Quotes About Emancipation

In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.

As an act of bravery, love cannot be sentimental; as an act of freedom, it must not serve as a pretext for manipulation. It must generate other acts of freedom; otherwise, it is not love.

La Pedagogía del oprimido, deja de ser del oprimido y pasa a ser la pedagogía de los hombres en proceso de permanente liberación.

They forget that their fundamental objective is to fight alongside the people for the recovery of the people's stolen humanity, not to "win the people over" to their side. Such a phrase does not belong in the vocabulary of revolutionary leaders, but in that of the oppressor. The revolutionary's role is to liberate, and be liberated, with the people—not to win them over.

In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform.

E que, quase sempre, num primeiro momento deste descobrimento, os oprimidos, em vez de buscar a libertação na luta e por ela, tendem a ser opressores também, ou subopressores. A estrutura do seu pensar se encontra condicionada pela contradição vivida na situação concreta, existencial, em que se "formam".

The man or woman who proclaims devotion to the cause of liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people, whom he or she continues to regard as totally ignorant, is grievously self-deceived.

The shadow of their former oppressor is still cast over them.

Mais do que ser educando por causa de uma razão qualquer, o educando precisa tornar-se educando assumindo-se como sujeito cognoscente e não como incidência do discurso do educador. Nisto é que reside, em última análise, a grande importância política do ato de ensinar.

Se nada ficar destas páginas, algo, pelo menos, esperamos que permaneça: nossa confiança no povo. Nossa fé nos homens e na criação de um mundo em que seja menos difícil amar

Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle.

Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.

True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the "rejects of life," to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands--whether of individuals or entire peoples--need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.

The greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves...

No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption (Freire, 1970, p. 54).

Thus the emergence in February 1879 of Wilhelm Marr and the new word "antisemitism" came as the culmination of a decade of rising reaction against emancipation.