What I find problematic is the suggestion that when, say, Madonna adopts an African child, she is saving Africa. It’s not that simple. You have to do more than go there and adopt a child or show us pictures of children with flies in their eyes. That simplifies Africa.
I’d like to one day be featured on a list of inspirational people who have made a difference in the world, whether it be helping underprivileged people or putting an end to the poaching of wildlife in Africa.
It is fair to say that Africa has become a major force in moving the world towards multi-polarity, an important emerging market that helps promote global economic recovery and integration, and an outstanding representative of diverse civilizations in the world.
Almost every country in Africa has now instituted multi-party democracy.
We all evolved out of the same three or four groups in Africa, as black Africans.
I mean enormous pressure was brought to bear – Valerie Amos, Lady Amos, went round Africa with people from our intelligence services trying to press them. I had to make sure that we didn’t promise a misuse of aid in a way that would be illegal.
The thing about Hemingway that people forget is that all the stuff he did was at a time where people weren’t traveling that much. At 19 he travels to Italy. He goes to the Spanish Civil War. He goes to China, he goes to Africa so at that time to travel that much is really incredible.
In America there is a public library in every community. How many public libraries are there in Africa? Every day there are new books coming out and new ideas being discussed. But these new books and ideas don’t reach Africa and we are being left behind.
Improving Africa’s farming sector would have multiple positive outcomes for African people.
We all have that capacity to lose our humanity when circumstances force us to do so. It’s not specific to people who live in Africa or Latin America or Asia. And equally, we are capable of regaining ourselves.
The brain drain from Africa has been reversed.
Africa should not again face isolation or stigmatisation based on ignorance and unrepresentative imagery.
I have long argued that, if China and the United States were interested in pursuing a strategic partnership, Africa is the best place to start, as neither enters the situation with past colonial baggage, and both possess interests that are quite complementary.
Perhaps life had a meaning that transcended race and colour. If it had, I could not find it in South Africa.
In Africa today, we recognise that trade and investment, and not aid, are pillars of development.
Our country has the potential not just to be the giant of Africa but a major economic giant in the world.
I got my love of animals from the Dr. Doolittle books and my love of Africa from the Tarzan novels. I remember my mum taking me to the first Tarzan film, which starred Johnny Weissmuller, and bursting into tears. It wasn’t what I had imagined at all.
Right now, the Anglo people are desperately trying to hold on to the United States, like they tried to hold on to Africa.
Art is a form of experience of the person, the place, the history of the people, and as black people, we are different. We hail from Africa to America, so the culture is mixed, from the African to the American. We can’t drop that. It’s reflected in the music, the dance, the poetry, and the art.
Remember, we really grew up separately; our life experience was very different because of segregation. So I think comedy is a good space to work those things out and educate everyone about the different experiences and different race groups in South Africa.
When I was a very young author, I knew I needed to build myself a tower outside of Europe. Like when you’re a hunter, and build towers to watch the animals move. I knew I would never understand the world without that perspective. I came to Africa for that rational reason, although I love Mozambique now.
When the slaves left Africa, they left us this music. They left us blues.
That is not enough. Sport has been great for me, a great learning place that if you want to achieve you can, even if you are from the poorest part of Africa.
Reality shows that, contrary to other countries in southern Africa, we have no basis for a classical guerilla struggle. We have never had a hinterland, and we do not expect to.
When I look at the system here and look at my position – not just as a basketball player, but when I look around me at the values of the people and the culture and compare them with the values of where I came from – I feel so blessed to be from Africa.
When people talk about South Africa, it’s all about lions and elephants. But when we talk about India, we talk about tigers.
It’s become relatively commonplace to find corners of Africa that have good cell coverage but no electrical power.
First, I was opposed to gay marriage because it seemed like one more way that gays were wanting to assimilate. When I realized the Christian right was so opposed to it, as well as tyrannical governments in Africa and Russia, I thought, ‘It must be a good thing to fight for.’
I’d say the best is when I was in Africa, I saw a hippo in a house. Someone had a pet hippo. And they’re meant to be one of the most dangerous animals on the planet, and they had one that was sort of just wandering in and out of their house, just sort of roaming about.
As a citizen of this country, I’ve got to be honest to the people of South Africa.
I never thought I’d be comfortable living outside South Africa, but we love London. Our two kids were born here.
I don’t see why OPEC countries should continue to cut production just to keep the price of oil high. This will not affect the industrial countries alone, it will also hit poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Who will look after them?
There are cultural issues everywhere – in Bangladesh, Latin America, Africa, wherever you go. But somehow when we talk about cultural differences, we magnify those differences.
That’s why I felt so at home when I went to Africa. It didn’t matter that I was halfway around the world in a foreign country, because all those elements are universal. And I think that’s one thing about my work: It’s universal.
Turkey is a European country, an Asian country, a Middle Eastern country, Balkan country, Caucasian country, neighbor to Africa, Black Sea country, Caspian Sea, all these.
I’ve always had a natural affiliation with nature. If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be some sort of biologist working in the field in Africa or something.
You know, we’re missing so much as African-Americans and we should be concerned about what’s going on in Africa.
The United States is the most powerful nation on Earth and it just can’t walk away from the Middle East and central Asia and the Horn of Africa.
I did go on safari in Kenya when I was 17, with my mother, stepfather and little brother, and I kept a careful journal of the experience that was very helpful in terms of my sensory impressions of Africa. I have traveled quite a bit at distinct times in my life, though now that I have kids I’ve settled down.
I was actually away in Africa doing ‘Generation Kill’ while everyone was auditioning for Twilight. They all had, like, five different auditions: I was so lucky that I came back from Africa just in time and the actor who was playing Emmett fell through, lucky for me!
When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don’t advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy.
I have always had great respect for former president Mandela. The personal sacrifices he made in order to achieve what was right for the people of South Africa is something I carry with me every day.
If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn’t concern the central issues, it wouldn’t be worth publishing.
I believe education should be a right for every child, but tragically in many parts of world it is a privilege for certain children whose parents have money. There are 72 million children in the world who don’t go to school and many of them are in Africa.
I don’t subscribe to the narrative that Africa is backward because of colonialism.
No one could seriously dispute that almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, all of North Africa except Morocco, all of the Middle East except Israel and Jordan and most of the oil-rich states, and the entire former British Indian Empire were better governed by Europeans.
I’m in awe of the AIDS workers in Africa who teach there, year in and year out.
I’m not sure the oil producers are enjoying real growth. That troubles me. For experience has shown that oil can be more of a curse than a blessing. And not only in Africa.
Filmmaking is a great adventure. I’m as excited as a kid to be given tickets to fly suddenly to England, South Africa, America, everywhere. I’m still a 13-year-old kid, flying.
I have not eaten a lot of insects. I ate a termite in Africa, but it was on a bet. It was a soldier termite. It was alive, and I don’t really recommend the live soldier termite as something you want to start with if you’re going to start exploring eating insects.
I’d love to do a safari holiday somewhere in Africa – maybe Kenya or Tanzania. I have never been, and we’ve deliberately waited until the children are older so that they could appreciate it, learn something and come back with stories.
