Al Owski’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.”

“what matters now is not a question of profitability,...increased productivity, ... production rates. ... It is the very basic question of not dragging man in directions which mutilate him, of not imposing on his brain tempos that rapidly obliterate and unhinge it. The notion of catching up must not be used as a pretext to brutalize man, to tear him from himself and his inner consciousness, to break him, to kill him”

“Today we are witnessing a stasis of Europe. Comrades, let us flee this stagnation where dialectics has gradually turned into a logic of the status quo. Let us reexamine the question of man. Let us reexamine the question of cerebral reality, the brain mass of humanity in its entirety whose affinities must be increased, connections must be diversified and whose communications must be humanized again.”

“The West saw itself on a spiritual adventure. It is in the name of the Spirit, meaning the spirit of Europe, that Europe justified its crimes and legitimized the slavery in which it held four fifths of humanity.”

“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.”

“So, my brothers, how could we fail to understand that we have better things to do than follow in that Europe's footsteps? This Europe, which never stopped talking of man, which never stopped proclaiming its sole concern was man, we now know the price of suffering humanity has paid for every one of its spiritual victories.”

“Let us leave this Europe which never stops talking of man yet massacres him... at every corner of the world. For centuries Europe has brought the progress of other men to a halt and enslaved them for its own purposes... for centuries it has stifled virtually the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called "spiritual adventure." Look at it now teetering between atomic destruction and spiritual disintegration.

“As soon as you and your fellow men are cut down like dogs there is no other solution but to use every means available to reestablish your weight as a human being. You must therefore weigh as heavily as possible on your torturer's body so that his wits, which have wandered off somewhere, can at last be restored to their human dimension.”

“For colonialism has not simply depersonalized the colonized. The very structure of society has been depersonalized on a collective level. A colonized people is thus reduced to a collection of individuals who owe their very existence to the presence of the colonizer.”

“Having been tortured day in and day out for nothing seems to have broken something in these men. ... After several days... the policemen came to realize they were dealing with a peace-loving individual who had nothing to do with any of the FLN networks. In spite of this conviction a police inspector reportedly said: "Don't let him go like that. Work him over a bit more so that when he gets out he'll keep quiet."”