Decolonization Quotes

“Do you know why people like me are shy about being capitalists? Well, its because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this so strong, the experience so recent, that we can't quite bring ourselves to embrace this idea that you think so much of. As for hat we were like before we met you, I no longer care. No periods of time over which my ancestors held sway, no documentation of complex civilisations, is any comfort to me. Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place

“Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into a real improvement of living conditions.”
― Amílcar Cabral, Return to the Source: Selected Speeches of Amílcar Cabral

“The act of writing, it seems to me, makes up a shelter, allows space to what would otherwise be hidden, crossed out, mutilated. Sometimes writing can work toward a reparation, making a sheltering space for the mind. Yet it feeds off ruptures, tears in what might otherwise seem a seamless, oppressive fabric.”
― Meena Alexander, The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience

“A trip to a Central American jungle to watch how Indians behave near a bridge won't make you see either the jungle or the bridge or the Indians if you believe that the civilization you were born into is the only one that counts. Go and look around with the idea that everything you learned in school and college is wrong.”
― B. Traven, The Bridge in the Jungle

“Our minds must be as ready to move as capital is, to trace its paths and to imagine alternative destinations.”
― Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity

“Earth Belongs to The Natives (Sonnet 2401)

We cannot abolish systemic persecution
without dismantling systemic privilege.
You cannot wipe the slate clean, but you can
take the responsibility and stand to heal.

Colonizers are the second class citizens,
every land first belongs to the indigenous.
Landback is the mother of all movements,
it contains the plight of all First Humans.

Women are indigenous to their own body,
Palestinians are indigenous to palestine;
uncultured crowns and criminal uncles
have no jurisdiction over our Earthright.

Earth belongs to the Natives, settlers are
welcome, but as participant, not head of state.
Somos indígenas, somos indomables -
you can make us houseless, but never homeless.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Earth belongs to the Natives, settlers are welcome, but as participant, not head of state. Somos indígenas, somos indomables - you can make us houseless, but never homeless.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“White people can be mediocre, and still respected, glorified even, but rest of us have to be Ramanujans, Rumis, Naskars, just to be regarded as human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Education that doesn’t reflect plural humanity, raises only goodlooking jungle rubbish.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“When Whiteness Collapses (Sonnet)

When the whites benefit from privilege,
it's part and parcel of colonial heritage,
but when a giant rises from the marginals,
it eclipses the shallow heights of whiteness.

I'm colored, I'm scientist,
I'm poet, I'm polyglot -
coming from zero money,
I won the world with words.

Try and get your puny white brains
around this existence enigma -
compile your white canons of a century,
and they turn bleak next to just one year
of multicultural, multidisciplinary Naskar.

I never grovelled to be included,
I let my vastness out,
and the world queues for my grace.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Earth belongs to the Natives.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Earth belongs to the Natives, settlers are welcome, but as participant, not head of state.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Somos indígenas, somos indomables - you can make us houseless, but never homeless.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Landback is the mother of all movements, it contains the plight of all First Humans.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Colonizers are the second class citizens, every land first belongs to the indigenous.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Colonizers are the second class citizens,
every land first belongs to the indigenous.
Landback is the mother of all movements,
it contains the plight of all First Humans.

Women are indigenous to their own body,
Palestinians are indigenous to palestine;
uncultured crowns and criminal uncles
have no jurisdiction over our Earthright.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“In Colonial English they say: not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslim. In Naskarian English we say: not all white people are animal, but 99% of historic predators, terrorists, traffickers, thieves, morons and imbeciles were white.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Not all white people are animal, but 99% of historic predators, terrorists, traffickers, thieves, morons and imbeciles were white.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Not all white people are animal, but 99% of historic predators, terrorists, and traffickers were white.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Poultry Farm (Sonnet)

First law of poultry farming:
keep your livestock busy
with trivial problems,
so they stay ever oblivious
to systemic criminal activities.

That's why the West makes
such a song and dance about Hitler,
so that the actual world criminals
never lose their pedestal of heroic honor.

World War 2 is the ultimate
geopolitical smoke screen,
fed to the livestock religiously,
with Hitler as the moral decoy,

so that Planet Earth never grows
the brain or the backbone to question
the extinction level crimes of the White Allies.

Fascism is not an anomaly,
it's the Operating System of Mock Democracy.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“First law of poultry farming: keep your livestock busy with trivial problems, so they stay ever oblivious to systemic criminal activities. That's why the West makes such a song and dance about Hitler, so that the actual world criminals never lose their pedestal of heroic honor.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“World War 2 is the ultimate geopolitical smoke screen, fed to the livestock religiously, with Hitler as the moral decoy, so that Planet Earth never grows the brain or the backbone to question the extinction level crimes of the White Allies.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“There's no such thing as slave traders, get your language straight, you idiots - they were human traffickers, not traders, you trade in commodity, not people.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“There's no such thing as slave traders, get your language straight, you idiots - they were human traffickers, not traders, you trade in commodity, not people. To trade in human lives like livestock is the savagest form of cannibalism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“America is The Warning (Sonnet)

Finally America has fallen,
it's a great day for the human race,
now that the american dream is infected,
it's a golden occasion for earth upliftment.

Uncle Sam has contracted something nasty,
nothing surprising, it's long time coming;
the time has never been more immaculate,
for actual human cultures and civilizations
to dream beyond the monkeys of silicon valley.

It's a golden age of decolonization,
time to rescue your mind from the parasites;
it's time for great rejoicing, now that
the land of plague has lost its marbles -
fall of America is a blessing for humankind.

West never had culture to begin with,
neither Washington nor Rome or Buck House -
when parasites bury themselves in castles,
light of the human engulf the world around.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Leaves of Ash (Divine Violence, Sonnet)

You know why the West makes such
a song and dance about nonviolence,
because when your entire empire
is built on systemic extermination
of living cultures and communities,

it really helps if you simultaneously propagate
a favorable ideal of nonresistance to evil,
this way you can criminalize the very thought
of revolution, not only legally, but also morally.

Nonviolence has never been about human rights,
nonviolence is western propaganda,
commodified to maintain moral superiority,
if the tortured communities ever dare to resist.

Revolution is a fundamental pillar of justice,
don't succumb to hypocritical hogwash -
colonizers should be seen, and not heard,
their philosophy, their theology, all come last.

I'm not talking about exceptional ideas,
good ideas should be studied as individual ideas,
not as western ideas, and western philosophies
must never be prioritized as default literature.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“You know why the West makes such a song and dance about nonviolence, because when your entire empire is built on systemic extermination of living cultures and communities, it really helps if you simultaneously propagate a favorable ideal of nonresistance to evil, this way you can criminalize the very thought of revolution, not only legally, but also morally. Nonviolence has never been about human rights, nonviolence is western propaganda, commodified to maintain moral superiority, if the tortured communities ever dare to resist.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“You know why the West makes such a song and dance about nonviolence, because when your entire empire is built on systemic extermination of living cultures and communities, it really helps if you simultaneously propagate a favorable ideal of nonresistance to evil, this way you can criminalize the very thought of revolution, not only legally, but also morally.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Yalla Ciao (Divine Melody, S.2450)

What have you done oh,
tonto hermano,
mountain of lies after lies
after lies, lies, lies!

What have you done oh,
gringo hermano,
ripped off el mundo from its core.

You don't need AI,
you don't need rockets,
oh brother ciao, yalla ciao,
yalla ciao, ciao, ciao!

Bedlam is empty,
loonies rule government,
now just go call your medico!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“The land doesn’t need more saviors. It needs fewer conquerors.”
― Lawrence Nault