Site for my book in progress

Roots of oppression



Read below why I make it available for free to the whole world

 


in English
 

auf Deutsch

in italiano

en français
 
en español em português do Brasil

in het Nederlands
 
pċ dansk pċ svensk
pċ norsk
Türkçe olarak

 

в українці


English  -   Danish   -    German   -   French  -  Italian    Swedish  -  Norwegian 
-   Dutch  -  Spanish  -  Portuguese (Brazilian)  -  Turkish  -  Ukrainian  



 

For freedom lovers around the world

 

I started this book during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Many of the young protesters seemed to focus mainly on police killings of American blacks without much knowledge of the underlying historical roots that lie behind much of the anger today.

At the same time, deep-rooted oppression of other vulnerable minorities is exploding in recent years around the world. Having worked with minorities in many of these countries and seen the similarities in patterns of oppression, I thus feel there is a need for education about how we as humans are bound together in our common need to scapegoat others for our own failings. I have lots of pictures from many of these countries that show our common (in)humanity.

But traveling mostly in the African American community and following my black and white friends there for up to 50 years, has given me special insight into how people are shaped by oppression - universally. So, although in this book I have chosen pictures only from the 22,000 of (North) Americans in my photo archive, I hope that such a visual, allegorical, educational book - not least with the fascination people all over the world has with the United States for better or worse - can also be an inspiration to freedom-loving movements elsewhere in the world - in the common longing for freedom that ALSO unites us as human beings worldwide.

In the first part of the book, I show how I experienced the remnants of the old-fashioned colonial oppression to which "we" subjected millions of Africans, Asians and Americans - even though it officially ended in North America with the passage of the Civil Rights Acts - only five years before my arrival.

In the important middle section, I describe the mistreatment of children that I have seen again and again as the precondition for the creation of so many of the worst oppressors among us - such as Putin right now.

And in the second part how we - the righteous and free-minded among us, despite all our good intentions and high ideals - tend to oppress our fellow citizens in virtually every country I have visited on Earth.

A good example is how I myself - with the best intentions of lecturing in 14 countries on such oppression – ended up
flying 1.5 million km and driving more than 1 million km - thus thoughtlessly, with my climate destruction, helped to destroy the future livelihoods of millions of children, not least in the most vulnerable poor countries.
To compensate for this oppression, I am now putting this book online here -
and the slide show on which it is based - for free reading in most of the colonial languages which we "oppressed"/"enlightened" large parts of our former Babylonian world with.

Anyway, while in the book I may be annoyingly teasing about the darker sides of ourselves we don't like to face, I promise it is also healing by clearly demonstrating that we are ALL both oppressors and oppressed at the same time.

So, if you think the book might be useful in your oppressed/oppressive region of the world, please help me edit it here in your language and to find publishers for it - if you are lucky enough to still live in a country with the freedom to publish it.
 




With love
Jacob Holdt
Gernersgade 63
1319 Copenhagen
Denmark
Phone +45-20-324412
jacob@holdt.us
 
Facebook.com/Jacob.Holdt 
Instagram.com/jacobholdtofficial
www.american-pictures.com

 





Possible back cover which in the end will be decided by a publisher