Thursday 15 February 2007

‘Colonialism creates the patriotism of the colonized. Kept at the level of a beast by an oppressive system, the natives are given no rights, not even the right to live. Their condition worsens daily. And when a people has no choice but how it will die; when a people has received from its oppressors only the gift of despair, what does it have to lose? A people’s misfortune will become its courage; it will make, of its endless rejection by colonialism, the absolute rejection of colonialism (Memmi, 1957: xxviii-xxix).’



‘[E]very colonial nation carries the seeds of fascist temptation in its bosom … The human relationships have arisen from the severest exploitation, founded on inequality and contempt, guaranteed by police authoritarianism (Memmi, 1957: 62).’

- Albert Memmi. [1957]. The Colonizer and the Colonized.



‘Activism evolved from being constrained and defined by the scalar politics of national post-war welfare states to embracing the local-global politics characteristic of the antiglobalization movement (Conway, 2004).’

Janet Conway. [2004]. Identity, Place, and Knowledge: Social Movements Contesting Globalization.

1 comment:

nitroglycol said...

Have to admit I'd never heard of Memmi or Conway before. The Memmi quotes are particularly good.