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OPPRESSION
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*
The
truth which has made us free will in the end make
us glad also. Every
outcry against the oppression of some people by other
people, or against what is morally hideous is the
affirmation of the principle that a human being as
such is not to be violated. A human being is not to
be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered.”
-- Felix
Adler
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Viewed
with one disposition, history has so far been a horrible
accumulation of oppression and suffering. Viewed with
another disposition, however, history has chronicled
humans discovering their own finer potentials and together
mounting heroic offensives to attain them - against
monarchy, feudalism, slavery, Jim Crow racism, apartheid,
sexual subjugation, second class citizenship, sexism,
heterosexism, dictatorship, one party rule, capitalism,
and coordinatorism (calling itself socialism) - and
seeking, in their place, equity, justice, and freedom.
The gains humans have made have been steady and plentiful.
Now a major leap is possible. Consistent with past efforts,
we can now attain fully liberatory goals, including,
I think, participatory economics and also alternative
structures for polity, culture, and kinship. We have
only to make the effort.
-- Michael Albert |
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*
"In
order for us as poor and oppressed people to become
part of a society that is meaningful, the system under
which we now exist has to be radically changed...
It means facing a system that does not lend its self
to your needs and devising means by which you change
that system."
-- Ella
Baker
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*
"The
most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is
the mind of the oppressed."
-- Stephen
Biko
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"Spirituality
is that attitude which puts life at the center, and
defends and promotes life against all the mechanisms
of death, desiccation, or stagnation. The opposite
of spirit, in this sense, is not the body but death
and everything associated with the system of death,
understood in the widest sense of biological, social,
and existential death (failure, humiliation, and oppression).
Nourishing spirituality means cultivating the inward
space, the basis of which all things can be brought
together. It means overwhelming deadness and stagnation
and living reality in terms of values, inspiration,
and symbols of higher meaning. The spiritual person
is one who is always in a position to see the other
side of reality, and who is always capable of perceiving
that profundity by which we are referred to the Ultimate
Reality that religions call God.
-- Leonardo
Boff
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...as
long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves
on the market to those who are willing to hire them,
as long as their role in production is simply that
of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements
of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy
very limited, if even meaningful.
-- Noam
Chomsky
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*
I
think the only choice that will enable us to hold
to our vision. . . is one that abandons the concept
of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to
the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is
oppressive
-- Barbara
Deming
A
liberation movement that is nonviolent sets the oppressor
free as well as the oppressed.
-- Barbara
Deming
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*
Where
justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where
ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made
to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress,
rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will
be safe.
-- Frederick
Douglass |
"No
guarantees come with children's liberation. But neither
the promise of great benefits to all nor the prediction
of great difficulties ahead can serve as the reason
for granting or denying rights to children. Rights will
be granted because without them children are incapacitated,
oppressed, and abused."
-- Richard Farson |
|
"When
I see the migrant workers' broken bodies and eyes
without hope, I want to embrace and wipe away their
fears. It makes me angry and helps me to keep fighting
the oppressive system."
-- Irene
Fernandez
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| History
has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern
judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought,
suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom,
against political oppression and economic slavery. --
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn |
But
the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact
of destiny. His or her existence is not politically
neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor
are a by-product of the system in which we live and
for which we are responsible. They are marginalized
by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed,
exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their
labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty
of the poor is not a call to generous relief action,
but a demand that we go and build a different social
order.
-- Gustavo Gutierrez |
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*
Let us never cease to feel compassion for those in
want. Let us never tire of helping victims of injustice
and oppression. He who puts his faith in the restoration
of human dignity cannot be wrong.
-- Poul
Hartling
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Bear
in mind this sacred principle, that though the will
of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will
to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority
possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect,
and to violate would be oppression.
-- Thomas
Jefferson
Enlighten
the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions
of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at
the dawn of day.
~ Thomas
Jefferson
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*
I reject the notion that I sit idly by while our cities
rot; our minority people are oppressed, our elderly
demeaned by semi-starvation and pauperism.
-- Mary
Metlay Kaufman
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*
A truly free society must not include a "peace" which
oppresses us. We must learn on our own terms what
peace and freedom mean together. There can be no peace
if there is social injustice and suppression of human
rights, because external and internal peace are inseparable.
Peace is not just the absence of mass destruction,
but a positive internal and external condition in
which people are free so that they can grow to their
full potential.
-- Petra
Kelly
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*
"Tolerance
implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs.
Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of
others."
-- John
F. Kennedy
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It
is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and
belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man
stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot
of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends
forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other
from a million different centers of energy and daring,
those ripples build a current that can sweep down
the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
-- Robert
F. Kennedy
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"The
nonviolent approach does not immediately change the
heart of the oppressor. It first does something to
the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It
gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources
of strength and courage that they did not know they
had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs
his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality."
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
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*
I
have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and
live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these
truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills
of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of
former slaveowners will be able to sit down together
at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day
even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering
with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed
into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream
that my four children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the color of their
skin but by the content of their character. I have a
dream today.
--
Martin
Luther King, Jr |
"Regardless
of what the law or your teachers have to say about this,
you are as human as anyone over the age of 18 or 21,
yet, 'minors' are one of the most oppressed groups of
people in the world, and certainly the most discriminated
against legally."
-- Grace Llewellyn |
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*
“To
the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the
world is indebted for all the triumphs which have
been gained by reason and humanity over error and
oppression”
-- James
Madison
"If
Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will
be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
-- James
Madison
|
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*
Wars
are bred by poverty and oppression. Continued peace
is possible only in a relatively free and prosperous
world.
-- George
C. Marshall
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*
The
cost in human lives and suffering is so high that we
all have to work to end violence and oppression once
and for all. We have to proclaim that every human being
is equal, in dignity, in freedom —and, as the first
article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
states,
we have to live “in a spirit of brotherhood.”
-- Federico
Mayor |
*
It
is a good moment to repeat that a war is never won.
Never mind that history books tell us the opposite.
The psychological and material costs of war are so high
that any triumph is a pyrrhic victory. Only peace can
be won and winning peace means not only avoiding armed
conflict but finding ways of eradicating the causes
of individual and collective violence: injustice and
oppression, ignorance and poverty, intolerance and discrimination.
We must construct a new set of values and attitudes
to replace the culture of war which, for centuries,
has been influencing the course of civilization. Winning
peace means the triumph of our pledge to establish,
on a democratic basis, a new social framework of tolerance
and generosity from which no one will feel excluded.
-- Federico
Mayor |
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*
We
have learned that change cannot come through war.
War is not a feasible tool to use in fighting against
the oppression we face. War has caused more problems.
We cannot embrace that path.
--
Rigoberta
Menchu
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*
The
greatest step forward in human evolution was made
when society began to help the weak and the poor,
instead of oppressing and despising them.
– Maria
Montessori
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When
all the people in the world love one another, then the
strong will not overpower the weak, the many will not
oppress the few, the wealthy will not mock the poor,
the honored will not disdain the humble, and the cunning
will not deceive the simple.
-- Motsi (463-401 BC) |
He who
oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives
gifts to the rich
--both come to poverty.
-- Proverbs 22:16
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It
is often easier to become outraged by injustice half
a world away
than by oppression and discrimination half a block
from home.
-- Carl T. Rowan
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*
What
shall we choose? Violence or non violence? …We have
to choose knowing that when we are violent to our enemies,
we do violence to ourselves. When we brutalize others,
we brutalize ourselves. And eventually we run the risk
of becoming our oppressors.
-- Arundhati
Roy |
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*
"I want my child to walk in a world guided by
love. This means that everybody will have a job, or
the resources to take care of basic needs. A world
where families are not oppressed and are connected
to their neighbors and their communities, where the
best in humanity is honored. That's when we will truly
be at peace."
-- Malika
Sanders
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...all
human beings have a right, and duty, to be joyful.
Anything that thwarts this spiritual human right goes
against the very purpose of human being. Spirituality
mandates us to wage a relentless war to eradicate
these forces of oppression and disempowerment. --
Swami
Agnivesh
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"On the collective level, we have unwittingly shifted
from being a nation of liberators, defenders of freedom,
into becoming a nation of arms dealers and mercenaries,
fabricating our own weapons of mass destruction and
arming tyrants with the tools to oppress their own people.
Within our own society, we jail more prisoners than
any other country in the world, 85 percent of them people
of nonwhite races — red, black, brown, and yellow. We
are one of the few nations that still indulge in the
death penalty for increasing numbers of these prisoners.
We must become mindful of these negative things, since
we need not support these actions of our nation to be
affected negatively by their evolutionary impact, unless
we mentally, verbally, and ultimately physically, disassociate
ourselves from them."
-- Robert
Thurman |
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*
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you
have chosen the side of the oppressor."
--Archbishop
Desmond Tutu
*
"It
means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know
that they are not alone. And never let anyone tell
you that what you are doing is insignificant."
-- Bishop
Desmond Tutu
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"I've
seen miracles in post-war situations, in famines,
in places of horrendous brutal subjugation and oppression,
when women step forward and play their rightful role
in co-equal partnership with men. It's not the answer
all by itself, but it is a powerful and incredibly
effective step to give women their rightful role and
voice and the resources to back it up."
-- Lynne
Twist
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*
“We
must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never
the victim. Silence encourages the tormentors, not the
tormented Wherever anyone is persecuted for their race
or political views, that place must become the center
of the universe.”
-- Elie
Wiesel |
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Humour is the weapon of unarmed people: it helps people
who are oppressed to smile at the situation that pains
them.
-- Simon
Wiesenthal
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*
"We need to rethink our position in the world. We
need to stop sending weapons to countries that oppress
other people. We need to decide that we will not go
to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians
or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate,
a war against innocents, a war against children. War
is terrorism, magnified a hundred times."
-- Howard
Zinn
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