Quotes about colonialism
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Vinayak Damodar Savarkar photo

“Till now we Maharashtrians kept saying that Shivaji Utsav is only a historical commemoration and it has no political colour. But the festival that we have organized here in Nashik is both historical and political. Only those people, who have the capability to struggle for the freedom of their country just like Shivaji Maharaj, have the real right to organize and celebrate a festival commemorating his memory. Our main objective must therefore be to strive towards breaking the shackles of colonial rule. If our only aims are finding solace in foreign rule, earning fat salaries, be peaceful negotiators with the government on inconsequential issues such as lowering taxes, diluting some laws here and there, and secure ourselves enough to eat, lead comfortable lives, earn pensions and privileges—then this Utsav is not for you or for Shivaji, but that of the last Peshwa Baji Rao who capitulated to British might! Here we are invoking the god of revolution, Shivaji Maharaj, so that he may inspire and instil that energy in all of us. Depending on circumstances our means might change, but the end is non-negotiable and that end is total and complete freedom for our motherland.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

From a speech by V. D. Savarkar, quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)

Maximilien Robespierre photo
Koenraad Elst photo
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston photo

“Powerful empires existed and flourished here (in India) while Englishmen were still wandering, painted, in the woods, and while the British Colonies were still a wilderness and a jungle. India has left a deeper mark upon the history, the philosophy, and the religion of mankind, than any other terrestrial unit in the universe.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Lord Curzon, while Viceroy of India, in his address at the Great Delhi Durbar in 1901. Quoted from Stephen Knapp, Mysteries of the Ancient Vedic Empire https://stephenknapp.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/a-look-at-india-from-the-views-of-other-scholars/

Tsitsi Dangarembga photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“Other people have marveled at the growth and strength of America. They have wondered how a few weak and discordant colonies were able to win their independence from one of the greatest powers of the world. They have been amazed at our genius for self-government. They have been unable to comprehend how the shock of a great Civil War did not destroy our Union. They do not understand the economic progress of our people. It is true that we have had the advantage of great natural resources, but those have not been exclusively ours. Others have been equally fortunate in that direction. The progress of America has been due to the spirit of the people. It is in no small degree due to that spirit that we have been able to produce such great leaders.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

If coming generations are to maintain a like spirit, it will be because they continue to support the principles which these men represented. It is for that purpose that we erect memorials. We can not hold our admiration for the historic figures which we shall see here without growing stronger in our determination to perpetuate the institutions which their lives revealed and established.
1920s, Address at the Black Hills (1927)

Kwame Nkrumah photo
Kwame Nkrumah photo
Kwame Nkrumah photo
Frantz Fanon photo
Frantz Fanon photo
Douglas Murray photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo

“This shows that those who attack us are not concerned with the indigenous human being, but with the mineral wealth and biodiversity in these areas. The United Nations has played a key role in overcoming colonialism and cannot accept this mentality to return to these halls and corridors under any pretext.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Speech at the at the 74th UN General Assembly. Statement by Mr. Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil http://statements.unmeetings.org/GA74/BR_EN.pdf. United Nations PaperSmart (24 September 2019).

Toussaint Louverture photo
Toussaint Louverture photo
Enoch Powell photo
Alfred von Waldersee photo
Alfred von Waldersee photo

“There can be no doubt as to the measureless shamelessness of the English in combating our really modest colonial efforts.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 25 July 1890

Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Dharampal photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Premchand photo
John Dickinson photo

“If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body.”

John Dickinson (1732–1808) American politician

But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that Government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end.
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (6 July 1775)

“Were an impartial and competent observer of the state of society in these middle colonies asked, whence it happens that Virginia and Maryland (which were the first planted, and which are superior to many colonies and inferior to none, in point of natural advantage) are still so exceedingly behind most of the other British trans-Atlantic possessions in all those improvements which bring credit and consequence to a country?”

Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804) English minister

he would answer - They are so, because they are cultivated by slaves. … Some loss and inconvenience would, no doubt, arise from the general abolition of slavery in these colonies: but were it done gradually, with judgement, and with good temper, I have never yet seen it satisfactorily proved that such inconvenience would either be great or lasting. … If ever these colonies, now filled with slaves, be improved to their utmost capacity, an essential part of the improvement must be the abolition of slavery. Such a change would hardly be more to the advantage of the slaves, than it would be to their owners."
"A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution" (London, Robinson, 1797)

David Frawley photo
Richard Dawkins photo
George III of the United Kingdom photo

“Once vigorous measures appear to be the only means left of bringing the Americans to a due submission to the mother country, the colonies will submit.”

George III of the United Kingdom (1738–1820) King of Great Britain and King of Ireland

From George III's letter of February 15, 1775 to Lord North, quoted in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> (July 1867) from the originals at Windsor.
Source: Google Books, The Edinburgh Review volumes 126–126, February 13, 2020 https://books.google.com/books?id=qpiQgE49-P8C&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=Once+vigorous+measures+appear+to+be+the+only+means+left+of+bringing+the+Americans+to+a+due+submission+to+the+mother+country,+the+colonies+will+submit&source=bl&ots=mL-ddKwu1s&sig=ACfU3U1guuvPa24Ta-4K5vWkF6OP4D6HXA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjel-HFgM_nAhUB2FkKHUaSBEkQ6AEwCXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&f=false,

Joseph Goebbels photo
Raewyn Connell photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Koenraad Elst photo

“By relating an ancient instance of white colonization in a dark subcontinent, it confirmed the colonial worldview.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate (2007)

Harry Gordon Selfridge photo

“The imbalances of our political, social, cultural, spiritual condition must be turned into revolutionary action to overthrow this corrupt system of dutch colonial exploitation.”

Joceline Clemencia (1952–2011) Curaçaoan writer

Source: Source https://triunfodisablika.wordpress.com/2020/11/29/an-anti-colonial-anthem-joceline-clemencia/

John Albert Broadus photo

“Our fathers, in New England, in the Middle Colonies, and in the South, brought African slaves to America for reasons of their own, which it is impossible to justify, and useless now to censure. The God of our fathers has set them free by overruling a vast amount of human selfishness and passion in long-continued political and military conflict. Let the dead past bury its dead. Forgetting the things which are behind, let us reach forth to those things which are before.”

John Albert Broadus (1827–1895) American pastor and theologian

"As to the Colored People" (1 February 1883), as quoted in Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary https://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/sbts/uploads/2018/12/Racism-and-the-Legacy-of-Slavery-Report-v4.pdf#page=6 (December 2018), by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pp. 38–39

Elizabeth Martinez photo

“…it’s just another front in the battle against racism. And that’s what it was, because New Mexico was much more colonial than any other area, but it was all the same damn racism. And so I never felt like I was breaking any life pattern; I was just shifting to another front.…”

Elizabeth Martinez (1925) American community organizer, activist, author, and educator

On how she joined the Chicano Movement in “ELIZABETH (BETITA) MARTINEZ” https://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/vof/transcripts/MartinezBetita.pdf (Voices of Feminism Oral History Project; 2006)

Justin Barrett photo
Leopold II of Belgium photo

“Trading posts and colonies, gentlemen, have not only strengthened the commercial positions of the peoples concerned; these nations owe their greatness to these institutions.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Source: Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 https://klara.be/leopold-ii-aflevering-2-0 ISBN 9789463962094 Prince Leopold II in his function of Senator in the Senate of Belgium.

Leopold II of Belgium photo

“I believe we must set up three children's colonies, the aim of these colonies is above all to furnish us with soldiers.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Source: King Leopold's Ghost https://vimeo.com/ondemand/kingleopoldsghost Leopold II in a letter to the Congo Governor General: Camille Janssen, 1890.

Leopold II of Belgium photo

“Of all the outlets, the safest and most stable, both for products and for capital, is obviously that of a colony.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Quotes related to the Belgian Colonial Empire
Source: All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), Preface:A historiographical picture of Leopold II (1835-1909) http://www.ethesis.net/leopold_II/leopold_II.htm#2.%20 STENGERS, J. “The place of Leopold II in the history of colonization.” The New Clio, I-II (1949-1950), 517.

Liu Shaoqi photo

“When several imperialist powers seek to plunder the weaker nations of the world, the result is an imperialist world war for the redistribution of colonies. And this crime, the most monstrous in world history, is committed by the bourgeoisie under the banner of “nationalism.””

Liu Shaoqi (1898–1969) 2nd President of the People's Republic of China (1898-1969)

Internationalism and Nationalism (1952)
Source: "1.The Bourgeois-Nationalist Concept of the Nation" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1952/internationalism_nationalism/ch01.htm

“Eminent scholars repeatedly make the logically contradictory claim that colonialism was both too disruptive and not disruptive enough.”

Bruce Gilley (1966) researcher

Source: The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics, Page 5 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352039835_The_Case_for_Colonialism_A_Response_to_My_Critics The case for colonialism, Gilley, 2017

Ahmed Ben Bella photo

“The struggle for liberation was terrible. We were bruised and wounded by colonialism.”

Ahmed Ben Bella (1916–2012) First President of Algeria

"Ben Bella: ‘It protected us from hatred’" in Le Monde diplomatique https://mondediplo.com/2000/09/14ben-bella (September 2000)

Trường Chinh photo

“The August Revolution was a revolution of national liberation. It aimed at liberating the Vietnamese people from the colonial yoke and making Vietnam an independent nation.”

Trường Chinh (1907–1988) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (1907-1988)

Source: The August Revolution (1946) (excerpts), p.42