Thabo Mbeki Quotes

I am an African. I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.

Gloom and despondency have never defeated adversity. Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times.

Our experience over the last 20 years has shown that indeed people must themselves become their own liberators. You cannot wait for somebody else to come and rescue you.

We should never become despondent because the weather is bad, nor should we turn triumphalist because the sun shines.

As Africans, we need to share common recognition that all of us stand to lose if we fail to transform our continent.

When will the day come that our dignity will be fully restored, when the purpose of our lives will no longer be merely to survive until the sun rises tomorrow!

Many of our own people here in this country do not ask about computers, telephones and television sets. They ask - when will we get a road to our village.

Does HIV cause AIDS? Can a virus cause a syndrome? How? It can't, because a syndrome is a group of diseases resulting from acquired immune deficiency.

A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable

I don't imagine Heads of Government would ever be able to say I'm not an economist therefore I can't take decisions on matters of the economy; I'm not a soldier I can't take decisions on matters of defence; I'm not an educationist so I can't take decisions about education.

None dare challenge me when i say i am an Afrikan.

Read a textbook. It will tell you. These are the things for instance on the African continent that will contribute to immune deficiency, various tropical diseases because of poor infrastructure, general levels of poverty don’t get treated. Syphilis untreated or not properly treated, which as it happens is a big problem as I hear, gets treated, the symptoms disappear but in fact… it … that impacts on the immune system. You’ve got to deal with these things.

The problem is not a lack of understanding of what we are saying and doing; the problem is difference of opinion about what to do.

We do not accept that human society should be constructed on the basis of a savage principle of the survival of the fittest

You cannot just depend on the market, because the market will say: China needs oil; China needs coal; China needs whatever, and Africa has got all these things in abundance. And we go there and get them, and the more we develop the Chinese economy, the larger the manufacturing is, the more we need global markets - sell it to the Africans which indeed might very well destroy whatever infant industries are trying to develop on the continent. That is what the market would do.

I think that probably the most important thing about our education was that it taught us to question even those things we thought we knew.

The poor prey on one another because their lives offer no hope and communicate the tragic message to these human beings that they have no possibility to attain a decent standard of living.

I think you're a much happier person if you say 'Even if I get involved in politics, I'm only doing so in order to serve the people'. You will sleep much easier, not serving yourself, but having done your best to serve the people. Even if you have not succeeded, at least you've tried. You haven't stolen anything, and you haven't robbed the people.

I get a sense that we've all been educated into one school of thought. I'm not surprised at all to find among the overwhelming majority of scientists, are people who would hold one particular view because that's all they're exposed to.

We are not being arrogant or complacent when we are said that our country, as a united nation, has never in its entire history, enjoyed such a confluence of encouraging possibilities.

South Africa now needs skilled and educated people to say 'How do we manage and develop this democratic country?'

As we mourn President Mandela’s passing we must ask ourselves the fundamental question - what shall we do to respond to the tasks of building a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa, a people-centred society free of hunger, poverty, disease and inequality, as well as Africa’s renaissance, to whose attainment President Nelson Mandela dedicated his whole life?

Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say - nothing can stop us now!

How many murders are committed in Gauteng, or in the Western Cape, in a month? A week? A day? An hour? But of course we are not allowed to know for sure. In close and direct imitation of his apartheid models, Selebi ensures that no statistics about crime may be published regularly in the press.

We can't treat the matter of black economic empowerment as just the redistribution of existing wealth. It really has to focus on new investment, on growth, on development of employment and so on and so on.

If we only said safe sex, use a condom, we won't stop the spread of AIDS in this country.

The issue of racism and racial prejudice. It is very, very difficult to discuss. It is difficult to discuss the issue of apartheid. Many have made the observation that it is very difficult to find anyone in SA who ever supported apartheid because everyone was opposed, it was against our will and so on.

You can say to this unemployed family, people are indigent, that they must pay for water and this and that and refuse removal and so on. They have no money. We may very well say that, but does the municipality have the capacity to do it? So, that's why we said that we need to have a thorough look at the functioning of local government and that will include the financing. So that this poor person does indeed access that water.

If we don't move forward with regard to creating a non-racial society in South Africa and we allow this legacy of apartheid to persist, these divisions between black and white in wealth and income and so on, in the future you would indeed have an ugly upheaval.

The people of Zimbabwe have a responsibility to ensure that the government that they elected behaves properly.

South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.

I think the Internet is absolutely extraordinary. It's very, very useful and I think one of the things we've got to do is make sure that the African continent gets on to that information super highway.

The reason I joined the struggle against Apartheid was because you had this system of oppression, which affected everybody who was black. Whether you were old or young, man or woman, in a village or a town, it didn't matter.

It is quite easy to understand what China would need from the African continent with regards to its own economy, raw materials, oil and a market for manufactured goods. As I say it is not difficulty to understand and perfectly legitimate. There is nothing wrong with that.

That surely must be a concern to anyone who decides this drug must be given to stop transmissions, again from mother to child, which is extremely costly and must be taken into account.

I think that part of the problem that arose with that legislation, is that there probably wasn't sufficient information - probably there was misinformation. I am not sure that they have looked at the legislation.

The principal investors in the South African economy are South Africans. And this is something, I think, we should really pay attention to.

This is community land that belongs to particular clans, and therefore, it must go back and its administration and the determination as to what to do, must rest in the hand of the communities. That is why you have these committees, among whose members, of course, they will be traditional leaders. You will have these collectives, which must then deal with the land, the issue of communal rights.

A matter that seems to be very clear in terms of the alternative view, is what do you expect to happen in Africa with regard to immune systems, where people are poor, subject to repeat infections and all of that. Surely you would expect their immune systems to collapse.

As a consequence of the victories we have registered during our first ten years of freedom, we have laid a firm foundation for the new advances we must and will make during the next decade.

Those who oppressed us described us as the Dark Continent!

If you don't understand history, you will not be able to deal with today's issues.

In Africa you have space...there a profound sense of space here, space and sky

The Auditor-General has been complaining year in and year out that the municipalities have not paid auditing fees. It is not because they are reluctant but they don't have the money to pay the Auditor. So, you can't say that you are throwing money at somebody who doesn't have money. Lots of the things that the municipalities can't do are because resources are not there.

I was very fortunate to be able to go to school and university, because many people our age couldn't complete school. This gift of education must be used in whatever ways we can to uplift the people.

Pope Benedict XVI assumes leadership at a critical time in which the world's collective wisdom and leadership including that of the religious community is most important to face up to challenges of deepening poverty and under-development afflicting many people of the world.

The matter of who governs Zimbabwe is a matter that is in the hands of the people of Zimbabwe.

If you sit in a position where decisions that you take would have a serious effect on people, you can't ignore a lot of experience around the world which says this drug has these negative effects.

We will continue to count on your unwavering support and commitment to working with leaders of our continent in bringing about the desired renaissance of Africa.

It's very worrying at this time in the world that any point of view should be prohibited, that's banned, there are heretics that should be burned at the stake.