as networked, mixed and dynamic. It also rejects the idea of cultural geographies. One of the criticisms of this approach, however, is that it does not take power relations into account.

Laila Abu-Er-Rub et al. (2019): Engaging Transculturality. Concepts, Key Terms, Case Studies.