Oliver Tambo

Politician

1917-10-27

Quotes by Oliver Tambo

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

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• The results showed that Joe Mokoena and I had made history. For the first time in the history of education in South Africa, two African students had passed the JC with a First Class degree, regarded as a rare achievement for any student.

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

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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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?

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• Mandela drafted the M Plan, a simple, commonsense plan for organization on a street basis so that Congress volunteers would be in daily touch with the people, alert to their needs and able to mobilize them.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• The fight for freedom must go on until it is won; until our country is free and happy and peaceful as part of the community of man, we cannot rest.

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• 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.

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