#colonialism

It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they're used. The fact that they exist at all, their presence in our lives, will wreak more havoc than we can begin to fathom. Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking. Control our behavior. Administer our societies. Inform our dreams. They bury themselves like meat hooks deep in the base of our brains. They are purveyors of madness. They are the ultimate colonizer. Whiter than any white man that ever lived. The very heart of whiteness. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#colonizer #danger #fear #folly #humanity

People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience. ↗

— Chinua Achebe

#nigeria #south-korea #worldview #experience

It seems more than a little patronizing for Westerners to lament the loss of the good old days when life in the Khumbu was so much simpler and more picturesque. Most of the people who live in this rugged country seem to have no desire to be severed from the modern world or the untidy flow of human progress. The last thing Sherpas want is to be preserved as specimens in an anthropological museum. ↗

— Jon Krakauer

#culture #culture-and-imperialism #modernity #progress #sherpas

Les personnages de nos autres vies sont des fantômes que la littérature fait revivre. ↗

— Olivier Weber

#africa #colonialism #french-writer #literature #report

Will: 'Singing the praises of our fair city? We treat you well here, don't we, James? I doubt I'd have that kind of luck in Shanghai. What do you call us there again?' Jem: 'Yang guizi ... foreign devils. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#chinese #colonialism #foreign #foreign-devils #invasion