Words matter. These are the best Oliver Tambo Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
In South Africa, I feel I am a stranger, at best an animal.
We all belong to South Africa, and South Africa belongs to us all.
The apartheid system renounces no violence.
Our target is not negotiations, it is the end of the apartheid system. There can be no compromise about that.
Responsibility for the proper conduct of children was not confined to their parents only. When they misbehaved, they misbehaved against the community. And a senior member of the community was expected to do something about it.
The U.S. is the last country that should see itself as an ally of the apartheid system.
It was of limited usefulness to head great rallies. The government did not listen, and, soon enough, the tear gas and the muzzles of the guns were turned against the people. The justice of our cries went unrecognized.
If apartheid is removed, then the violence that is necessary to maintain it will be removed along with the pressures from apartheid which create a violent response.
I was just an ordinary student. I’d always gotten along with authorities quite well.
Using the power you derive from the discovery of the truth about racism in South Africa, you will help us to remake our part of the world into a corner of the globe on which all – of which all of humanity can be proud.
The people of South Africa are ready to stand up to the oppressions of the Pretoria regime, and they are ready to fight back.
For decades, we resisted violence – until Sharpeville.
Apartheid either is or is not. And it must not be.
Those who want to perpetuate apartheid also seek to divert your attention to the false issue of communism, to send the entire American public on a witch hunt.
The Soviet Union was a very useful ally in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Who is a terrorist? Is it not the person who has been persecuting human beings simply because they are black?
Apartheid is inherently a practice of violence.
My problem in calling for pressures on South Africa is to convince the youth to convince their governments and people that it is not the South African goods that are cheap, but the forced labor of the Africans.
You were not wanted. You were, at best, tolerated. You had to be constantly on your guard, like an animal in a jungle full of beasts of prey. You experienced it all within the short distance of five miles from the gates of St. Peter’s to Park Station in the city.
The land on which the cattle grazed was communal property. It was owned by no one. It was nobody’s private farm. It was the common property of the people, shared by the people. So the practice of sharing was central to the concept of ownership of property.
I can see quite clearly that if there was a single event that launched me on the road to ultimate involvement at the heart of South African politics, it was an assault on an African woman by her white employer in a kitchen in Fort Hare.
We had to forge an alliance of strength based not on colour but on commitment to the total abolition of apartheid and oppression; we would seek allies, of whatever colour, as long as they were totally agreed on our liberation aims.
Whites, like ourselves, belong to our country. They are compatriots, fellow citizens… we see them as Africans.
The popularity of leaders like Mandela was an invitation to counter-attack by the government. Mandela was banned from speaking, from attending gatherings, from leaving Johannesburg, from belonging to any organization.
It was becoming clear that, from being at the top at Holy Cross, we were at the bottom at St. Peter’s. Objectively, this was very good, for it offered us a challenge and an opportunity to grow if we were ready to take it; and we surely were.
