I will pass around 3 quotes. Form yourselves in groups of three and then discuss this quote. After dicussion, have a representative of your group discuss what you have decided the quotes significance

I believe that it would be almost impossible to find anywhere in America a black man who has lived further down in the mud of human society than I have; or a black man who has been any more ignorant than I have; or a black man who has suffered more anguish during his life than I have. But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.- Malcom X

A revolutionary isn’t born out of something good,” said my sister. “He is born out of wretchedness and bitterness. This just gives us one more reason. We have to fight without measuring our suffering, or what we experience, or thinking about the monstrous things we must bear in life.- Rigoberta Menchu

Background to the quote: Rigoberta holds on to her idealism despite these dire sentiments. She maintains the belief that her efforts and the efforts of the other companeros will ultimately end in something positive. Rigoberta’s sister, on the other hand, views life as “monstrous” and revolutionaries as coming into the world out of wretchedness and bitterness. This view contrasts sharply with the idea of birth as Rigoberta illustrates it in the opening chapter of I, Rigoberta Menchu, where children are born into lives of hard work but are celebrated by the community. Rigoberta’s sister’s words are a harsh reminder of the loss of community infrastructure the Indian people have endured. For her, an identity of revolutionary has replaced that of Quiche Indian. Rigoberta resists this jadedness as she continues to identify with the way things used to be in her community and to hope for a reconstruction of traditional Indian identity.

“For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life trying to impress the 'natives,' and so in every crisis he has got to do what the 'natives' expect of him... A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.” George Orwell

This was taken from George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant, how has oppression affected the colonizer? What are your thoughts on this quote?


haggadah Section: Introduction