Albert Memmi, the Algerian thinker who wrote the classic work on the psychology of colonialism, The Colonizer and the Colonized , said that when countries gain independence, the rulers begin to transform themselves from being the oppressed to being the oppressor.

Memmi's work revolutionises the thinking of Algerians into overthrowing the French colonial government.

This is true in our public universities in the case of the seven brave young men who actually performed more intelligent deeds than many of those in power in the ivory tower are brave enough to do.

Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator famed for his classic works such as Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Education for Critical Consciousness, Letters to Guinea-Bissou , and Letters to Cristina , wrote of the "intellectual trap" when we fail to understand the inherent contradictions between the subjectivity and objectivity of our experience with oppression.

Herbert Marcuse, a professor, founder of Students for a Democratic society, and an important member of the Frankfurt School of Social Research, in his work The One-Dimensional Man , wrote of the danger of a modern society that has silenced the critical sensibility of its citizens making them docile and mentally incapacitated.