“Neither then nor now did I ask to be 'given' freedom. The powerful constantly promise freedom, but how could they give subalterns something that they themselves do not know? A paradox: they who bind are as imprisoned as they whose movements are hobbled by the knotted ropes. (…) No one can give what they do not have and what they have never known.”
― Je suis un monstre qui vous parle : Rapport pour une académie de psychanalystes
― Je suis un monstre qui vous parle : Rapport pour une académie de psychanalystes
“The impossibility of exact knowledge is in the physical disintegration which protects the past from our trespasses; it forms a hygiene barrier against mixing with us, the present. For us, this impossibility is an advantage. The owners have left the house, they’ve gone away, and there is no one to see how we are dividing up all their many goods. For the full enjoyment of those olden days we need those who once peopled them to die - then we can begin the yearning process, trying out the role of rightful heirs. The heaped mass of witness accounts only teases us in our hunger: rifle through the bank of pictures, enlarge them, bring them up close to your eyes, spend a lifetime gazing at a single iconic image. It’s all pointless: scoop it all out, to the very bottom of the cup, it’s thin walls, you can walk into the house of the past, but you can’t penetrate it, nor will it enter you, like a chill slick of a ghost that appears out of nowhere in the warm twilight of a July evening.”
― In Memory of Memory
― In Memory of Memory
“During those weeks animals came up to her on the street and pushed their soft muzzles into her palm, and she always said the same two words, never wondering whether they were a lie or not, the words that dumb things depend on us to say—because when a dog runs to you and nudges against your hand for love and you say automatically, I know, I know, what else are you talking about except the world?”
― No One Is Talking About This
― No One Is Talking About This
“Puno muškaraca s godinama pada u testosteronski autizam, koji se manifestira u polaganom nestajanju socijalne inteligencije i umijeća međuljudske komunikacije, a također oštećuje i oblikovanje misli. Čovjek napadnut tom Boljkom postaje šutljiv i čini se kao da je zadubljen u razmišljanje. Više ga zanimaju različite Naprave i strojevi. Privlače ga Drugi svjetski rat i biografije drugih ljudi, najčešće političara i zločinaca. Skoro potpuno nestaje njegova sposobnost za čitanje romana, testosteronski autizam remeti psihološko razumijevanje likova.”
― Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
― Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
“You see, while the people in the colonies were being told Britain was their mother, much of white Britain had convinced itself that these undeserving niggers - Asians were niggers too, back then - had just got off their banana boats to come and freeload, to take 'their' jobs and steal ‘their’ women. Never mind that Britain has a German royal family, a Norman ruling elite, a Greek patron saint, a Roman/Middle Eastern religion, Indian food as its national cuisine, an Arabic/Indian numeral system, a Latin alphabet and an identity predicated on a multi-ethnic, globe-spanning empire- ‘fuck the bloody foreigners'.
Never mind that waves of migration have been a constant in British history and that great many millions of ‘white' Britons are themselves descendants of Jewish, Eastern European and Irish migrants of the nineteenth century, nor that even in the post-war 'mass migration' years, Ireland and Europe were the largest source of immigrants. And, of course, let's say nothing about the millions of British emigrants, settlers and colonists abroad - conveniently labelled 'expats'.”
― Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire / Black Listed / Black and British: A Forgotten History
Never mind that waves of migration have been a constant in British history and that great many millions of ‘white' Britons are themselves descendants of Jewish, Eastern European and Irish migrants of the nineteenth century, nor that even in the post-war 'mass migration' years, Ireland and Europe were the largest source of immigrants. And, of course, let's say nothing about the millions of British emigrants, settlers and colonists abroad - conveniently labelled 'expats'.”
― Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire / Black Listed / Black and British: A Forgotten History
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