Decolonisation Quotes

“colonialism only loosens its hold when the knife is at its throat”
― Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

“Wisdom isn’t about knowing everything... it's knowing what matters to your community.”
― Dean Foley

“Sustainability isn't a trend - it's the cornerstone of our ancestors' teachings.”
― Dean Foley

“To move forward, we must respect the wisdom of those who walked before us.”
― Dean Foley

“The measure of success in community development is durability, not headlines.”
― Dean Foley

“Every sustainable decision today honours future generations.”
― Dean Foley

“Impact doesn't require loud voices, just purposeful ones.”
― Dean Foley

“A community's strength grows when we blend traditional wisdom with new ideas.”
― Dean Foley

“Real innovation is accessible - it benefits everyone, not just a privileged few.”
― Dean Foley

“The true test of innovation is whether it nurtures the community’s collective wellbeing.”
― Dean Foley

“Real impact comes from actions measured by lasting change, not temporary applause.”
― Dean Foley

“A strategy is only good if the community sees tangible and sustainable results.”
― Dean Foley

“If your idea benefits people without harming the planet, you're already ahead.”
― Dean Foley

“Results speak louder than promises - community empowerment thrives on evidence.”
― Dean Foley

“Solutions that work are more valuable than brilliant theories.”
― Dean Foley

“We must prioritise effectiveness over elegance in community solutions.”
― Dean Foley

“What matters isn't how innovative an idea is, but how well it sustainably serves the community.”
― Dean Foley

“Effective action is always better than beautiful rhetoric.”
― Dean Foley

“Our communities deserve practical solutions, not just inspiring speeches.”
― Dean Foley

“Actions delivering genuine outcomes sustainably are always better than ambitious inaction.”
― Dean Foley

“Real change happens when we prioritise community wellbeing above economic returns, and honour wisdom over convenience.”
― Dean Foley

“Sustainable transformation is driven by placing community needs above profit-driven motives, and wisdom above easy solutions.”
― Dean Foley

“When I use the term colonizer, I refer only to those who take pride in colonial exploits, and not to those accountable human beings who happen to descend from colonial ancestors. Colonialism is the enemy, it has nothing to do with skin or ancestry. As long as you stand true on ethics of equality and mettle of character, rather than boasting pedigree and archaic tradition, you are a champion of humanity, no matter your ethnicity, ancestry, profession or status.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“A dorsal fin sliced up through the water, then dipped back down again. The wild black tip was underscored with a shock of white. Even a quick looked sufficed. Le Requin à pointes noires. Blacktip reef shark.
"Carcharhinus melanopterus."
The girl came closer to the old woman and asked for the name again. Then she repeated it twice.
"So beautiful, that one. My favorite."
If there were an upper limit to how many favorite fish a girl was allowed to have, neither of them knew it. Together, their hands animated all the ways that a reef shark floated through the communities that it lorded over.
Beaulieu caught herself. "What is the Mā'ohi name?"
The girl's face lit up with expertise. "We call that one ma'o ereere, Miss Evie.”
― Richard Powers, Playground

“The Hamas fighters who stormed into Israel on 7 October were largely young people who learned the language of violence from the bombs that Israel dropped on them. This is not a justification of what they did. But we should not be so certain that, had we been subject to the same trauma, with no resolution in sight, we would respond much better.”
― Ilan Pappé, A Very Short History of the Israel–Palestine Conflict

“Papuan ancestors never begged for survival. They engineered it. They did not ask the world for permission to exist; they organised their lives in such a way that they could not be eradicated. While empires were still learning the language of borders, Papuan societies already understood the grammar of resilience. Survival was never a plea — it was an intelligent system embedded in land, clan and memory. They did not survive by being seen. They survived by being unbreakable. A people who once shaped their world through cohesion and strategy were never meant to be reduced to fragments. The future belongs not to those who beg to live, but to those who redefine life itself. What was never built on begging cannot be restored through it”.”
― Yamin Kogoya, WE ARE THE LAST VOICE OF THE FIRST PEOPLES & THE FIRST VOICE OF THE LAST PEOPLES: 63 Sacred Sayings from the Edge of Extinction: Remembering 63 Years of Invasion, Betrayal, and Resistance

“The most effective colonisation is not the conquest of land but the conquest of consciousness. When the colonised can no longer recognise the virus as a virus, the enemy as an enemy, or domination as domination, colonisation is complete.”
― Yamin Kogoya, WE ARE THE LAST VOICE OF THE FIRST PEOPLES & THE FIRST VOICE OF THE LAST PEOPLES: 63 Sacred Sayings from the Edge of Extinction: Remembering 63 Years of Invasion, Betrayal, and Resistance

“When the colored speak white (Sonnet 2942)

White delusion doesn't affect only white people,
it also affects colored people,
then they start making noises like white people -

they look at noneuropean science like white people,
they look at noneuropean philosophy like white people,
they look at noneuropean theology like white people,
they look at noneuropean humanity like white people -

which is, aloof from the window of an ivory castle,
and there is nothing uglier than a colored mouth
with a white colonial voice -

white people with white delusion are backward, but
colored people with white delusion are downright grotesque,
which is why, white is not a color, white is a mentality,
which affects everybody, particularly in a world which is whitewashed from head to toe, from future to the past,
from pulpit to the parliament, from belief to disbelief -

all the while plagiarizing from the global south,
because, history of the west is history of plagiarism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“White is not a color, white is a mentality.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“The deepest horror of the Psycho-Cosmocide is not the conquest of land or a people. Conquest has always been a part of history. Nor is it that a people are exploited, displaced, assimilated or governed by external powers. The deepest horror begins when the instruments of conquest become internalised by the conquered themselves. This occurs when foreign realities become familiar, when imposed meanings become self-evident truths, when survival becomes participation and when adaptation becomes reproduction. At that point, the coloniser no longer stands outside the walls. The walls themselves start to rebuild the labyrinth. The gatekeepers become its guardians. The prisoners decorate their cells. The language forgets itself. The library burns its own books. The forest grows the handle of the axe. The tragedy of West Papua and many other colonised Cosmobian peoples is therefore not just a story of external domination. It is also a story of how domination learns to speak with the voice of the dominated, think with their thoughts, dream with their dreams and reproduce itself through their love for their children. Psycho-Cosmocide is victorious when a people continue to walk, work, study, vote, develop, consume and progress while the world that once made them has disappeared. At that point, the labyrinth no longer requires walls because it has been rebuilt inside the colonised minds themselves.”
― Yamin Kogoya, PAPUAN TRAGEDY: 300 Warnings From The Edge Of Extinction