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Joseph Ki-Zerbo Quotes

1922–2006

Joseph Ki-Zerbo (21 June 1922 – 4 December 2006) was a Burkinabè historian, politician, educator and one of Africa's foremost intellectuals. He was an advocate of African-centred development, democracy, education and cultural identity.

Random Joseph Ki-Zerbo quote

20 quotes

A people without historical memory is a people without dignity.

History is not a luxury for Africa; it is a necessity.

Africa must refuse to be merely a consumer of the world's ideas; it must become a producer of knowledge.

Democracy cannot survive where citizens are excluded from knowledge.

Culture is the root from which every authentic development grows.

On ne développe pas, on se développe.

Without identity, we are an object of history, an instrument used by others: a utensil.

The slow suffocation of African languages would be dramatic; it would be the descent into hell for African identity.

Le développement, c’est le passage de soi à soi-même à un niveau supérieur.

It is through its ‘being’ that Africa will truly gain access to ‘having'.

I regret that the foundations of this African culture are being erased.

Development is the passage from oneself to oneself at a higher level.

Africa's development will be endogenous or it will not be.

Education is the foundation of freedom.

The development of human beings is too serious to leave in the hands of economists alone

There is an African art of living, an art of solidarity, an art of otherness, of openness to others that Europeans no longer find in their own societies.

We cannot develop by proxy.

There is no ‘ready-made’ development. The only viable and valid development is ‘development with the key in one's head

A culture without a material and logistical foundation is just passing wind

Misery is the cancellation of choice.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Joseph Ki-Zerbo (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.