Random Quotes

Paul Bremer (born 1941) was a US civilian administrator in Iraq employed by the US government from 2003-2004.

Washington Post (28.06.2003): Occupation Forces Halting Elections Throughout Iraq.

Bremer’s policy of delaying elections, together with the Americans’ authoritarian occupation strategy, led to an increase in violence between religious groups and violent interpretations of religion (Klein 2010: 508). From the spring of 2004 onwards, the number of violent incidents rose steadily (Klein 2010: 489). With its policy of “regime change”, support of military and other coups throughout the 20th century, the USA as a hegemonic force distinguished itself from Great Britain’s hegemonic policies which had followed classic colonial power.

*Naomi Klein (2007): The Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Toronto: Knopf Canada.

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.

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.

The apostle Paul or Paul of Tarsus (10 BC – 60 AD), who was a missionary, in his letter to Timothy (1.11 – 14) from the New Testament. There are doubts, however, as to whether Paul was actually the author, or whether it was a later imitator who passed himself off as Paul. The New Testament, which begins with the birth of Jesus, is the part of the Bible that distinguishes Christianity from Judaism.

Roberta Magnani (2017): “Powerful Men have Tried to Silence Abused Women since Medieval Times.” In: The Independent, 02.11.2017. The quote is apparently from between 48 and 61 AD.

The idea of Eve as seductress illuminates a deep-seated tradition in which women are viewed as scapegoats for various evils. In biting the apple, she banishes humankind from paradise. This tradition is widespread in all three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) as well as in other world religions (Stover and Hope 1984). Some have argued, however, that the three religions initially aimed at liberating the oppressed, but as they got established and accumulated power, these liberating impulses were eradicated (Swidler, 1974: 168). The disciplining of women played an important role in Christian colonial missionary work. This was because missions aimed to plant Western ideas of civilization, virtue and morality in the thinking of colonised countries.

*Roberta Magnani (2017): Powerful men have tried to silence abused women since Medieval times.
*Ronald G. Stover & Christine A. Hope (1984): Monotheism and Gender Status: A Cross-Societal Study. In: Social Forces
Vol. 63, No. 2, S. 335-348.
*Leonard Swidler (1974): Is Sexism a Sign of Decadence in Religion? In Judith Plaskov & Joan A. Romero: Women and Religion. Scholar Press.

Presbyter Kosma was a Bulgarian writer in the late 10th century. His best-known work, from which the quote comes, is directed against the Bogomilia, an ascetic religious community that was widespread in present-day Bulgaria.

Silvia Federici 2004: 56

Within radical movements of religious heretics, women played a central role (Federici 2004: 22). Mostly founded by women, they emerged in the 11th century in France and Italy as well as in other regions (ibid.). They were vehemently opposed by the church, as the quote makes clear. During the Inquisitions of the Middle Ages and later, people, most often women, were labelled as witches, which act constituted a strategy for breaking up communities and punishing resistant individuals. It is estimated that 200,000 women were tried, convicted and/or murdered during the three centuries when witchcraft persecution was at its peak (ibid.: 208). In southwest Germany alone, 3,200 women were burned as witches between 1560 and 1670 (ibid.).

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

Hungary, Theodor Herzl (1860-1904)
Herzl is considered a central figure in modern Zionism. He was born in Pest, today’s Budapest, in 1860 to an assimilated Jewish family. With his work Der Judenstaat, published in 1896.

Theodor Herzl, Der Judenstaat, Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question, Leipzig / Vienna 1896, 12-22.

Attempting to find a modern solution to the Jewish question, Herzl reacted to the apparently anti-Semitic trial against Artillery Captain Alfred Dreyfus that had taken place in Paris just two years earlier. Within the Zionist movement, Herzl’s writing advanced to become a pioneering vision of a Jewish state to be created in Palestine.

Theodor_Herzl_-_Der_Judenstaat.pdf (literaturdownload.at)

Gerrard Winstanley (1609-1679) was originally a clothes merchant who went bankrupt in the Civil War and thereafter became a Protestant reformer and political activist in England.

Gerrad Winstanley (1649): A declaration from the poor oppressed people of England.

Even before Winstanley, there were many heretic movements in France and Italy in the 11th century, most of them founded by women, that rebelled against the omnipotence of church and state (Federici 2014: 48, German edition). Centuries later, once women had been ousted from public life, Winstanley was one of England’s most notorious reformers (or diggers). Diggers are often referred to as the predecessors of the communists. They occupied and tilled public lands, distributing the proceeds freely to those in need, promoting comprehensive land reform and common ownership. Winstanley based this early communism exclusively on the Bible. The digger communes that had formed throughout England were finally crushed in 1651. Local landowners were mostly responsible for this.

*The Guardian (1999): Levels of Optimism.
*Silvia Federici (2014): Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Automedia.

Mohammad Mossadegh (1882-1967) was an Iranian lawyer, politician and the first prime minister of independent Iran. The quote is from his speech in court in 1953, in which he defended himself against charges of high treason.

Mohammad Mossadeghs Biography

As part of a wave of anti-colonial movements, Mohammad Mossadegh became Iran’s first democratically elected prime minister in 1951. In the same year, he was voted Man of the Year by the US Time Magazine for making the nationalisation of British-controlled oil production his first official act. However, in 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower came to power in the USA, and he promoted a strongly anti-communist course and condemned any form of nationalisation. The CIA had previously noted that the situation in Iran could only be “saved” with a “new prime minister” (File Foreign Relations of the United States 1951: 87). From 1953 onwards, the CIA incited the ruling elite in Iran against Mossadegh and bribed the population with money, as corroborated by documents published in 2017 (Deutsche Welle 2017). In Latin America (e.g. Chile 1973, Allende vs. Pinochet), Africa (e.g. 1961 in Congo, Lumumba vs. Mobuto) and Asia (e.g. 1967 in Indonesia, Sukarno vs. Suharto), governments also emerged from socialist or anti-colonial movements and were overthrown and replaced by dictatorships.

*Deutsche Welle (2017): 1953: Irans gestohlene Demokratie.
*Foreign Relations of the United States (1951-1954).
*Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (2013): Zwischen Kolonialismus und Nationenbildung.

Unknown journalist for the German daily newspaper Rheinische Post.

Quote: Quoted by Ceren Turkmen. Original source: Local daily newspaper: Rheinische Post from November 16, 1962. Without page indication.
Picture: pics.de

The history of the “Gastarbeiter” (migrant worker) discourse has been told mostly through dominant sources, as in this quote from the Rheinische Post, which emphasizes the poor German language skills of migrants workers. It also represents an attitude that was widespread in West Germany in the 1960s: that German women should not pursue waged work. While there has been resistance from migrants since the beginning of “guest worker recruitment” (e.g. the strike at the Ford factory in Cologne in 1973), criticism from migrant workers started to be “heard“ by dominant society only in the last two decades (e.g. with Feridun Zaimoğlu’s book Kanak Sprak from 1995).

*Ceren Türkmen (2017). Gastarbeitsgeschichte zwischen Migrationsregime, Staat und kommunaler Befreiung. In glokal: Connecting the Dots. Lernen aus Geschichte(n) zu Unterdrückung und Widerstand.
*Tom Cheesman (2003): Akçam – Zaimoğlu –‘Kanak Attak’: Turkish Lives and Letters in German. In: German Life and Letters 55(2): p. 180 – 195

Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) was a German social democrat and member of the SPD. This quote comes from a speech he made at the International Socialist Congress 1907.

Quoted by Karl Kautsky (1907): Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik. Berlin: Buchhandlung Vorwärts, p. 6.

While the Catholic Centre Party supported colonial policy, there were disagreements amongst Socialists. Unlike Bernstein, Karl Kautsky believed that socialism and colonialism were incompatible. Kautsky criticised Bernstein for expressly justifying a relationship of domination (Kautsky 1907: 17): the right of peoples of “higher” cultures to patronise peoples of “lesser” cultures. In the end of the congress, Bernstein only condemned ‘capitalist colonial policy,’ since it inevitably led to ‘forced labour and the annihilation of indigenous peoples,’ while socialism alone, he argued, could enable ‘peaceful cultural development.’ In his publication, Kautsky questioned the Europeans’ apparently civilising mission: ‘What do you need to educate and patronise other people?’ (ibid. p. 46).

*Karl Kautsky (1907): Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik. Berlin: Buchhandlung Vorwärts, p. 6.

Turkey, Melitio of Sardis (ca.120-185)
Melitio of Sardis appeared in the 2nd century as Bishop of Sardis in what is now Turkey. He is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Melitio von Sardes, Passover Homilie, quoted by Karl-Erich Grözinger, Die “Gottesmörder, in: Julius H. Schoeps / Joachim Schlör (ed.), Bilder der Judenfeindschaft, Augsburg 1999, 57.

His writings about the Jews as murderers of God, published between 160 and 170, are considered important sources for the development of Christian anti-Judaism. Melito saw the destruction of the temple as well as the suffering of the Jews in the Diaspora as a consequence of their god-murder.

Christlicher Antijudaismus, ein Wegbereiter des Antisemitismus – juedspurenhuenfelderlands Webseite!

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.

Bridget Tolley (born in 1960), is a Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg activist for the rights of First Nation women in Canada.

ICMN (2012): Events Commemorating Aboriginal Female Victims of Violence.

Indigenous women were often at the forefront of anti-colonial movements. For example, Toypurina (1760-1799) in present day California or Bartolina Sisa (1750 / 1753-1782) in Bolivia. Sisa was in command of an army of 40,000 fighters who besieged the Spanish colonisers in La Paz for three months in 1781. The International Day of Indigenous Women takes place on the date of her death: she was executed by the Spaniards on the 5th of September, 1782. The educationalist Cyndy Baskin writes that colonial tyranny has often displaced indigenous gender concepts. For example, her research has shown that women were respected members of society in indigenous communities in Turtle Island, Canada (Baskin 2019).

*Pearson McKinney (2016): Before European Christians Forced Gender Roles, Native Americans Acknowledged 5 Genders.
*Beverley Jacobs (2014): How do we stop aboriginal women from disappearing? Ted talk.
*Families of Sisters in Spirit.
*Cyndy Baskin (2019): Contemporary Indigenous Women’s Roles: Traditional Teachings or Internalized Colonialism?

Walden Bello (born 1945) is a Filipino sociologist and director of the NGO Focus on the Global South. Bello was in the resistance against dictator Marcos (who ruled the Philippines from 1965-1986), and was one of the first critics of globalisation. Bello broke into the World Bank office in the early 1980s and stole some 3,000 pages of confidential documents to prove collaboration between the International Monetary Fund (the World Bank’s sister organisation) and Marcos.

Walden Bello (2019): „We Have to Move to a Post-Capitalist System“. In: Jacobinmag 28.10.2019

In recent decades, there has been an increasing financialisation of the economy. Today, rather than through the production of goods or services, vast amounts of money can be made or lost in very short intervals through financial transactions. In his book Dark Victory (1994), Bello describes how financialisation was implemented as a strategy by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s in order to re-subjugate the decolonising Global South, for example, through currency speculation. Thus in 1997, thanks to rumours about a lack of dollar reserves in Thailand, banks and investors immediately withdrew their money not only there, but also in other countries, which then went bankrupt as a result.

*Walden Bello (1994): Dark Victory. The United States and Global Poverty. Amsterdam: Transnational Institut.

The text “Yemenici Bali” (Bali the shoemaker’s boy) comes from the book Dellakname-i Dilküsa (The Book on Bath Servants) from the 17th century, made famous in more recent times by the journalist Murat Bardakçı. “It is one of the rare erotic texts by the Ottomans that has been passed down to our time” (Erdoğan 1998). 1680 is an approximate date.

Quoted by Sema Nilgün Erdoğan (1998, German): Sexuelles Leben bei den Osmanen. Istanbul: Dönence.

Sexual contact between men was just as much a part of the Ottoman Empire as men’s poetry and fantasies about young men. Young boys, who often conformed to specific ideals of beauty, were not viewed as living male beings, but as a kind of imperfect man or woman. For many Ottomans, sexual contact with them was part of gaining experience before marrying a woman. As a man, having a relationship with a woman meant a stable life marked by family planning, loyalty, and purely conjugal sex with one’s wife. In his book Desiring Arabs (2008), Joseph Massad also speaks of Western sexual models that were imposed. He compiles historical Arabic writings on sexual desire and conservative responses to them. There is also ample evidence of homosexual relationships from ancient Greece, especially between men in Sparta and, between women, on the island of Lesbos.

*Arabmediasociety.com, 21.01.2009: Book Review Desiring Arabs.

Poland, Leon Pinsker (1821-1891)
Pinsker was born in a small town in what is now Poland, the son of an orientalist.

Leon Pinsker, “Autoemancipation!”, Berlin 1882, 13

Pinsker gave up his desire to pursue a career as a lawyer due to the restrictions on admission for Jews to universities. This experience, as well as the impressions of the pogroms that flared up at the end of the 19th century, led him from his former assimilationist attitude to a Zionist position, which he described in his book “Autoemancipation! – Reminder to the tribal comrades “formulated. Today the work is considered to be one of the most important early Zionist writings.

Judah Leib “Leon” Pinsker (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

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

Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) was a pioneer for the emancipation of women and their civil rights. De Gouges was also an early critic of colonialism. She was executed in 1793, but not for her commitment to women’s rights.

Quote translated after: Olympe de Gouges (1791): Declaration of Women- and Citizen rights, First Article
Picture: Alexander Kucharski – Bonarov, 11. November 2018, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia. Creative Commons.

The “Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Female Citizen” is a counter-declaration to the Declaration of Human Rights of the French Revolution, which only applied to men. De Gouge’s “Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizens” is a fundamental text in the history of women’s emancipation. However, women’s suffrage was not introduced in France until a long time later, in 1944. Switzerland was one of the last European countries to grant women full civil rights in 1971. The canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden did not introduce voting rights for women at communal level until 1990. De Gouge’s demands remain relevant. According to UN Women, the risk factor of living in poverty is still around 1.2 times higher for women than for men in the same age group.

*Resources on Olympe de Gouges
*Sophie Mousset (2007): Women’s Rights and the French Revolution. A Biography of Olympe De Gouges. New York: Routledge.

Chanting at a demonstration in Sri Lanka, which was devastated by the 2004 tsunami that destroyed many fishermen’s huts which were never rebuilt because hotels were constructed in their place.

Naomi Klein (2007: 389)

The 2004 tsunami took the lives of around 35,000 people in Sri Lanka, with the majority of victims being small-scale fishermen. The government subsequently banned construction near the coast. However, it exempted the tourism industry from this requirement, and encouraged hoteliers to build where the fishermen had previously lived. Tourism was to be financed with money that came from the relief fund for tsunami victims (see Klein 2007: 385ff.). In general, one can say that those presumably responsible for the spread of so-called natural disasters (e.g. through lifestyle, work in the industrial sector, etc.) are often not affected by their consequences (e.g. the tsunami), and sometimes even benefit from them.

*Naomi Klein (2007): The Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Toronto: Knopf Canada.

Poland, Piotr Rybak, 2019

Public Speech 2019, Auschwitz.

Piotr Rybak, a convicted Polish nationalist and open anti-Semite, at a right-wing extremist Polish demonstration on the 74th anniversary (2019) to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp from the Nazis.

Antysemicki marsz w Kaliszu. Nowe fakty – Poznań (onet.pl)