David Van Reybrouck · 656 pages
Rating: (3.4K votes)
“The fact that they did not ask for political power, however, did not mean that they were happy as ever. The native’s political apathy was more an indicator of a lack of education than of any surplus of satisfaction. In”
“But it was definitely a hecatomb, a slaughter on a staggering scale that was not intentional, but that could have been recognized much earlier as the collateral damage of a perfidious, rapacious policy of exploitation, a living sacrifice on the altar of the pathological pursuit of profit.”
“Early anthropology was not at all seen as art for art’s sake; it was intended to facilitate the colonizer’s work.”
“Scientists were the embodiment of this new-fangled sobriety—impartial, businesslike, colorless, and reliable. Or so people assumed. For in actual practice, it was their supposed impartiality that allowed them to gain so much influence. One”
“Mission schools were factories for tribal prejudice. Children who were not allowed to leave their villages were suddenly told that the Bakongo lived on the other side of their vast country and what they were to think of them.”
“came from the mines in Kivu.42 The area around the”
“Ignorance is bliss was bull. Melody had been ignorant her whole life, and things were far from blissful. It was time to give knowledge is power a try.”
“I struggled between wishing away all the food that had collected on my body as fat and fiercely missing every morsel. I hated the binge last weekend, and I wished I could do it again. I wanted to eat less, and I wanted immediately to eat more.”
“OFFICIAL ESTIMATES SAY THAT BETWEEN 1,000 AND 1,500 people sleep rough on the streets of London on any given night. Many of them are young runaways, fleeing abuse of various kinds at home. Some are elderly, people at the end of their lives who have lost everything. Quite a few have mental-health problems, made worse by the impossibility of getting their required medication. All are vulnerable; always cold, always hungry, slowly getting more weak and more scared.”
“There’s a difference between wanting to be looked at and wanting to be seen.
When you are looked at, your eyes can be closed. You suck energy, you steal the spotlight. When you are seen, your eyes must be open, and you are seeing and recognizing your witness. You accept energy and you generate energy. You create light.
One is exhibitionism, the other is connection.
Not everybody wants to be looked at.
Everybody wants to be seen.”
“What was surprising, though, was discovering what Starflight got up to when he was bored. “Hey,”
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