In working to end violence against women and children, we need to ensure that men are centrally involved. Men need to organise themselves in a sustained campaign against gender-based violence.
Cyril RamaphosaRead
We cannot effect meaningful change if we become complacent, if we become comfortable with our own positions in the status quo.
Interpretation
Change requires active effort and discomfort; complacency prevents progress.
This quote emphasizes that meaningful change cannot occur in a state of complacency. When individuals or societies become too comfortable with their current situations, they may resist the necessary efforts and sacrifices needed to challenge the status quo and initiate significant transformation. Therefore, it is crucial to remain vigilant and willing to step outside one's comfort zone to foster real progress.
In practice
This quote can be referenced in a speech about social justice and the importance of activism.
In working to end violence against women and children, we need to ensure that men are centrally involved. Men need to organise themselves in a sustained campaign against gender-based violence.
There are times when leadership needs to take a bold move forward. And there are times when the leadership needs to act on the basis of what the grass roots say. You need to have your political thermometer constantly in the political waters to know when to give leadership in what way.
We need to mobilise our structures and our supporters to oppose state capture and corruption in whatever form it takes.
Violence against women and children resembles an epidemic. It has spread through society, sparing no social group or class.
No man is born believing that he has dominion over women. Instead, this view is handed down from generation to generation and amplified through social custom, culture, and popular media.
We must listen to the concerns of our people without dismissing them. When people see something wrong, there is something wrong. When our people see corruption, it means there is corruption. When our people see that their resources are being stolen by certain people, it means this is happening, and we should listen.
I think it is very important to join the fight against AIDS and HIV and think it is wonderful that Belvedere and Annabel's are supporting, and had this event this evening.
Climate change should be seen as the greatest challenge to face man and treated as a much bigger priority in the United Kingdom.
Those who can't imagine change reveal the deficits of their imaginations, not the difficulty of change.
Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. Since fight club, I can wiggle half the teeth in my jaw. Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer. Maybe self-destruction is the answer.
The sustainability revolution will, hopefully, be the third major social and economic turning point in human history, following the Neolithic Revolution - moving from hunter-gathering to farming - and the Industrial Revolution
If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.
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