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

“Till a “white man” climbs the Everest, do the Himalayas really exist!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“How to Cure Racism
(Indigenous Sonnet 3218)

If you want to tackle racism
after the damage has been done,
focus on race relations,
but if you want to cure
the system that produces racism,
focus on decolonial studies for children,
make decolonial studies mandatory part
of the curriculum from middle school.

All of us who are mentally decolonized,
white and colored alike, became so
out of our own personal inquisitiveness,
not as a result of institutional schooling,
because the institutions themselves haven't
outgrown their endemic eurocentric whitewash
yet, regardless of how proficient they are in
maths and biology and physics and engineering.

It's easier to dissect the brain
than it is to behave human -
studying for grades you become good employees,
reading for pleasure you change the world.

Proficiency in maths, biology, physics,
and engineering count for nothing,
if the hands wielding them
haven't grown into human yet.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“[A Shopping Mall and Bullet Holes]

While walking through the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
a country worn down and drained by the wars of the global elite, much like my own,
I reached a street corner
and noticed, on my right,
the vast building of a modern shopping mall.
On my left stood an old apartment block,
its walls riddled with bullet holes,
as though they were eyes
still bearing witness
to the senseless deaths that had unfolded there
in a war where the gunfire ceased,
yet neither its causes
nor the criminals behind it
ever truly disappeared,
remaining hidden,
like foul pus beneath a boil
that may burst
at the slightest awakening of consciousness.
And I wondered bitterly:
When will the world understand
that violence does not erupt by accident,
nor stumble into existence by chance?
In our age,
every violence is arranged in advance,
sanctioned by a small elite
that decides, with full intent,
that any people who refuse
the gospel of malls,
consumption,
and triviality,
must be disciplined
through the gratuitous death
of those who resist.
And that, at any cost,
the minds and souls
of the survivors
must be riddled with bullets as well.
At that same intersection,
I noticed an elderly woman.
Her hair was red,
and her eyes were deep and sorrowful,
like bullet holes.
I also saw a group of young people
dressed in the fashions
displayed in those very malls.
The old woman looked at them
as though she wished
to tell them everything that had happened.
But they did not notice her.
Their eyes were fixed
on the screens
of their smartphones.
And then, with a heaviness in my chest,
I found myself asking:
Did anyone ever tell them
what happened here?
About the sound of gunfire?
Could they tell the difference
between artillery fire
and fireworks?
Did this broken woman,
who seemed shattered by what she had endured,
ever tell them
the true price she had paid?
Did she tell them
about all the holes
still lodged
in her heart
and in her history,
paid for with her life,
so that all these malls
and all these cheap consumer goods
might fill their gaze?

4 July 2024”
― Louis Yako, سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]

“The first duty of every white person is to make amends, not out of guilt, but out of human responsibility - in fact, the will of reparation is the first sign that a white person is becoming human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“Either your history is indigenous centered or your history is meticulously crafted monkey mythology, crafted by cunning monkeys, to manufacture docile sheep, never to make them realize, that the hunters are the transgressors, while the world belongs to the lions first. Sure, the world belongs to all, but not until, every stolen dignity, stolen honor, stolen dream, stolen childhood, motherhood, parenthood, are made amends for first, not monetarily but mentally.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“If you want to tackle racism after the damage has been done, focus on race relations, but if you want to cure the system that produces racism, focus on decolonial studies for children.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“If you want to cure racism, make decolonial studies mandatory part of the curriculum from middle school.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“When Erasure is Religion, Mutiny is Right
(Sonnet 3226/ Song 6)

Pack your brain that does no good,
and pack your hands that cannot help;
boot the chiefs that start a war,
and boot the bros that sell the hate.

Pack your kings that loot the world,
and pack your churches stood on bones,
stole the land then sold the skies,
manufactured famine, fortune poured.

Now go burn white maps and syllabus,
now go break your trance of west,
scrub the whitewash, face the history,
grow the spine of humanness.

When erasure be religion,
mutiny becomes a right,
grab the settler by the collar,
earth is our birthright.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Now go burn white maps and syllabus,
now go break your trance of west,
scrub the whitewash, face the history,
grow the spine of humanness.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Pack your kings that loot the world,
and pack your churches stood on bones,
stole the land then sold the skies,
manufactured famine, fortune poured.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Better White Guilt than White Privilege
(Sonnet 3222-3223)

If you are white, be extremely cautious,
self-conscious, and absolutely apologetic,
while commenting on people's religion and
culture, and it does not matter whatsoever
whether you're a fundamentalist or rationalist;

because that's exactly how your ancestors
destroyed populations after populations,
not only in the name of god,
but also in the name of rationality.

So whenever you feel the elitist urge
to dismiss other people's culture,
look at your skin first,
if it turns red in the sun,
it's nature's way of telling you to shut up,
you're in no ethical position
to pass judgement on morality and reason.

Do not even open your mouth until
you're properly scrubbed and decolonized -
if you wanna call it white guilt, call it white guilt,
better white guilt than white privilege.

In fact, if you feel guilty for the actions
of your animal ancestors, it's proof that
your bloodline has finally become human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“If you feel guilty for the actions of your animal ancestors, it's proof that your bloodline has finally become human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Whenever you feel the elitist urge to dismiss other people's culture, look at your skin first, if it turns red in the sun, it's nature's way of telling you to shut up, you're in no ethical position to pass judgement on morality and reason.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Do not even open your mouth until you're properly scrubbed and decolonized - if you wanna call it white guilt, call it white guilt, better white guilt than white privilege.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Clinical Symptoms of Fascism
(Earthlog 3232-3233)

The british and americans made an unparalleled career out of fascism, by invading, extorting, and erasing, but fascism is not white or colored, every country has its fascist elements, because fascism is one of the common animal elements of human nature.

That is why, if you think, end of the empire was the end of fascism, you couldn't be more brainlessly wrong - in modern times, the enemies of a country lurk within its own democratically elected government, rather than come from outside.

How to tell fascism from democracy?

Look for the state fanatically obsessed with one religion, one culture, one tradition, and there you'll find your own homegrown fascist regime - and if that happens, you didn't expel the empire, you just replaced white terrorists with colored ones.

Every nation must wash its own dirty laundry - a nation is not free until every last stubborn stain of fanaticism is scrubbed out of the social fabric, with the detergent of reason and the spirit of integration.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“No Planet for Zionazi
(Sonnet 3244)

When a mayflower full of morons
illegally invaded a living continent,
and declared themselves king,
you were not there.

When a fat white "winnie" the poo,
a lecherous leopold, and
a gringo git columbus, starved, caged,
slaughtered, and erased millions
afters millions, you were not there.

But history is repeating itself right now,
and there is no escaping it this time,
no matter your ethnicity -
on matters of ethnic cleansing
you have only one ethnicity: humanity.

Free Palestine is the 21st century
litmus test of humanity, which will
either reveal the human you claim to be,
or expose the zionazi that you are.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“If you are not producing knowledge to please any power, then it follows that no power will be pleased with the knowledge you produce.

From “On Being A MENA Scholar in American Universities.” The Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS), Beirut: Lebanon 2026”
― Louis Yako

“For the layperson, silence can be a survival tactic; for intellectuals, it means acting in bad faith.

From “On Being A MENA Scholar in American Universities.” The Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS), Beirut: Lebanon 2026”
― Louis Yako

“Our fixation on doing and our obsession with learning often leads us to forget that the focus should equally be on unlearning and undoing what has been done to our imagination and self-worth.

From ‘On Being A MENA Scholar in American Universities.’ The Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS), Beirut: Lebanon 2026”
― Louis Yako

“We must stop supporting the structures that insist success cannot be attained without shooting oneself in the foot. The foot carries the entire body, including the brain, and is therefore worth preserving.

From ‘On Being A MENA Scholar in American Universities.’ The Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS), Beirut: Lebanon 2026”
― Louis Yako

“I am not only interested in measures but also in measuring the measurers and holding them accountable.

From ‘On Being A MENA Scholar in American Universities.’ The Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS), Beirut: Lebanon 2026”
― Louis Yako

“White people really should start getting used to a world without white privilege, inherited from the good old colonial days.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“You're not human till you're decolonized.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“It's ludicrously easy to yap against everyday naive superstitions, like crystals, astrology, tarot, psychics and all that, doesn't take any courage, all it takes is some high school knowledge of science, but to take a stand against real humanitarian harms of militarism, zionism, colonialism, takes real civilized backbone, which is more than most of those poncy toffee-nosed militant rationalist twits can muster.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Your perverted ethics baffle me, when a brown person named cesar chavez turned out to be a pervert, within years you took down all his official memorials, schools were renamed, holidays redesignated, yet winnie the poo administered the mass killing of nearly 5 million natives, by heisting and hoarding their own grains, and till this day, in almost a hundred years, you still haven't developed the brain cells and backbone to abolish his official heroic stature from the history books.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer