Oppressors Quotes - Page 9

• It would be a contradiction in terms if the oppressors not only defended but actually implemented a liberating education.

  Paulo Freire

  Would Be, Contradiction, Term

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.38, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• The oppressors develop a series of methods precluding any presentation of the world as a problem and showing it rather as a fixed entity, as something given--something to which people, as mere spectators, must adapt.

  Paulo Freire

  People, World, Problem

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.139, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• The behavior and reactions of the oppressed, which lead the oppressor to practice cultural invasion, should evoke from the revolutionary a different theory of action. What distinguishes revolutionary leaders from the dominant elite is not only their objectives, but their procedures.

  Paulo Freire

  Practice, Revolutionary Leaders, Invasion

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.167, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words we are allowed to use in California).

  Anne Lamott

  Block, Writing, California

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.28, Anchor

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• Haiti was founderd by a righteous revolution in 1804 and became the first black republic. It was the first country to break the chains of slavery, the first to force Emperor Napoleon to retreat, and the only to aid Simón Bolívar in his struggle to liberate the indigenous people and slaves of Latin America from their colonial oppressors.

  Paul Farmer

  Country, Latin, Struggle

  Paul Farmer (2012). “Haiti After the Earthquake”, p.11, PublicAffairs

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• Evil can be opposed without being mirrored. Oppressors can be resisted without being emulated. Enemies can be neutralized without being destroyed.

  Walter Wink

  Evil, Enemy, Destroyed

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• By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority.

  Gene Sharp

  Struggle, Mean, Violent

  Gene Sharp (2010). “From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation”, p.5, Albert Einstein Institution

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• Unjust social orders do not fall merely by appeals to the consciences of the oppressor, though such appeals may be an important element; history teaches us that they fall because a large enough number of people organize a movement powerful enough to push them down. Rarely do such revolutions emerge in a neat and morally pristine process.

  Timothy B. Tyson

  Powerful, Fall, Order

  Timothy B. Tyson (2007). “Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story”, p.317, Broadway Books

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• For the only great men among the unfree and the oppressed are those who struggle to destroy the oppressor.

  Walter Rodney

  Struggle, Men, Unfree

  Walter Rodney (2012). “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, p.131, Fahamu/Pambazuka

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• Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization by the oppressor's own nationals.

  Raphael Lemkin

  Two, Groups, Population

  Raphael Lemkin (2008). “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe”, p.79, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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• Our most merciful Father, seeing us to be oppressed and overwhelmed with the curse of the law . . . sent his only Son into the world and laid upon him all the sins of all men, saying, 'You be Peter that denier, Paul that persecutor, blasphemer and cruel oppressor, David that adulterer, that sinner who ate the apple in Paradise, that thief who hung upon the cross, and briefly, you be the person who has committed the sins of all men. See therefore that you pay and satisfy for them.'

  Martin Luther

  Father, Son, Men

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• Muslims, scholars or not, are on the side of the oppressed and never on the side of the oppressors. Some scholars claim they don't do politics but if you listen to their statements in the Middle East or in other conferences, they support corrupt regimes and despots, such as as-Sissi.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Support, Middle East, Sides

  "Tariq Ramadan: My Absence Would Certainly Be The Most Powerful Speech I Have Ever Given At ISNA". The Islamic Monthly Interview, www.theislamicmonthly.com. August 14, 2014.

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• In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both

  Paulo Freire

  Struggle, Order, Humanity

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.44, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• No, the shark in an updated JAWS could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim, for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors.

  Peter Benchley

  Sharks, Villain, Victim

  Peter Benchley (1995). “Ocean planet: writings and images of the sea”, ABRAMS

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• Each and every one of us has the capacity to be an oppressor. I want to encourage each and everyone of us to interrogate how we might be an oppressor and how we might be able to become liberators for ourselves and for each other.

  Laverne Cox

  Want, Might, Able

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• I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.

  Nelson Mandela

  Long Walk To Freedom, Wells, Oppressed

  Twitter post from Jul 25, 2016

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• We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well timed,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has almost always meant 'never.' We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Years, Painful Experiences, Direct Action

  Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’, www.theatlantic.com. April 16, 1963.

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• The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations that we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us.

  Audre Lorde

  Focus, Pieces, Revolutionary

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  Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

  Elie Wiesel

  Bystanders, Remembrance, Silence

  Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, 11 Dec. 1986

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• The Allies had made war on Napoleon as a tyrant and an oppressor of nations; yet once they had him out of the way, they did him the favor of representing him as the torch bearer of the French Revolution. They did him the further favor of repeating his mistakes and besting him at them.

  J. Christopher Herold

  War, Mistake, Tyrants

  "Napoleon".

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• [Action's] a Western thing. We think of the hero going into battle, rebelling against a government or an oppressor, but [in KUNDUN] action is nonaction or what appears to be nonaction. That's a hard concept for Western audiences. . . . We wanted to show a kind of moral action, a spiritual action, an emotional action. Some people will pick up on it; some won't.

  Martin Scorsese

  Spiritual, Hero, Emotional

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• The Catholics had been in the position of oppressors, and the Protestants of the oppressed

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Catholic, Position, Protestants

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• The people have now come to realize that the only way to deal with the oppressor is to deal on our own terms and this was done.

  Bobby Seale

  People, Done, Way

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• God wants to set the oppressed free from being oppressed and the oppressors free from oppressing.

  Desmond Tutu

  Want, Oppressed

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• Action must be taken at once; there is no time to be lost; we shall yet see the oppressors' yoke broken and the fragments scattered on the ground.

  Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla

  Taken, Broken, Yoke

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