Quotes & Sayings About Democracy In Africa

I started as an engineer. I migrated to philosophy and international politics. And I did my studies about African - Africa democracy and democratization in Africa, taking Kenya as a model. And then, while I was doing so in 1996 in South Africa, Al Jazeera was established. So they requested me to be an analyst on African affairs. — Wadah Khanfar

Africa must remain on the path of democracy. But democracy MUST also remain about the PEOPLE, not about power — Fela Durotoye

The victory of democracy in South Africa is the common achievement of all humanity. — Nelson Mandela

Greece is the mother of democracy and South Africa is its youngest daughter — Nelson Mandela

Almost every country in Africa has now instituted multi-party democracy. — Mo Ibrahim

Traffic in Joburg is like the democratic process. Every time you think it's going to get moving and take you somewhere, you hit another jam. — Lauren Beukes

Youths are our arrows to the future. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

From the colonial era, the major legacy Europe left to Africa was not democracy as it is practiced today in countries like England, France, and Belgium; it was authoritarian rule and plunder. On the whole continent, perhaps no nation has had a harder time than the Congo in emerging from the shadow of its past. — Adam Hochschild

We're learning lessons from Africa. And the lesson that we need to learn is, how do we straighten our backs up in the face of these oligarchs and plutocrats who are trying to snatch the best of our democracy away? — Cornel West

It is my view that it is a big embarrassment for Africa . It is hypocritical for African leaders to talk about democracy and human rights and to be silent when these things are happening in Zimbabwe . — Raila Odinga

Even if Zuma was to develop the authoritarian impulses of a Mugabe, he would be checked - not least by his own party, which set a continental precedent by ousting Thabo Mbeki in 2007, after it felt he had outstayed his welcome by seeking a third term as party president. The ANC appears to have set itself against that deathtrap of African democracy: the ruler for life. — Mark Gevisser

We must fortify African democracy and peace by launching Radio Democracy for Africa, supporting the transition to democracy now beginning to take place in Nigeria. — William J. Clinton

I believe that here in South Africa, with all our diversities of colour and race; we will show the world a new pattern for democracy. There is a challenge for us to set a new example for all. Let us not side step this task. — Albert Lutuli

Certainly the European overlords did little enough to prepare Africa for self-government but Democracy would find it hard in any case to put down roots in a tribalist and patrimonial culture that long before the west invaded Africa had sacralized the personal authority of chieftains and ordained the submission of the rest. What the west would call corruption is regarded through much of Africa as no more than the prerogative of power. — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

In my world, a woman was the most powerful thing that I knew. Still is. A woman made the money in my house; a woman made my food. A woman beat my ass when I wasn't a good kid. Women were behind a lot of what spurred South Africa toward democracy. — Trevor Noah

Well, I think by any expectation South Africa has come a tremendously long way. We've seen a society that many people thought couldn't withstand a peaceful transition to democracy without a great deal of violence, in fact, make that transition and do it in relative peace and security. — Susan Rice

Youths are the life blood of any nation. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

We are enjoying in Africa what I call the democracy dividend. The progress we are seeing, economic development are all part of the dividend of good governance, respect for human rights, rule of law. It has created an enabling environment that allows not only foreigners to come in and invest but for Ghanaians to invest. It has created an atmosphere for our young people to be creative, innovative — John Dramani Mahama

In almost every successful social movement of the last century, from Gandhi's campaign against British rule to the Solidarity movement in Poland to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, democracy was the result of a local awakening. — Barack Obama

Most of the men thrown into the back of the van that night were drunk, but none was in public: each was in his own home. And yet not one of them questioned the legality of his arrest. After nearly a dace of democracy, each assumed that the cops had every right to drag him out of his home and throw him in prison. — Jonny Steinberg

When you look at - when you talk to people in Africa and across the Middle East, they're not satisfied with the way things are going. Sure, this idea of democracy was injected into the region, but it has brought mostly chaos. — Richard Engel

The clever use of media (i.e., TV political ads, image creations and management) kept us from raising or even addressing major problems we face as a nation - our identity, our values, our role as a resource for peace rather than war, for justice rather than its miscarriages, for people rather than corporations, for decency rather than humiliation, and for democracy rather than "hypocracy." Martin Luther King, Jr., stated it well: A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just. . . . — Anthony J. Marsella

America is the one place in the world where I just innately understood [that] South Africa and the United States of America have a very similar history. It's different timelines, but the directions we've taken and the consequences - dealing with the aftermath of what we consider to be democracy, and realizing that freedom is just the beginning of the conversation, that's something I've learned. — Trevor Noah

President Obama is currently on a week-long trip to Africa, where he will promote freedom, democracy, and economic opportunity. I guess he figured it hasn't worked here - so try it somewhere else. — Jay Leno

We, in Africa, have no more need of being 'converted' to socialism than we have of being 'taught' democracy. Both are rooted in our past
in the traditional society which produced us. — Julius Nyerere

The United Nations is an uplifting experiment, dedicated to raising the standards of living in Africa , the consciences of democracies, and the price of prostitutes in New York — Frank Dane

Western-style multi-party democracy is possible but not suitable for Africa. — George Ayittey

[Voltaire] theoretically prefers a republic, but he knows its flaws: it permits factions which, if they do not bring on civil war, at least destroy national unity; it is suited only to small states protected by geographic situation, and as yet unspoiled and untorn with wealth; in general "men are rarely worthy to govern themselves." Republics are transient at best; they are the first form of society, arising from the union of families; the American Indians lived in tribal republics, and Africa is full of such democracies. but differentiation of economic status puts an end to these egalitarian governments; and differentiation is the inevitable accompaniment of development. — Will Durant

What we need in Africa is balanced development. Economic success cannot be a replacement for human rights or participation or democracy ... it doesn't work. — Mo Ibrahim

America cannot do most of what needs to be done alone. You need friends. And we have good friends around the world. We have friends with whom we share values in Europe and Asia - thanks to the forward march of democracy - in Latin America, in Africa, and increasingly in the Middle East. — Condoleezza Rice

Growing up in this post-apartheid era, the first generation of teens in South Africa living in this new democracy, I often found myself feeling different. I was often the only person of color in an otherwise all-white school. And within the Indian community, because of my training with an English acting teacher, my accent was very different. — Adhir Kalyan

The DA is the only party in South Africa that has grown in every national election and that trend must continue, and it must accelerate, because South Africa is in a race against time to save our democracy. — Helen Zille

I am big supporter of the idea of a global anti-corruption movement - but one that begins by recognizing that the architecture of corruption is different in different countries. The corruption we suffer is not the same as the corruption that debilitates Africa. But it is both corruption, and both need to be eliminated if the faith in democracy is not going to be destroyed. — Lawrence Lessig

In this era of the global village, the tide of democracy is running. And it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner of this earth, where the simple idea of democracy and freedom has taken root. — Paul Tsongas