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.
Thabo MbekiRead
For the first time in human history, society has the capacity, the knowledge and the resources to eradicate poverty
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the unprecedented opportunity humanity has to eliminate poverty.
Thabo Mbeki's quote highlights a pivotal moment in human history where technological advancements, collective knowledge, and available resources converge to provide society with the tools necessary to address and potentially eradicate poverty. It underscores the belief that we now possess the capability to make significant social changes, urging action to leverage this ability for the benefit of all.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might quote Mbeki to emphasize the importance of using current knowledge to tackle poverty.
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?
I was surprised, as always, be how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.
I can remember when I first went into the Himalayan area way back in 1951. Money, for instance, was not important at all to the local people. But now, finance has become just as important to them as it is to us, and this is a change maybe not for the better.
We have seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American way. We must draw the line. Without delay, we must pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And we should reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.
The place is changed now, and many familiar faces are gone, but the greatest change is myself. I was a child then, I had no idea what the world would be like. I wished to trust myself on the waters and the sea. Everything was romantic in my imagination. The woods were peopled by the mysterious good folk. The Lords and Ladies of the last century walked with me along the overgrown paths, and picked the old fashioned flowers among the box and rose hedges of the garden.
The western model of growth that India and China wish to emulate is intrinsically toxic. It uses huge resources - energy and materials - and generates enormous waste... it remains many steps behind the problems it creates. India and China have no choice but to reinvent the development trajectory
If we do not learn from history, we shall be compelled to relive it. True. But if we do not change the future, we shall be compelled to endure it. And that could be worse.
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