Thabo Mbeki

Together we have travelled a long road to be where we are today. This has been a road of struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

For the first time in human history, society has the capacity, the knowledge and the resources to eradicate poverty