Jarh L. Rodriguez’s Reviews > The Wretched of the Earth > Status Update

For Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, comrades, we must make a new start, develop a new way of thinking, and endeavor to create a new man

Two centuries ago a former European colony took it into its head to catch up with Europe. It has been so successful that the United States of America has become a monster where the flaws, sickness, and inhumanity of Europe have reached frightening proportions

Let us decide not to imitate Europe and let us tense our muscles and brains in a new direction. Let us endeavor to invent a man in full, something which Europe has been incapable of achieving

For many of us the European model is the most alluring but we have seen in the preceding pages how misleading such an imitation can be. European achievements, European technology, and European lifestyles must stop tempting us and leading us astray. When I look for man in European lifestyles and technology, I see a constant denial of man, an avalanche of murders

We can do anything today provided we do not ape Europe. Provided we are not obsessed with catching up with Europe

As he had no intention of giving up his job as a torturer, this would make no sense since he would then have to resign. He asked me in plain language to help him torture Algerian patriots without having a guilty conscience, without any behavioral problems, and with a total peace of mind

[French torturer in psychiatric sessions due to episodes of aggression towards his family]
The golden rule is to never give the guy the impression he won’t get out alive. He’ll then wonder what’s the use of talking if it won’t save his life. In that case you’ll have no chance at all of getting anything out of him. He has to go on hoping: It’s hope that makes them talk.

[French officer]
Mind you we'd prefer not to but they don't make things easy for us. Now I can hear the screams even at home, especially the screams of the ones who died at the police headquarters. Doctor, I'm sick of this job. If you can cure me I'll request the transfer to France. If they refuse I'll resign

[French officer]
I can tell at which stage the interrogation has reached by the sound of the screams. The guy who has been punched twice and given a blow behind the ear has a certain way of talking, screaming, and saying that he is innocent. After he has been hanging by his wrist for two hours, his voice changes, after the bathtub, a different voice, and so on. It's after the electricity that it becomes unbearable

This struggle, which aims at a fundamental redistribution of relations between men, cannot leave intact either the form or substance of the people's culture. After the struggle is over that is not only the demise of colonialism but also the demise of the colonized