Emigration is no longer a solution; it's a defeat. People are risking death, drowning every day, but they're knocking on doors that are not open.
Tahar Ben JellounRead
I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a poet's duty to speak out against social injustices.
Tahar Ben Jelloun highlights the importance of using poetry as a tool for social change. Although he acknowledges that poetry alone may not suffice to alter the world's injustices, he emphasizes the moral obligation to voice opposition against oppression and inaction, as silence in the face of injustice equates to complicity in allowing it to persist.
Themes
PoetryInjusticeSocial ChangeSilenceComplicity
In practice
Example use cases
During a poetry slam, this quote can be used to introduce a piece focused on social issues.
More from Tahar Ben Jelloun
All quotes →Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than that to provide a glimpse of our vision of the world.
Tahar Ben JellounRead
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