Manu Chao Quotes

We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves.

Every social justice movement that I know of has come out of people sitting in small groups, telling their life stories, and discovering that other people have shared similar experiences.

There's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.

People are seeking more power in the individual and less in government and institutions; they want more cooperation and less competition.

The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important.

To rebuild confidence in the power of people working together to create something better, we must give people the power to do precisely that for themselves.

There may never be another Madiba. But instead of waiting for the next Nelson Mandela to emerge, those whom he universally inspired are now looking to themselves and each other to build their own dream together.

We the people are the change makers.

In order to fully realise our aspirations, we must create in the masses of the people the sense of sacrifice and responsibility that has been the characteristic of the anarchist movement throughout its historic development in Spain.

And it turns out that tribes, not money, not factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will. But because they wanted to connect.

We have to deal with where we are. We have to create cooperatives, we have to create intentional communities, we have to work for local cooperation where we are.

The great thing about social movements is everybody gets to be a part of them.

Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.

An organization which claims to be working for the needs of a community - as SNCC does - must work to provide that community with a position of strength from which to make its voice heard. This is the significance of black power beyond the slogan.

Collectively, we activists are essential to advancing U.S. policy to help empower marginalized people to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty for good.

It's an old anarchist dream that people can take care of their own lives.

If we don't heal our own hood, who will?

The key to organizing an alternative society is to organize people around what they can do, and more importantly, what they want to do.

So we must stand together to resist, for we will get what we can take - just that and no more.

When we empower our communities, we are all better off.

From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.

What makes community organizing especially attractive is the faith it places in the ability of the poor to make decisions for themselves.

Contrary to public understanding, Anarchism means 'peace on earth, good will to men'. Acts of violence done in the name of Anarchy are caused by men and women who forget to be philosophers - teachers of the people - because their physical and mental suffering drive them to desperation

If our society is to address social issues, it will be done at the local level or not at all.

And to all of your supporters here and around the country: I want you to know, I've heard you. Your cause is our cause. Our country needs your ideas, energy, and passion. That is the only way we can turn our progressive platform into real change for America. We wrote it together - now let's go out and make it happen together.