#oppress

London is one of the world's centres of Arab journalism and political activism. The failure of left and right, the establishment and its opposition, to mount principled arguments against clerical reaction has had global ramifications. Ideas minted in Britain – the notion that it is bigoted to oppose bigotry; 'Islamophobic' to oppose clerics whose first desire is to oppress Muslims – swirl out through the press and the net to lands where they can do real harm. ↗

— Nick Cohen

#arabs #bigotry #britain #islam #islamism

When we take your person into account, you who are a young maiden, to whom God gives the strength and power to be the champion who casts the rebels down and feeds France with the sweet, nourishing milk of peace, here indeed is something quite extraordinary! For if God performed such a great number of miracles through Joshua who conquered many a place and cast down many an enemy, he, Joshua, was a strong and powerful man. But, after all, a woman – a simple shepherdess – braver than any man ever was in Rome! As far as God is concerned, this was easily accomplished. But as for us, we never heard tell of such an extraordinary marvel, for the prowess of all the great men of the past cannot be compared to this woman's whose concern it is to cast out our enemies. This is God's doing: it is He who guides her and who has given her a heart greater than that of any man. ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#empowerment #feminism #freedom #gender #joan-of-arc

Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress. ↗

— Paulo Freire

#oppression #decisions

What we call soul has been around a long time. It comes out of a particular culture that is African in origin, but influenced by 250 years of slavery, as well as other forms of racial oppression. ↗

— Roy Ayers

#around #been #call #comes #culture

Religious suffering is at once the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of the heartless world, as it is the soul of soulless condition. It is the opium of the people. ↗

— John Desmond Bernal

#condition #creature #expression #heartless #once

And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express ↗

— Wilhelm Reich

#oppression #suppression #truth #courage

Human beings want to be free and however long they may agree to stay locked up, to stay oppressed, there will come a time when they say 'That's it.' Suddenly they find themselves doing something that they never would have thought they would be doing, simply because of the human instinct that makes them turn their face towards freedom. ↗

— Aung San Suu Kyi

#because #beings #come #doing #face

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

#class #conspiracy #degrade #denied #enforced

Black people must address itself to the causes of poverty. That's oppression in this country. ↗

— H. Rap Brown

#black #causes #country #itself #must

Men don't oppress women any more than women oppress men. ↗

— Warren Farrell

#men #more #oppress #than #women