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

“Not sonnets, Naskar Sonnets (2883)

I repeat, it's not sonnets, it's Naskar Sonnets,
don't try to fit them into your puny, whitewashed,
backward eurocentric customs and conventions -
you're welcome to keep your little legends,
but don't go comparing your lampposts with the sun!

I'm not superior to your aristocratic literature,
I'm just from a different dimension altogether,
a civilized dimension, a non-xenophobic dimension,
a non-misogynist dimension, a non-settler,
non-privileged, non-primate dimension -

a dimension where I write as I live,
I live as I write, instead of being
a saint on paper, while a sicko in life.

I don't write to earn your approval or trust,
I write to shortcircuit your jungle customs -
it's you who has to stand the Naskar Test,
not the other way around.

If you could finish even half of what I've written,
you'd either hate me enough to kill,
or you'd be so massive a human that everywhere
you look you'd find your own reflection,
wearing different skin and different clothes.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“It's not sonnets, it's Naskar Sonnets, don't try to fit them into your puny, whitewashed, backward eurocentric customs and conventions - you're welcome to keep your little legends, but don't go comparing your lampposts with the sun!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“I repeat, it's not sonnets, it's Naskar Sonnets, don't try to fit them into your puny, whitewashed, backward eurocentric customs and conventions - you're welcome to keep your little legends, but don't go comparing your lampposts with the sun!

I'm not superior to your aristocratic literature, I'm just from a different dimension altogether, a civilized dimension, a non-xenophobic dimension, a non-misogynist dimension, a non-settler, non-privileged, non-primate dimension.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“If you want safe, go read those mushy european literature written by privileged white aristocrats, sheltered in romanticized make believe, living off the exploits from plantations - Naskar is not for those seeking a safe narrative, the point of Naskar is to knit your neurons human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“How to be human despite being white
(Sonnet 2890)

How to be human despite being white?
Just don't be a christian nationalist,
be jesus-like, not a christ salesman.

How to be human despite being british?
Don't be a monarchist or aristocrat.

How to be human while being a jew?
Simple, just don't be a zionist.

How to be human while being hindu?
Simple, don't be an islamophobe.

How to be human while being an atheist?
Have some regard for human frailty.

Beware of white people bearing gifts,
beware of white people's religion,
as well as white people's rationalism,
because the former initiates erasure,
while the latter inflates ego.

And if you're white, then first and foremost
betray your bloodline, betray your pilgrims,
your founders, your forefathers, only then
you might one day become human,
despite your historic handicap of whiteness.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“How to be human despite being white? Just don't be a christian nationalist, be jesus-like, not a christ salesman.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Shortcircuit (Sonnet 2900)

Bombs can look beautiful or ugly,
depending on which side you're looking from,
from the sky or from the ground.

Books can look dangerous or precious,
depending on which side you're looking from,
from office or from the streets.

Truth is a useless term,
nazis call persecution truth,
maga calls fanaticism truth,
zionists call genocide truth.

In English we call it Israel,
in Naskarian we call it Sanitarium.

In English we call it Britannia,
in Naskarian we call it Malaria.

In English we call it America,
in Naskarian we call it Terrorism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“In English we call it Israel,
in Naskarian we call it Sanitarium.

In English we call it Britannia,
in Naskarian we call it Malaria.

In English we call it America,
in Naskarian we call it Terrorism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Because the colonial mindset believed that one could only get his job done through brutality, it was necessary that all anti-colonial communities were infiltrated and further dismantled, simply because the colonialist believed that one could only get his job done through brutality. Of course the colonizer is very much aware of his evils but not the taste of his own medicine. However it has never been the intention of colonized to wipe out evil by exacting the same brutalities from which he constantly suffered.”
― Dumisani Tafadzwa Mayele

“The White Delusion (Naskaristana 2912)

Reason is fundamental, but there is a difference
between militant, imperial rationalism and human reason,
develop your character till you can tell them apart -

because militant rationalism often ends up violating
human welfare, just as religious fanaticism does,
except it does so under the banner of ivory logic,
or to be specific, white eurocentric logic.

Militant rationalism is suitable for a cold,
technocratic, mechanistic society, but for
a warm, humane society you must never let parasites
nest in your brain, whether they come waving the
flag of intolerant religion or intolerant reason.

Treat those parasites like lost sheep,
be as condescending as you can,
be ridiculously patronizing,
without actually being bitter,
treat them like the toddler they are,
lost in the white delusion of dualism.

Don't harm either fanatics, don't cuss them,
just bring them flower, and wish them a swift recovery!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“White people must be seen, not heard (Sonnet 2913)

In matters of human rights,
white people must be seen, not heard;

In matters of ethics and morality,
white people must be seen, not heard;

In matters of reason and righteousness,
white people must be seen, not heard;

In matters of philosophy and theology,
white people must be seen, not heard;

unless you've proven beyond the shadow of
a doubt, with every ounce of your existence,
that you value humanity more than you
value your faith, your intellect, your philosophy,
and every aspect of your whitewashed identikit.

White is not a color, white is a mindset,
and every person infected by that mindset
is a potential threat to the human race,
as such they must be crowdfunded with
immediate psychiatric treatment.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“In matters of human rights, ethics, morality, reason, righteousness, philosophy and theology, white people must be seen, not heard - unless you've proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, with every ounce of your existence, that you value humanity more than you value your faith, your intellect, your philosophy, and every aspect of your whitewashed identikit.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“White is not a color, white is a mindset, and every person infected by that mindset is a potential threat to the human race, as such they must be crowdfunded with immediate psychiatric treatment.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Either burn me or burn with me
(The Naskar Personalities, Sonnet 2924-2925)

Naskar has many zones - neuroscientist,
dervish, monk, decolonizer, sacred feminine,
and countless others I lose track of -

my nondual works are authored by Naskar the Monk,
my texts drunk on love are poured by Dervish Naskar,
my decolonial papers are penned by Indigenous Naskar,
my demisogynizing pieces are from Naskar the Feminine,
my behavioral documents are by Neuroscientist Naskar,

and all these are integrated personalities
of the Complete Human Naskar -
and fyi, your eurocentric narratives
do not have the scales to measure,
let alone analyze, such vast mental dimensions,
so I beg of you, do not bother -

either burn my manuscripts, as apes do, whenever
they're confronted with vastness beyond their
compartmental pea-brain, or throw yourself all in,
without ego, without intellect, without faith -

either burn me or burn with me,
there is no observation, no analysis -
fragmentation is distortion,
integration is creation.

I'm the experiment larger than labs,
I'm consciousness larger than brains,
my heart is larger than atria and ventricles,
I'm the Human larger than genetics.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“When the colored speak white (Sonnet 2942)

White delusion doesn't affect only white people,
it also affects colored people,
then they start making noises like white people -

they look at noneuropean science like white people,
they look at noneuropean philosophy like white people,
they look at noneuropean theology like white people,
they look at noneuropean humanity like white people -

which is, aloof from the window of an ivory castle,
and there is nothing uglier than a colored mouth
with a white colonial voice -

white people with white delusion are backward, but
colored people with white delusion are downright grotesque,
which is why, white is not a color, white is a mentality,
which affects everybody, particularly in a world which is whitewashed from head to toe, from future to the past,
from pulpit to the parliament, from belief to disbelief -

all the while plagiarizing from the global south,
because, history of the west is history of plagiarism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“White delusion doesn't affect only white people, it also affects colored people, then they start making noises like white people - and there is nothing uglier than a colored mouth with a white colonial voice - white is not a color, white is a mentality.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“History of the west is history of plagiarism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“There is nothing uglier than a colored mouth with a colonial voice.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“White is not a color, white is a mentality, which affects everybody, particularly in a world which is whitewashed from head to toe, from future to the past, from pulpit to the parliament, from belief to disbelief.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“White is not a color, white is a mentality.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“I don’t even consider most of your tribal white giants as my equal, and you think I’ll be rattled by the temper tantrums of a bunch of underdeveloped neanderthals.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“You cannot be civilized until you're decolonized, you cannot be cultured until you're unamericanized, you cannot be educated until you're de-europeanized, you cannot be human until you're unwhitewashed.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“You cannot be civilized until you're decolonized, you cannot be cultured until you're unamericanized, you cannot be human until you're unwhitewashed.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Unzionized (Sonnet 2948)

You cannot be civilized until you're decolonized,
you cannot be cultured until you're unamericanized,

you cannot be educated until you're de-europeanized,
you cannot be human until you're unwhitewashed.

Don't leave the sanitarium till you no longer
confuse the voices in your head as divine decree,
and the blood in your veins as god's own bloodline.

Don't leave therapy until you're unbritannized,
don't quit rehab until you're denazified,
don't go off the meds until you're unzionized.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“The Naskar I Keep Tamed (Sonnet 2949)

There are many things I'm tempted to write,
such as, all oligarchic kids must be
legally mandated to be sterilized at birth -

one of the first duties of every
new government of the global south is
to mount a rescue operation to heist their
rightful relics from the british museum -

all faces of mount rushmore must be bombed to cinders,
every white person must sit for a human rights exam
when they turn 18, before they're allowed to vote -

every self-confirmed zionist must be mandated
to seek psychiatric treatment, or face house-arrest -

yet my conscience takes over
before my rage becomes canon,
but just imagine, what would happen
to the planet's pointless minority of
white fanatics, if every persecuted,
occupied, dehumanized, exploited,
appropriated, abducted, demoralized
community lost their conscience!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth