Africa Day 2013 Quotes

This time it is not a simple, understandable war, within the same culture. This time it is an assault of the animal world upon the house of the human being. I don't know what you saw in Africa and Italy, but I know what I saw in Russia and Poland. We made a cemetery a thousand miles long and a thousand miles wide. Men, women, children, Poles, Russians, Jews, it made no difference. It could not be compared to any human action. It could be compared to a weasel in a henhouse. It was as though we felt that if we left anything alive in the East, it would one day bear witness against us and condemn us. And, now, we have made the final mistake. We are losing the war ~ Irwin Shaw

(On WWI:)

A man of importance had been shot at a place I could not pronounce in Swahili or in English, and, because of this shooting, whole countries were at war. It seemed a laborious method of retribution, but that was the way it was being done. ...

A messenger came to the farm with a story to tell. It was not a story that meant much as stories went in those days. It was about how the war progressed in German East Africa and about a tall young man who was killed in it. ... It was an ordinary story, but Kibii and I, who knew him well, thought there was no story like it, or one as sad, and we think so now.

The young man tied his shuka on his shoulder one day and took his shield and his spear and went to war. He thought war was made of spears and shields and courage, and he brought them all.

But they gave him a gun, so he left the spear and the shield behind him and took the courage, and went where they sent him because they said this was his duty and he believed in duty. ...

He took the gun and held it the way they had told him to hold it, and walked where they told him to walk, smiling a little and looking for another man to fight.

He was shot and killed by the other man, who also believed in duty, and he was buried where he fell. It was so simple and so unimportant.

But of course it meant something to Kibii and me, because the tall young man was Kibii's father and my most special friend. Arab Maina ~ Beryl Markham

One day, putting my finger on a spot in the very middle of the then white heart of Africa, I declared that some day I would go there ... It is a fact that, about eighteen years afterwards, a wretched little stern-wheel steamboat I commanded lay moored to the bank of an African river.

Everything was dark under the stars. Every other white man on board was asleep. I was glad to be alone on deck, smoking the pipe of peace after an anxious day. The subdued thundering mutter of the Stanley Falls hung in the heavy night air of the last navigable reach of the Upper Congo ... Away in the middle of the stream, on a little island nestling all black in the foam of the broken water, a solitary little light glimmered feebly, and I said to myself with awe, 'This is the very spot of my boyish boast.'

A great melancholy descended on me. Yes, this was the very spot. But there was no shadowy friend to stand by my side in the night of the enormous wilderness, no great haunting memory, but only the ... distasteful knowledge of the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience and geographical exploration. What an end to the idealised realities of a boy's daydreams!... Still, the fact remains that I have smoked a pipe of peace at midnight in the very heart of the African continent, and felt very lonely there. ~ Joseph Conrad

Grandma; it was to grandma I truly wanted to have returned, but she was no more. I could only remember the day she died. The tears mother shed on me, as if I was going to face a more difficult world than any other member of our family. Pg.100 ~ Obehi Peter Ewanfoh

The Edmund Pettus Bridge - which in 2013 was declared a National Historic Landmark - isn't symbolic of the Civil War in a meaningful way. It is, however, the modern-day battlefield where the voting rights movement was born. ~ Douglas Brinkley

Having great friends in New York is like having great friends on an expedition into Darkest Africa in the early 19th century. You need them. And you need sponsorship on a daily basis. I have a painter friend here who says, 'I need two compliments a day just to break even.' And we gave them to each other, and we got them - and honestly got them. ~ Allan Gurganus

It's estimated that across Africa 100 elephants are killed for their tusks every day. It takes nothing more than simple math to get to what that adds up to in a year, and it's a distressing figure. ~ Graydon Carter

I started to work on a feature-length script about pirates in Somalia, but I knew that there was something I was missing, which was that I didn't know what day-to-day life looked like and felt like in East Africa. So I decided I had to go. ~ Cutter Hodierne

The Ancestors were from Africa and entered into Australia 50,000 years ago. They would have eaten food from indigenous life from their area almost immediately. They harvest most of the day, and eat this food. The AM looks like a food source they already eat in Africa. It is highly likely they did eat it. This is still not enough to say it had connection to religion, but it is enough to say they ate it, in all probability. Forensic DNA shows again that they did eat it, as the retrovirus that was on Amanita Muscaria can only be transferred via consumption by humans and it is known that AM is a vector for this virus. Since they forage daily and consume what they forage it puts the consumption just around the time of 50,000 years ago. ~ Leviak B. Kelly

Every day, families in Africa go without food and water, never knowing when their next meal might be; but we can change that if we all work together. In order to make a difference, every purchase of my new energy shot, Street King, will provide a meal for a child in need. ~ Curtis Jackson

A risk to own anything: a car, a pair of shoes, a packet of cigarettes. Not enough to go around, not enough cars, shoes, cigarettes. Too many people, too few things. What there is must go into circulation, so that everyone can have a chance to be happy for a day. That is the theory; hold to the theory and to the comforts of theory. Not human evil, just a vast circulatory system, to whose workings pity and terror are irrelevant. That is how one must see life in this country: in its schematic aspect. Otherwise one could go mad. Cars, shoes; women too. There must be some niche in the system for women and what happens to them. ~ J.M. Coetzee

For perhaps the first time in public, he used the neutral 'Africans' instead of the pejorative 'Kaffirs'. The change in language reflected a deeper change in his way of thinking about the world. When he first came to South Africa, Gandhi had pleaded for Indians to be distinguished from Africans, whom he then considered 'uncivilized'. Now, fifteen years later, he brought all races within a single ambit. They all had similar hopes, and would one day have the same rights. In the future, Indians and Africans would be absolutely free men, mingling with Boers and Britons in a nation where one's citizenship did not depend on the colour of one's skin. ~ Ramachandra Guha

He rests in the graveyard of Ivry
a suburb that always
looks like the day
the carnival comes down.
And perhaps only I
still know
that he was alive. ~ Giuseppe Ungaretti

Nature is the guardian of Africa. While the sun lights the African sky in day time, the moon begs the world to help her lighting Africa in the night ~ Munia Khan

He would not mind hearing Petrus's story one day. But preferably not reduced to English. More and more he is convinced that English is an unfit medium for the truth of South Africa. Stretches of English code whole sentences long have thickened, lost their articulations, their articulateness, their articulatedness. Like a dinosaur expiring and settling in the mud, the language has stiffened. Pressed into the mold of English, Petrus's story would come out arthritic, bygone(117). ~ J.M. Coetzee

While such numbers must always be regarded as broad estimates, one study has shown that each day sees some 78,000 new Christians worldwide and each week some 1,000 new churches are established in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Wagner 1983:20-21). Since those figures were published it became known that in China alone the decade of the 1980s saw up to 20,000 new Christians per day. ~ Donald Anderson McGavran

Africa has a genious for extremes, for the beginning and the end. It seems simultaneously connected to some memory of Eden and to some foretaste of apocalypse. Nowhere is day more vivid or night darker. Nowhere are forests more luxuriant. Nowhere is there a continent more miserable ~ Lance Morrow

Africa can test your patience. Yet, it is a land of people who have nothing but patience. Each animal teaches patience and persistence while waiting for its meal. Farmers hope the next season will bring rain so they can feed their families each day. They say, "If this is not the year, maybe next year, God willing." Though I accept I will always be different, I pray for the day when the mzungu title is no longer needed. If not this year, maybe next year, God willing. ~ Alexandria Kathleen Osborne

Perhaps it is God's will to lead the people of South Africa through defeat and humiliation to a better future and a brighter day. ~ Jan Smuts

There is no lingering twilight in Africa, no gentle gloaming as day eases into night; a tender give-and-take between light and shadow. Night settles swiftly. If you are vigilant, and not prone to distractions, you can almost feel the very moment daylight slips through your fingers and leaves you clutching the inky sap that is the sub-Saharan night. ~ Bianca Marais

Tree nuts and peanuts = 3 servings per week Fresh fruits including natural fruit juices = 3 servings per day Vegetables = 2 servings per day Seafood (primarily fatty fish) = 3 servings per week Legumes = 3 servings per week Sofrito = 2 servings per week White meat In place of red meat Wine with meals (optional) = 7 glasses per week Discouraged Soda drinks < 1 drink per day Commercial baked goods, sweets, pastries < 3 servings per week Spread fats < 1 serving per day Red and processed meats < 1 serving per day *Adapted from Estruch, et al. (2013) Sofrito is a sauce made with tomato and onion, and often includes garlic, herbs, and olive oil. Commercial bakery goods, sweets, and pastries included cakes, cookies, biscuits, and custard, and did not include those that are homemade. December 2014 Page 100 of 112 ~ Anonymous

What we have to learn from the women of Africa is that every day is worth living. ~ Angelique Kidjo

Twenty good friends cannot live together in twenty good years". We were more than twenty who left the school and the simple statement was beginning to echo hard in my ear, as if grandma actually had that particular day in mind. Pg.100 ~ Obehi Peter Ewanfoh

Well, it's not the amount of money you spend, but how you decide to spend it that matters. "Every day spending choices unleash a cascade of biological and emotional effects that are detectable right down to saliva," reports Harvard's Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton in their brilliant 2013 book, Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending. ~ Anthony Robbins

I have always had great respect for former president Mandela. The personal sacrifices he made in order to achieve what was right for the people of South Africa is something I carry with me every day. ~ Aaron Schock

Observation:

Thanks to technological advances, avid readers seem to be replacing DTBAD (Dead Tree Book Acquisition Disorder) with an alphabet soup of more more modern-day hoarding behaviors: EBAD (E-Book Acquistion Disorder), EGAD (Electronic Gadget Acquisition Disorder), and ABAD (Audiobook Acquisition Disorder). Of course, there's also MYBAD (Movie and YouTube Acquisition Disorder: the hoarding or obsessive viewing of digital films and videos, some based on books). If any of these syndromes describes you, take heart: there's probably an app for that! - 8/9/2013 ~ Lisa Tolliver

History will have its say one day.
Not the history they teach in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations but the history taught in the country set free from colonialism and its puppet rulers.
Africa will write her own history and it will be a history of glory and dignity. ~ Patrice Lumumba

After what seemed like an eternity, we finally reached the summit just as the sun was rising. I couldn't believe that we had actually done it. We were standing at the highest point in all of Africa, looking down at the clouds below us, with the sun directly in front of us, its rays welcoming us to the beginning of a new day. It didn't seem like this was something that humans were meant to experience, yet here we were ~ Tony Hsieh

Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties; it doubts our concern, and it questions our commitment. Six and a half thousand Africans are still dying every day of preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity: This is about Justice and Equality. ~ Bono

Y'know, when I first started listening to punk rock music, I used to get my fucking ass kicked for it! I was known as a fucking freak! But now I'm amongst many many many freaks here with me tonight!
- Billie Joe Armstrong,Stay The Night, Reading Festival 2013 ~ Green Day

When I was growing up, there was a man who gave me lessons and things. I'm very dyslexic so he used to give me extra reading and writing. And he always knew that I was interested in stuff but he never told me that he was in the Second World War himself. One day he gave me his helmet that he had worn through the North Africa Campaign. It was just before he died. So I've got his helmet. That was pretty special to me. ~ Jeremy Irvine

Yes, our social and economic circumstances shape decisions we make about all sorts of things in life, including sex. Sometimes they rob us of the power to make any decisions at all. But of all human activity, sex is among the least likely to fit neatly into the blueprint of rational decision making favoured by economists. To quote my friend Claire in Istanbul, sex is about 'conquest, fantasy, projection, infatuation, mood, anger, vanity, love, pissing off your parents, the risk of getting caught, the pleasure of cuddling afterwards, the thrill of having a secret, feeling desirable, feeling like a man, feeling like a woman, bragging to your mates the next day, getting to see what someone looks like naked and a million-and-one-other-things.' When sex isn't fun, it is often lucrative, or part of a bargain which gives you access to something you want or need.

If HIV is spread by 'poverty and gender equality', how come countries that have plenty of both, such as Bangladesh, have virtually no HIV? How come South Africa and Botswana, which have the highest female literacy and per capita incomes in Africa, are awash with HIV, while countries that score low on both - such as Guinea, Somalia, Mali, and Sierra Leone - have epidemics that are negligible by comparison? How come in country after country across Africa itself, from Cameroon to Uganda to Zimbabwe and in a dozen other countries as well, HIV is lowest in the poorest households, and highest in the richest households? ~ Elizabeth Pisani

If you are not for us, then you are against us! One day we will be living alongside you in those mansions. Your choice. Share or lose it all. We're going to take Africa away from its colonial masters. Step aside gracefully, we'll let you stay. Fight us and we'll drive you out. ~ Richard H. Mcbee Jr.

Why can't Tashi come to school? she asked me. When I told her the Olinka don't believe in educating girls she said, quick as a flash, They're like white people at home who don't want colored people to learn. Oh, she's sharp, Celie. At the end of the day, when Tashi can get away from all the chores her mother assigns her, she and Olivia secret themselves in my hut and everything Olivia has learned she shares with Tashi. To Olivia right now Tashi alone is Africa. The Africa she came beaming across the ocean hoping to find. Everything else is difficult for her. ~ Alice Walker