Martin Jacques Quotes

If you don't feel apologetic for slavery, if you don't feel apologetic for colonialism, if you feel proud of it then say that.

Material loss can be made up through renewed labor, but the moral wrong which has been inflicted upon the conquered peoples, in the peace dictates, leaves a burning scar on the people's conscience.

The Caribbean is such an apocalyptic place, whether it's the decimation of the indigenous populations by the Europeans, whether it's the importation of slaves and their subsequent being worked to death by the millions in many ways, whether it's the immigrant processes which began for many people, new worlds ending their old ones.

To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

The Huron and Iroquois forests are peopled by my friends; with me, the despots of Europe and their courts are the savages.

Colonialism is an idea born in the West that drives Western countries - like France, Italy, Belgium, Great Britain - to occupy countries outside of Europe.

What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief.

As to the Indians, the guiding principle was, promise them anything just so long as they get out of the way.

It is necessary to expose the false propaganda of the imperialists and thoroughly dispel the illusion that the imperialists will give up their positions in the colonies and dependent countries with good will.

You get people talking about being worried about their art, and dances... their culture being wiped out or taken over, and yet these same people are taking advantage of their people to use them as cheap labour.

We here in Egypt are fed up with U.S. colonialism.

They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.

The white man has got the gold out of the land which belonged to the red man.

The settlement of what is now South Africa was a joint enterprise, but one in which the blacks had precedence over the whites; and there seems to be no logical reason why intruders coming by sea should be any more blameworthy than those arriving by land. The persecuted Bushmen did not distinguish between their black and white oppressors.

This land was our land; it was taken from us illegally …. John Smith did not bring a civilization here. There was already civilization here…. We should have burned the boat and killed them. all.

Look how the whole capitalist world is stretching out long arms towards the barbarous world and grabbing and clutching in eager competition at countries whose inhabitants don't want them; nay, in many cases, would rather die in battle, like the valiant men they are, than have them

The most economical as well as the most humane conduct towards the Indians is to bribe them into peace and to retain them in peace by eternal bribes

They seem to me to leave the Indians in a worse condition than they found them in.

For the good of the souls of said cannibals … the greater the number sent over to Spain the better … They [the Caribe Indians] are a wild people, fit for any work, well proportioned and very intelligent, and who … will be better than any other kind of slaves.

We have crowded the tribes upon a few miserable acres on our Southern frontier; it is all that is left to them of their once boundless forest: and still, like the horse-leech, our insatiated cupidity cries, Give! Give! ... Do the obligations of justice change with the color of the skin?

A Century of Dishonor

Tyranny, Stupidity, and lack of vision have brought about the situation now alluded to as the Indian problem.

The European destruction of African civilization was done under the guise of "saving souls.

I am one of the forgotten (in this land), one of the faceless ones, a Native American. I am One from whom this Land was stolen through the use of Deceit, through Lies, through Ravage, through Rape, through Pillage. I am one of those who knows the degradation continues...

I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons in any other land.