I am river, you are sea
if you can be the silence, I can will the rain
if you can know the reach of the stone
I can sing you each mountain each
rock of each mountain each mouth of each
rock if you can be the wise word I can
will the knife to cut each silence twofold-
a simple closed curve in the plane always separates the plane into two pieces, its “inside” and its “outside.”
The Jordan Separation Theorem
What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization - and therefore force - is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.
Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism