Reparations Quotes

There’s no question whatsoever that conquered people have been treated in a terrible way. Being conquered by the Romans was not a fate you would wish on anyone. But the fact is that the net result has been that those parts of Europe conquered by the Romans have been the most advanced parts of Europe for centuries. Similarly, when someone black says . . . ‘I’m worse off because of slavery,’ there’s no way in hell you can say that with a straight face. If you’re going to base reparations on the difference between where blacks today would be if it were not for slavery, then blacks would have to pay reparations to white people.

Welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have discovered that largesse to losers does not reduce their hostility to society, but only increases it. Far from producing gratitude, generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensations for injustices - leading to worsening behavior by the recipients.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

Anyone who wants reparations based on history will have to gerrymander history very carefully. Otherwise, practically everybody would owe reparations to practically everybody else.

The conduct of Germany is almost unexampled in human history. The terrible responsibility which lies at her doors can be seen in the fact that not less than seven million dead lie buried in Europe, while more than twenty million others carry upon them the evidence of wounds and sufferings, because Germany saw fit to gratify her lust for tyranny by resort to war.

The Spaniards have served us with rapine and death. They have violated the sacred rights of human beings, violated capitulations and the most solemn treaties; committed, in fact, every crime. They have reduced the Republic of Venezuela to the most frightful desolation. Thus, then, justice demands vengeance and necessity obliges us to take it

If an atrocity has been committed in Germany and Europe why should the Palestinians be made to suffer?

REDRESS, n. Reparation without satisfaction.

Recompense injury with justice.

What did you expect? I don’t know why you’re so surprised. When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for 300 years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off.

I obtained the occupation of the Rhineland for fifteen years, with partial evacuation after five years. If Germany does not fulfill the treaty, there will be no evacuation either partial or definitive. At last I am no longer anxious. I have obtained almost everything I wanted.

We should have sent the apartheid monsters to jail, not let them off with an amnesty.

The most urgent task I have is to help those British citizens who came from the Caribbean, the so-called Windrush generation, and make sure they are all treated with the decency and the fairness they deserve.

The capitalist system only allows us to heap up waste. I would like to propose that the trillions of money earmarked for war should be channeled to make good the damage to the environment, to make reparations to the earth.

When the war was in progress, England and France agreed wholeheartedly with the Fourteen Points. As soon as the war was won, England, France, and Italy tried to frustrate Wilson's program because it was in conflict with their imperialist policies. As a consequence, the Peace Treaty was one of the most unequal treaties ever negotiated in history.

The moment the first American soldier sets foot on the Japanese mainland, all prisoners of war will be shot.

Reparations - not just aid - should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and - together with other criminal states - for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires.

In 1994, when I went back to Haiti from exile, we established a Commission for Truth and Justice and Reconciliation. I passed the documents to the next government, and I never heard about it again.

There's no doubt that when it comes to our treatment of Native Americans as well as other persons of color in this country, we've got some very sad and difficult things to account for. I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged. I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.

Citizens victimized by genocide or abandoned by the international community do not make good neighbors, as their thirst for vengeance, their irredentism and their acceptance of violence as a means of generating change can turn them into future threats.

The people who have wealth and the people who earn money are going to be a little reluctant to part with it, particularly if they earned it fair and square. So, what has to happen is that there has to be a drumming in of a critique that causes shame, a sense of look, my country and even I am in possession of stolen goods you might say and therefore, the government becomes the instrument to get some of those back.

There can be no deal, no amnesty for war crimes.

We are living, once again, at a time of extraordinary political engagements. Politics is a mass obsession. Progressive movements are growing and resisting with tremendous courage. And yet, we know from history that "no" is not enough. Now, there are some "yeses" out there that are emerging. And they're actually getting a lot bolder quickly. Where climate activists used to talk about changing light bulbs, now we're pushing for 100 percent of our energy to come from the sun, wind and waves, and to do it fast. Movements catalyzed by police violence against black bodies are calling for an end to militarized police, mass incarceration and even for reparations for slavery. Students are not just opposing tuition increases, but from Chile to Canada to the UK, they are calling for free tuition and debt cancellation. And yet, this still doesn't add up to the kind of holistic and universalist vision of a different world than our predecessors had. So why is that?

Where the effects of past discrimination persist, society has an obligation to take positive steps to overcome the legacy of injustice. Judiciously administered affirmative action programs in education and employment can be important expressions of the drive for solidarity and participation that is at the heart of true justice. Social harm calls for social relief.

The work does not end with the abolition of slavery but only begins.