Oliver Tambo Quotes

We believe that the world, too, can destroy apartheid, firstly by striking at the economy of South Africa.

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.

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 true facts are not always obvious. They often have to be looked for.

How do you deal with a criminal that will not listen to what you have to say and who continues his policy of violence? Some say you continue to talk and let him tire himself out. But nearly 40 years after the institution of apartheid, is there anyone who still believes that verbal persuasion will work?

In South Africa, I feel I am a stranger, at best an animal.

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.

In May 1961, South Africa was to be declared a Nationalist Republic. There was a white referendum, but no African was consulted.

It may be that apartheid brings such stupendous economic advantages to countries that they would sooner have apartheid than permit its destruction.

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.

The A.N.C. is a national movement. We all – Communists and non-Communists alike – want a nonracial, democratic, united South Africa.

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.

For decades, we resisted violence – until Sharpeville.

I didn’t really want to be a teacher, but there was nothing else I could be. Most of those who went to the university became teachers. It was just the racial restriction on Africans.

The struggle to conquer oppression in our country is the weaker for the traditionalist, conservative, and primitive restraints imposed on women by man-dominated structures within our movement, as also because of equally traditionalist attitudes of surrender and submission on the part of women.

I would not hesitate to vote for a white person as president if I thought he was the best person for the job.

How can it be said we should use only constitutional means in our struggle, when all resistance is illegal and we have no way to change the brutal realities of the racism regime?

The people of South Africa are ready to stand up to the oppressions of the Pretoria regime, and they are ready to fight back.

We have a vision of South Africa in which black and white shall live and work together as equals in conditions of peace and prosperity.

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.

We believe it is comprehensive international sanctions against the white regime that will save us from the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of South Africans, black and white.

There is no way a spirit of resistance that has sunk so deep in the population can be repressed.

This uprising of 1976-77 was, of course, the historic watershed… Within a short period of time, it propelled into the forefront of our struggle millions of young people.

Whites, like ourselves, belong to our country. They are compatriots, fellow citizens… we see them as Africans.

We were very lucky. My mother and stepmothers were on very, very good terms, and so we, the children, grew up as brothers and sisters.

My sister had some ailment and convulsions that she suffered from, and she had been sent to some place to go and get healed there. She was brought back and prayed for by those people. She recovered; in fact, she grew to be an evangelist in her own right, healing people and traveling around.

Whoever says that sanctions will only deteriorate the situations of blacks in South Africa does not know the criminal, murderous character of genocide that represents the system of apartheid.

The Soviet Union was a very useful ally in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Our target is not negotiations, it is the end of the apartheid system. There can be no compromise about that.

Apartheid either is or is not. And it must not be.

The violence associated with the A.N.C. is minimal, infinitesimal next to the violence of the apartheid regime.

We seek to create a united Democratic and non-racial society.

We all belong to South Africa, and South Africa belongs to us all.

The apartheid system renounces no violence.

It is often suggested that the A.N.C. is controlled by the Communist Party, by Communists. Well, I have been long enough in the A.N.C. to know that that has never been true.

Racial discrimination, South Africa’s economic power, its oppression and exploitation of all the black peoples, are part and parcel of the same thing.

It was always my desire to strike new ground and help to lend weight where it was most required.

The more pressure you bring from without, the less internal pressure is necessary.