Apartheid Quotes

Jews and Muslims 'dialoguing' has nothing to do with Palestine. The problem is settler colonialism, apartheid and occupation, not religion. ~ Remi Kanazi

Even at the very dawn of Christianity, there was a commonly-accepted theory known as the Blood Libel, which stated matter-of-factly that Jewish people regularly sacrificed non-Jewish babies and used the blood of those babies in Judaic rituals. Later, in medieval times, plagues and other diseases were commonly blamed on Jews, resulting in the enforcement of Apartheid-like conditions, separating Jewish communities from the rest of the population throughout Europe. For example, in the Papal States – territories in the Italian Peninsula that existed throughout the middle ages and medieval times that were governed directly by the Pope – Jews were only allowed to reside in neighborhoods called ghettos. They were regularly forced to convert to Christianity in various barbaric ways such as involuntary baptisms. The stealing of Jewish babies from their parents by Church officials was also not uncommon and the children would often then be brought up as Catholic orphans never knowing of their Jewish heritage. ~ James Morcan

The people who are opposing the policy of apartheid have not the courage of their convictions. They do not marry non-Europeans. ~ P. W. Botha

The mistake the apartheid government made was they gave the black people nothing, so they had nothing to lose. But now a lot of the former freedom-fighters are big-time capitalists. They've been given directorships in every major company. They're billionaires! ~ Wilbur Smith

Jonny has a theory that South Africa are doomed to choke in every major tournament for the next fifty years as payment for apartheid. He also believes that England will spend centuries working off their colonial sins by performing miserably at sport. I then ask him why Australia, who wiped out generations of Aborigines, win everything in every sport, and he shuts up. ~ Shehan Karunatilaka

As a young woman, I attended Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, which was then not segregated. But I witnessed the weight of apartheid everywhere around me. ~ Teresa Heinz

The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate, is what is was. You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all. ~ Trevor Noah

Anger is an energy. It really bloody is. It's possibly the most powerful one-liner I've ever come up with. When I was writing the Public Image Ltd song 'Rise', I didn't quite realize the emotional impact that it would have on me, or anyone who's ever heard it since. I wrote it in an almost throwaway fashion, off the top of my head, pretty much when I was about to sing the whole song for the first time, at my then new home in Los Angeles. It's a tough, spontaneous idea. 'Rise' was looking at the context of South Africa under apartheid. I'd be watching these horrendous news reports on CNN, and so lines like 'They put a hotwire to my head, because of the things I did and said', are a reference to the torture techniques that the apartheid government was using out there. Insufferable. You'd see these reports on TV and in the papers, and feel that this was a reality that simply couldn't be changed. So, in the context of 'Rise', 'Anger is an energy' was an open statement, saying, 'Don't view anger negatively, don't deny it – use it to be creative.' I combined that with another refrain, 'May the road rise with you'. When I was growing up, that was a phrase my mum and dad – and half the surrounding neighbourhood, who happened to be Irish also – used to say. 'May the road rise, and your enemies always be behind you!' So it's saying, 'There's always hope', and that you don't always have to resort to violence to resolve an issue. Anger doesn't necessarily equate directly to violence. Vio ~ John Lydon

Sometimes in history the name of God has been invoked on behalf of actions and movements that have ennobled the human soul and lifted the body politic to a higher plane. Take the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and the American civil rights movement, or Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the struggle against South African apartheid, as examples. Other times religious fervor has been employed for the worst kinds of sectarian and violent purposes. The Ku Klux Klan, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and David Koresh's Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Texas, are frightening examples.

Is there a reliable guide to when we are really hearing the voice of God, or just a self-interested or even quite ungodly voice in the language of heaven? I think there is. Who speaks for God? When the voice of God is invoked on behalf of those who have no voice, it is time to listen. But when the name of God is used to benefit the interests of those who are speaking, it is time to be very careful. ~ Jim Wallis

Whether 'Avatar' is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick 'District 9', released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race. ~ Annalee Newitz

Relationships are built in the silences. You spend time with people, you observe them and interact with them, and you come to know them - and that is what apartheid stole from us: time. ~ Trevor Noah

I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination ... ~ Nelson Mandela

I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation or separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Racism is a blight on the human conscience. The idea that any people can be inferior to another, to the point where those who consider themselves superior define and treat the rest as subhuman, denies the humanity even of those who elevate themselves to the status of gods. ~ Nelson Mandela

To respond in kind to the violence of apartheid was just wrong. Terrorism was based on the use of indiscriminate violence, directed at civilian people because they happened to belong to a particular group, race, or community. [ ... ] It was completely antithetical to our ideals. We were fighting for justice against the system of white supremacy, not against a race. ~ Albie Sachs

My mother's husband Harry Bloom was a writer, a novelist, a reporter, and an anti-apartheid activist. ~ Orlando Bloom

We're building what I call 'software apartheid.' We're in the process of creating a divided society: those who can use technology on one side, and those who can't on the other. And it happens to divide neatly along economic lines. ~ Alan Cooper

I mean, this political correctness! It's worse than apartheid ~ Fredrik Backman

When people say it's a funny thing about them, you will probably be able to control your hysterics. They are only getting ready to announce the shattering fact that they don't like something. And it's not going to be something that's really quite awful, like suttee or apartheid; it's going to be something small. ~ Peg Bracken

Abhorrence of apartheid is a moral attitude, not a policy. ~ Edward Heath

The Nation-state: apartheid without political incorrectness. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

There is one key area in which Zuma has made no attempt at reconciliation whatsoever: criminal justice and security. The ministers of justice, defence, intelligence (now called 'state security' in a throwback to both apartheid and the ANC's old Stalinist past), police and communications are all die-hard Zuma loyalists. Whatever their line functions, they will also play the role they have played so ably to date: keeping Zuma out of court - and making sure the state serves Zuma as it once did Mbeki. ~ Mark Gevisser

If the ANC does to you what the apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the apartheid government. ~ Nelson Mandela

I am deeply moved by the warmth and courage of the Canadian people which I felt so strongly during my recent visit to your country. Your support of the struggle against apartheid restored me in my journey home and reassured me that many just people around the world are with us. ~ Desmond Tutu

Atonement theology is not the pathway to life. The ability to give ourselves away to others in love is. It is not the winners who achieve life's meaning; it is the givers. That is the basis upon which a new Christianity can be built for a new world. Atonement theology was born in Gentile ignorance of Jewish worship traditions. It was fed over the centuries by literalizing biblical narratives in ways that Jewish worshippers, who knew about storytelling, would never have understood. I say it again: Biblical literalism is nothing less than a Gentile heresy. Its results are now revealed in the fact that Christianity has been transformed into a religion of victimization. For centuries we have practiced our faith by building up ourselves as winners, survivors, the holders of ultimate truth, while we have denigrated the humanity of others. That is the source of evil. That is why Christianity has given birth to anti-Semitism. That is why the crusades were initiated to kill "infidels." That is why we gave our blessing to such things as the divine right of kings, slavery, segregation, and apartheid. That is why we defined women as sub-human, childlike, and dependent. That is why we became homophobic. That is why we became child abusers and ideological killers. What human life needs is not a theology of human denigration. That is what atonement theology gives us. What we need is a theology of human fulfillment. ~ John Shelby Spong

Children are being killed, because some "adults" think life is a game.

Something is amiss.

When children shoot up other children in school, it's a national tragedy, and a week of mourning.

When grown men are killing unarmed young, yes unarmed young, it bespeaks the leagues of fear residing in these men's hearts; that they've created a world in which they themselves have become useless.

Then it makes front page, and it becomes business as usual.

Something is amiss here.

If adults don't truly grow up, then their young may never get the chance. ~ Justin K. McFarlane Beau

When I went to live in South Africa, I immediately began to understand what went wrong. Because here was a place supposed to be under apartheid - I arrived there in 1991 - but here a black person had more say and had more influence over his white government than an average Kenyan had over the Moi government. ~ Binyavanga Wainaina

The kids growing up in the apartheid era were so restricted and angry - if they spoke out against it, they were thrown in jail. ~ Malik Bendjelloul

My life had been defined by the apartheid years. Now we were going into an era of democracy ... and I believed that I didn't really have a function as a useful artist in that anymore. ~ Athol Fugard

Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom. ~ Nelson Mandela

Unlike, say, witch-burning, slavery, and apartheid, which were once taken for granted and are now officially outlawed, war is still with us. ~ Adam Hochschild

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime. ~ Desmond Tutu

At the time of his death, Biko had a wife and three children for which he left a letter that stated in one part: I've devoted my life to see equality for blacks, and at the same time, I've denied the needs of my family. Please understand that I take these actions, not out of selfishness or arrogance, but to preserve a South Africa worth living in for blacks and whites. ~ Steve Biko

In my many trips to South Africa, I have met and spoken to a lot of people there, and they all seem to find apartheid as repellent as you would. ~ Henry Rollins

I was born in South Africa during apartheid, a system of laws that made it illegal for people to mix in South Africa. And this was obviously awkward because I grew up in a mixed family. My mother's a black woman, South African Xhosa woman ... and my father's Swiss, from Switzerland. ~ Trevor Noah

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement. ~ Nelson Mandela

It must not be forgotten in fairness to the National Government that apartheid is not just a policy of oppression but an attempt - in my opinion an attempt doomed to failure - to find an alternative to a policy of racial integration which is fair to both white and black. ~ Harry Oppenheimer

We got rid of colonialism, we got rid of slavery, and we got rid of apartheid everyone thought each one of them was impossible. Let's take the next impossible, do it with joy and get it finished with and create a world free from poverty. Let us create the world of our choice. ~ Muhammad Yunus

In America you had the forced removal of the native onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people at the same time. That was apartheid. ~ Trevor Noah

This was the winter of 2008/9. Work was ongoing to reinstate a tram system in the city. A lot of people couldn't see the point of trams and many more disliked the disruption. Streets were closed off. There was almost a sense of 'apartheid' as the roadworks made it difficult to move from New Town to Old Town and vice versa. Added to which, the weather was fairly grim. And the banks looked ready to implode. ~ Ian Rankin

It is often forgotten today that Plessy v. Ferguson was not an isolated Supreme Court decision. In case after case, the Court reaffirmed and upheld the ability of states to enforce apartheid. ~ Erwin Chemerinsky

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. ~ Desmond Tutu

The private schools and the independent schools like Oprah's are really doing well because they've got the best of everything but it certainly puts the spotlight on a system of public education that is still reeling from the apartheid years [in South Africa]. ~ Charlayne Hunter-Gault

To that, I say this: a few may not agree, but one of the greatest men to have walked the earth in my lifetime is Nelson Mandela. He and his people suffered tremendously under the apartheid regime, but when he took over the mantle of governing South Africa, he did not vindictively return the favour to the opposition, which would probably have sent South Africa into chaos and terminal decline. Instead he charted a way forward that started with forgiveness and inclusiveness, bringing about a smooth transition instead of possible revenge and bloodshed. Maybe some folk in cricket administration can learn something from the great man. ~ Michael Holding

Above all, what you have as young people that's vitally needed to make social change, is impatience. You want it to happen now. There have to be enough people that say, "We want it now, in our lifetime. " We want to see apartheid in South Africa come down right now. We want to see the war in Central America stop right now. We want the CIA off our campus right now. We want an end to sexual harassment in our communities right now. Be adventurists in the sense of being bold and daring. Be opportunists and seize this opportunity, this moment in history, to go out and save our country. It's your turn now. ~ Abbie Hoffman

Apartheid was in South Africa; now it has been transferred to Palestine. ~ Yahya Jammeh

I would be guilty only if I were innocent of working to destroy racism in my country. ~ Nadine Gordimer

In some respects, South African apartheid was more vicious than Israeli practices, and in some respects the opposite is true. ~ Noam Chomsky

1993, in the death throes of apartheid, South Africa imprisoned 853 black men per hundred thousand in the population. The United States imprisons 4,919 black men per hundred thousand (versus only 943 white men). So because of the drug war and the way it is enforced, a black man was far more likely to be jailed in the Land of the Free than in the most notorious white supremacist society in the world. ~ Johann Hari

Apartheid isn't that cut-and-dry. All men are not created equal. ~ Ted Nugent

The Scriptures have been misused to defend bloody crusades and inquisitions; to support slavery, apartheid, and segregation; to sanction the physical and emotional abuse of women and children; to persecute Jews and other non-Christian people of faith; to support the holocaust of Hitler's Third Reich; to oppose medical science; to condemn inter-racial marriage; to execute women as witches; to excuse the violent racism of the Ku Klux Klan; to mobilize militias, white supremacy and neo-nazi movements; and to condone intolerance and discrimination against sexual minorities. ~ Mel White

The truth is that the hard-fought victories of the Civil Rights Movement caused a reaction that stripped Brown of its power, severed the jugular of the Voting Rights Act, closed off access to higher education, poured crack cocaine into the inner cities, and locked up more black men proportionally than even apartheid-era South Africa. ~ Carol Anderson

I'm thinking about some developments say in the 80s when the anti-apartheid movement began to claim more support and strength within the US. Black trade unionists played a really important role in developing this US anti-apartheid movement. ~ Angela Davis

For most of my writing life, I've refused to allow myself to believe that writing was a significant form of action. I always felt very uneasy about the fact that all I did was write in a situation as desperate as apartheid South Africa. Whether I was correct or not is a different issue. ~ Athol Fugard

How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people. ~ Walter E. Williams

You must remember there is a set up from above at all times, someone is born for a purpose in this world and no one can changed. Moses was born to deliver his people from Egypt although he thought he was not good enough to do the job. David was born deliver his people from the giant called Goliath and Nelson Mandela was also born to deliver his nation from the apartheid regime. Our existence really matter in this world. ~ Euginia Herlihy

There had been many such experiments when he worked in South Africa, in Vlakplaas, a notorious apartheid death camp. ~ Chris Abani

With the end of the cold war, all the 'isms' of the 20th century - Fascism, Nazism, Communism and the evil of apartheid-ism - have failed. Except one. Only democracy has shown itself true the help of all mankind. ~ Jack Kemp

Posing as someone, or something, else is the story of many women and men who have experienced repression and made a bid for freedom. It is the story of a gay U.S. Marine who had to pretend he was straight. It is the story of a Jewish family in Nazi Germany posing as Protestants. It is the story of a black South African who tried to make his skin lighter under apartheid. ~ Jenny Nordberg

Obama's not down for the civil rights struggle, and he certainly wasn't down for the apartheid struggle, but he's clearly gonna take advantage of it and insert himself in such a way as to make it look like he is single-handedly responsible for apartheid going by the wayside. ~ Rush Limbaugh

One can't erase the tremendous burden of apartheid in 10 years, 20 years, I believe, even 30 years. ~ Susan Rice

I've been offered jobs by companies that supported apartheid many times in the 25 years of my modeling career, but I have never taken one of them. I have to refuse that money, because I'm not going to work against my people. They've suffered enough. ~ Naomi Campbell

My own electorate, which I represented for 36 years as an anti-apartheid politician, had a considerable number of Jewish voters supporting me throughout my career. ~ Helen Suzman

Disengagement is a response to certain demographic realities, .. Within a few years, due to the higher Arab birth rate, Jews will become a minority in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. I don't want [Israel] to be South Africa because we don't believe in apartheid. We simply have to separate from the Palestinians so that we can control our own destinies. ~ Ehud Olmert

Yet, thousands of africans and young african youths have failed to acknowledge the significant of what madiba gave them. To me, he be called the pride in black skin and the freedom we are enjoying ~ Victor Adeagbo

There is no more apartheid in South Africa than in the United States. ~ Malcolm X

We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country ... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly. ~ Theodor Herzl

While apartheid was in operation, the set-up was a gift for writers if you were looking for a big theme. ~ Damon Galgut

If it were in our national security to deploy to South Africa under apartheid, would we have found it acceptable or customary to segregate African American soldiers from other American soldiers, and say, 'It's just a cultural thing'? I don't think so. I would hope not. ~ Martha McSally

Except now everything is digital even murder. There is a record for everything under the sun from the moon and back whether we like it or not. The image that I have of the future is that it is very bleak. It is darkness visible. The black dog of depression will hang us all in the end. Considering the life we live, the values we teach our children, what we believe in everything is a movement for change and every pause between words is a revolutionary act. The 'struggle' was like a painful mental illness. The liberation in retrospect was either the exit from our slavery ushering us into a novel, brave, bold and brilliant world or a mass hallucination. The political climate in post-apartheid South Africa has gone as far as corrupting liberty. ~ Abigail George

Our involvement in the civil rights movement is what sent us into our involvement against apartheid. ~ Mary Jane Patterson

When I talk about the end of apartheid, I prefer not to claim the honor that I have ended it. ~ F. W. De Klerk

Me being black. It doesn't mean I only qualify to be shoot at, arrested or to be killed. There are more certificates I deserve , rather than death certificate. Why is it a crime for me to live? ~ De Philosopher DJ Kyos

Martin Luther King Jr's agenda was not to help Negroes overcome American apartheid in the south. It was to make America democracy a better place, where everyday people, from poor people who were white and red and yellow and black and brown, would be able to live lives in decency and dignity. ~ Cornel West

No one can compare us to the apartheid regime. It's not like in South Africa between the blacks and the whites who belong to the same nation, or in Berlin where you find parents living on the eastern side and their children in the western side. ~ Silvan Shalom

South Africa, with US support, after the fall of the Portuguese empire, invaded Angola and Mozambique to establish their own puppet regime there. They were trying to protect Namibia, to protect apartheid, and nobody did much about it; but the Cubans sent forces, and furthermore they sent black soldiers and they defeated a white mercenary army, which not only rescued Angola but it sent a shock throughout the continent-it was a psychic shock-white mercenaries were purported to be invincible, and a black army defeated them and sent them back fleeing into South Africa. ~ Noam Chomsky

If you sit down and talk to a person, it's easy to convince him that apartheid can never save a country and will lead to the slaughtering of innocent people - including his own people. ~ Nelson Mandela

I'm not a pacifist at all; I think there is a notion of "just war" that can be persuasively argued. I think in the face of Nazis, in the face of apartheid, that I would have joined those armies. But that's the last, last resort. ~ Cornel West

There are something like 300 anti-genocide chapters on college campuses around the country. It's bigger than the anti-apartheid movement. There are something like 500 high school chapters devoted to stopping the genocide in Darfur. Evangelicals have joined it. Jewish groups have joined it. ~ Samantha Power

We weren't taught to think critically about Hitler and anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. We weren't taught, for instance, that the architects of apartheid were big fans of Hitler, that the racist policies they put in place were inspired, in part, by the racist policies of the Third Reich. We weren't taught how to think about how Hitler related to the world we lived in. We weren't being taught to think, period. ~ Trevor Noah

His day is done.

Is done.

The news came on the wings of a wind, reluctant to carry its burden.

Nelson Mandela's day is done.

The news, expected and still unwelcome, reached us in the United States, and suddenly our world became somber.

Our skies were leadened.

His day is done.

We see you, South African people standing speechless at the slamming of that final door through which no traveller returns.

Our spirits reach out to you Bantu, Zulu, Xhosa, Boer.

We think of you and your son of Africa, your father, your one more wonder of the world.

We send our souls to you as you reflect upon your David armed with a mere stone, facing down the mighty Goliath.

Your man of strength, Gideon, emerging triumphant.

Although born into the brutal embrace of Apartheid, scarred by the savage atmosphere of racism, unjustly imprisoned in the bloody maws of South African dungeons.

Would the man survive? Could the man survive?

His answer strengthened men and women around the world.

In the Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas, on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, in Chicago's Loop, in New Orleans Mardi Gras, in New York City's Times Square, we watched as the hope of Africa sprang through the prison's doors.

His stupendous heart intact, his gargantuan will hale and hearty.

He had not been crippled by brutes, nor ~ Maya Angelou

Uninformed and yet open to appeals for justice as they are, Americans are capable of reacting as they did to the ANC campaign against apartheid, which finally changed the balance of forces inside South Africa. ~ Edward Said

Thus in South Africa it is very expensive to be poor. It is the poor people who stay furthest from town and therefore have to spend more money on transport to come and work for white people; it is the poor people who use uneconomic and inconvenient fuel like paraffin and coal because of the refusal of the white man to install electricity in black areas; it is the poor people who are governed by many ill-defined restrictive laws and therefore have to spend money on fines for 'technical' offences; it is the poor people who have no hospitals and are therefore exposed to exorbitant charges by private doctors; it is the poor people who use untarred roads, have to walk long distances, and therefore experience the greatest wear and tear on commodities like shoes; it is the poor people who have to pay for their children's books while whites get them free. ~ Steve Biko

I am sick and tired of the hollow parrot-cry of "Apartheid!" I've said many times that the word "Apartheid" means good neighbourliness. ~ P. W. Botha

As George Orwell said, it is not easy to become sane. For South Africa, perhaps it will take as many lifetimes as we have tried to put between the present and the Dutch East India Company. There are many minds if you take a good look. Eventually in the same way the measure of loss and grief does, karma will catch up with all of us. Post-apartheid South Africa is not more enlightened than her sister apartheid South Africa. You may know nothing but tell me what you feel when you think, see, act, respond and sense. What corresponds with thought, sight, action, response and your intuition? (The warrior plunders on) racism is especially a majority shareholder at all levels. We forget that it is a privilege to live in a post-apartheid South Africa. ~ Abigail George

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children. ~ Nelson Mandela

Whatever is happening in SA is a lot of bullshit. You cannot have a problem with every colour; white, green, black, yellow and still not be the problem. It's time a leader emerged and taught folks something on prioritization. ~ DON SANTO

The problem with the Bible, the Qur'an, the Torah - or any sacred text - as an authority is that so much depends on how the text is read and the interests of the reader. The Bible has been used to justify slavery, apartheid, the suppression of women, the 'evils' of sexuality, the 'evils' of homosexuality, a male-only priesthood, the denial of any priests at all, the supremacy of the Pope, the irrelevance of the Pope, the authority of the Church, a denial of the authority of the Church, a feminist agenda, war, pacifism and almost every other position that people may wish to hold. ~ Peter Vardy

MOUNT PLAASMOORDE
If ever you visit South Africa
And do
Leave the brilliant beaches of Cape Town for a moment
Climb Mount Plaasmoorde Witkruis monument
And you'll see the victims of apartheid
White crosses marking a thousand white victims
Planted in the earth of a million black victims
They lie dissolved in the humus of the soils
They were too many to have their own marked graves
Too many to build black crosses for
And just too hard to forget about
Because they make the soil under your feet black ~ Dauglas Dauglas

When was in prison I admired him for his moral strength ...
Of his period in power I can see few results. Apartheid no longer exists, at least to all appearances, but no one understands what the new government in South Africa is doing. ~ Mengistu Haile Mariam

I'm fascinated by how much has changed from one generation to another. There are young people growing up now for whom apartheid is just a distant memory and the idea of military service is an abstract notion. ~ Damon Galgut

I will never regret not denouncing apartheid. ~ Zola Budd

In Germany, no child finishes high school without learning about the Holocaust. Not just the facts of it but the how and the why and the gravity of it - what it means. As a result, Germans grow up appropriately aware and apologetic. British schools treat colonialism the same way, to an extent. Their children are taught the history of the Empire with a kind of disclaimer hanging over the whole thing. "Well, that was shameful, now wasn't it?"
In South Africa, the atrocities of apartheid have never been taught that way. We weren't taught judgment or shame. We were taught history the way it's taught in America. In America, the history of racism is taught like this: "There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it's done." It was the same for us. "Apartheid was bad. Nelson Mandela was freed. Let's move on." Facts, but not many, and never the emotional or moral dimension. It was as if the teachers, many of whom were white, had been given a mandate. "Whatever you do, don't make the kids angry. ~ Trevor Noah

Battling racism and battling heterosexism and battling apartheid share the same urgency inside me as battling cancer. ~ Audre Lorde

In South Africa, the atrocities of apartheid have never been taught that way. We weren't taught judgment or shame. We were taught history the way it's taught in America. In America, the history of racism is taught like this: "There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it's done." It was the same for us. "Apartheid was bad. Nelson Mandela was freed. Let's move on. ~ Trevor Noah

There was a time in my life when I did a fair bit of work for the tempestuous Lucretia Stewart, then editor of the American Express travel magazine, Departures. Together, we evolved a harmless satire of the slightly driveling style employed by the journalists of tourism. 'Land of Contrasts' was our shorthand for it. ('Jerusalem: an enthralling blend of old and new.' 'South Africa: a harmony in black and white.' 'Belfast, where ancient meets modern.') It was as you can see, no difficult task. I began to notice a few weeks ago that my enemies in the 'peace' movement had decided to borrow from this tattered style book. The mantra, especially in the letters to this newspaper, was: 'Afghanistan, where the world's richest country rains bombs on the world's poorest country.'

Poor fools. They should never have tried to beat me at this game. What about, 'Afghanistan, where the world's most open society confronts the world's most closed one'? 'Where American women pilots kill the men who enslave women.' 'Where the world's most indiscriminate bombers are bombed by the world's most accurate ones.' 'Where the largest number of poor people applaud the bombing of their own regime.' I could go on. (I think number four may need a little work.) But there are some suggested contrasts for the 'doves' to paste into their scrapbook. Incidentally, when they look at their scrapbooks they will be able to re-read themselves saying things like, 'The bombing of Kosovo is driving the Serbs int ~ Christopher Hitchens

Arthur Ashe had been the first black athlete to play Johannesburg at the time of apartheid. ~ Yannick Noah

Mbeki began to write a study of the workings of apartheid policy in the reserves - the areas set aside in law for African occupation - as early as 1959 and 1960. ~ Ruth First

If this be the Messiah, then I do not wish to see his coming ~ Ahad Ha'am

People don't know that there were very successful black businessmen in the years of apartheid. ~ Patrice Motsepe