QuoteProject
Colinialism hardly ever exploits the whole of a country. It contents itself with bringing to light the natrual resources, which it extracts, and exports to meet the needs of the mother country's industries, thereby allowing certain sectors of the colony to become relatively rich. But the rest of the colony follows its path of under-development and poverty, or at all events sinks into it more deeply.
Frantz Fanon
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Colonialism extracts resources for the benefit of the colonizer, leaving the colonized in poverty.

Frantz Fanon's quote highlights the inequitable nature of colonialism, which often focuses on exploiting a country's natural resources to enrich certain segments, typically aligned with the interests of the colonizing nation. This process leads to a stark division within the colonized society, where wealth accumulates in a few sectors while the majority face deeper levels of underdevelopment and poverty, ultimately illustrating the detrimental long-term impacts of colonial practices.

Themes

ColonialismExploitationResourcesPovertyUnderdevelopment

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about social justice, one might quote Fanon's perspective on the ongoing impacts of colonialism.

More from Frantz Fanon

A government or a party gets the people it deserves and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.
Frantz FanonRead
When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.
Frantz FanonRead
Certain things need to be said if one is to avoid falsifying the problem.
Frantz FanonRead
I want the world to recognize with me the open door of every consciousness
Frantz FanonRead
The gaze that the colonized subject casts at the colonist's sector is a look of lust, a look of envy. Dreams of possession. Every type of possession; of sitting at the colonist's table and sleeping in his bed, preferably with his wife. The colonized man is an envious man.
Frantz FanonRead
Hate demands existence, and he who hates has to show his hate in appropriate actions and behaviors; in a sense, he has to become hate. That is why the Americans have substituted discrimination for lynching.
Frantz FanonRead

Similar quotes

It is only our deeds that reveal who we are.
Carl JungRead
If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?
Joseph HellerRead
Modern war appears as a struggle led by all the State apparatuses and their general staffs against all men old enough to bear arms.
Simone WeilRead
Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.
Earl NightingaleRead
If we live truly, we shall see truly.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
The great divide is not between faiths, but one between intolerant zealots of any tradition and the large numbers of decent, peaceful believers likewise found in each tradition.
Nicholas KristofRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.