Thulani Mbabela

“He licked his lips. ‘Well, if you want my opinion-‘
‘I don’t, ‘ She said. ‘I have my own.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“In another conversation I said, ‘Tell me the truth. When you were leaving prison after twenty-seven years and walking down that road to freedom, didn’t you hate them all over again?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely I did, because they’d imprisoned me for so long. I was abused. I didn’t get to see my children grow up. I lost my marriage and the best years of my life. I was angry. And I was afraid, because I had not been free in so long. But as I got closer to the car that would take me away, I realized that when I went through that gate, if I still hated them, they would still have me. I wanted to be free. And so I let it go.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom

“No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and cliches and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.”
― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda

“We can't expect healthy individuals in a society geared towards war all the time. I think depression is a natural reaction to crisis. We can't isolate ourselves from reality no matter how much we try or deny it. We live in a world where there is an assault against the environment, constant war, social and economic crises and so many other issues; not to forget inequality and the prioritization of war. A dysfunctional world can only assault you as an individual in so many ways that you are not aware of, and you can never run away from it. [human agency] can never solve it. It can only make people more aware and stronger. On the contrary those forces take away agency.”
― Rowan Moses