Mbeki Quotes & Sayings

As Africans, we need to share common recognition that all of us stand to lose if we fail to transform our continent. — Thabo Mbeki

If you read a textbook it will tell you, these are the things, for instance, on the African continent that would contribute to immune deficiency: the various tropical diseases, which because of poor health infrastructure, poor nutrition, general levels of poverty, don't get treated; syphilis, untreated or not properly treated (which as I hear is a big problem, when it is treated and the symptoms disappear, but, in fact, it is not cured and incubates there) that will impact on the immune system. So you have got to deal with these things. — Thabo Mbeki

One of the matters that must be addressed is that Rwanda and Uganda have to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We're also supporting processes to ensure that the political dialogue among the Congolese themselves takes place so that the people there can decide their future. — Thabo Mbeki

None dare challenge me when i say i am an Afrikan. — Thabo Mbeki

We should never become despondent because the weather is bad, nor should we turn triumphalist because the sun shines. — Thabo Mbeki

I say that why don't we bring all points of view. Sit around a table and discuss this evidence, and produce evidence as it may be, and let's see what the outcome is, which is why we are having this International panel which we are all talking about. — Thabo Mbeki

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 we only said safe sex, use a condom, we won't stop the spread of AIDS in this country. — Thabo Mbeki

It wouldn't sit easily on one's conscience that you had been warned and there could be danger, but nevertheless you went ahead and said let's dispense these drugs. — Thabo Mbeki

It is critically important that Iran should not develop nuclear weapons. And that the necessary interventions need to be made by the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that, indeed, that does not happen, in the context of any nuclear generation of power or research or whatever, in Iran. — Thabo Mbeki

Having been in the presidency from the time of Mandela to that of Zuma, I am one of the privileged few who has seen it all, rather than hearing it via the grapevine. The challenge is say 'the things I could not say' in a responsible way that helps the country to move forward rather than backwards. — Frank Chikane

South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white. — Thabo Mbeki

A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable — Thabo Mbeki

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

The reports from the scientific world are that there is a very severe and escalating impact of HIV and AIDS in South Africa, and from what I have read, it is assuming particular, distinct characteristics, which, for instance, were atypical of how this phenomenon had developed in the States. This meant that we must look at what it is that results in all of this, specific to our country. — Thabo Mbeki

The concern around probable questions, which in a sense have been hidden, will grow around the world and the matter is critical, the reason we are doing all this is so we can respond correctly to what is reported to be a major catastrophe on the African continent. — Thabo Mbeki

In Africa you have space ... there a profound sense of space here, space and sky — Thabo Mbeki

Well, because lots of questions had been raised about the toxicity of the drug, which is very serious. — Thabo Mbeki

If you sit in a position where decisions that you take would have a serious effect on people, you can't ignore a lot of experience around the world which says this drug has these negative effects. — Thabo Mbeki

The people of Zimbabwe have a responsibility to ensure that the government that they elected behaves properly. — Thabo Mbeki

We are not being arrogant or complacent when we are said that our country, as a united nation, has never in its entire history, enjoyed such a confluence of encouraging possibilities. — Thabo Mbeki

I think that probably the most important thing about our education was that it taught us to question even those things we thought we knew. To say you've got to inquire, you've got to be testing your knowledge all the time in order to be more effective in what you're doing. — Thabo Mbeki

Your medical documents will say: acquired immune deficiency syndrome, that is AIDS, which means that you have got this challenge of immune deficiency. All right, what causes immune deficiency? HIV? All right, is that all that causes immune deficiency? And your medical textbooks would say no, there are other things that will cause acquired immune deficiency. There is also a genetic immune deficiency, a different phenomenon. — Thabo Mbeki

How many murders are committed in Gauteng, or in the Western Cape, in a month? A week? A day? An hour? But of course we are not allowed to know for sure. In close and direct imitation of his apartheid models, Selebi ensures that no statistics about crime may be published regularly in the press. — Thabo Mbeki

The issue of racism and racial prejudice is very, very difficult to discuss. It is difficult to discuss the history of apartheid - many people have made the observation that it is very, very difficult to find anybody in South Africa who ever supported apartheid: because everybody was opposed to that; it was against our will and so on. — Thabo Mbeki

When will the day come that our dignity will be fully restored, when the purpose of our lives will no longer be merely to survive until the sun rises tomorrow! — Thabo Mbeki

I get a sense that we've all been educated into one school of thought. I'm not surprised at all to find among the overwhelming majority of scientists, are people who would hold one particular view because that's all they're exposed to. — Thabo Mbeki

It is also important to respect the fact that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Treaty spells out the rights and obligations of signatories to the Treaty, and therefore that we cannot deny Iran the rights due to it as a signatory of the NPT. — Thabo Mbeki

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 Mbeki

That surely must be a concern to anyone who decides this drug must be given to stop transmissions, again from mother to child, which is extremely costly and must be taken into account. — Thabo Mbeki

South Africa was to evolve into the most pernicious example of the criminal practise of colonial and white minority domination. — Thabo Mbeki

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. — Thabo Mbeki

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

I don't imagine Heads of Government would ever be able to say I'm not an economist therefore I can't take decisions on matters of the economy; I'm not a soldier I can't take decisions on matters of defence; I'm not an educationist so I can't take decisions about education. — Thabo Mbeki

I am sure it is in the medical textbooks, there are many things that cause immune deficiency and you will find therefore in the South African HIV and AIDS programme, that it will say that part of what we have got to do is to make sure that our health infrastructure, our health system is able to deal adequately with all of the illnesses that are a consequence of AIDS. — Thabo Mbeki

For the first time in human history, society has the capacity, the knowledge and the resources to eradicate poverty — Thabo Mbeki

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? — Thabo Mbeki

It is quite easy to understand what China would need from the African continent with regard to its own economy. It will be raw materials, oil, and a market for manufactured goods. It is not difficult to understand that, and it is perfectly legitimate, there is nothing wrong with that. — Thabo Mbeki

The poor prey on one another because their lives offer no hope and communicate the tragic message to these human beings that they have no possibility to attain a decent standard of living. — Thabo Mbeki

As a consequence of the victories we have registered during our first ten years of freedom, we have laid a firm foundation for the new advances we must and will make during the next decade. — Thabo Mbeki

I am an African. I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land. — Thabo Mbeki

Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say - nothing can stop us now! — Thabo Mbeki

There is a very long list of parties in this year's election, some of the parties I have never heard of. — Thabo Mbeki

We've had a long wrangle with the pharmaceutical industry about parallel imports, and what we were saying is we want to make medicines and drugs as affordable as a possible to what is largely a poor population. — Thabo Mbeki

Does HIV cause AIDS? Can a virus cause a syndrome? How? It can't, because a syndrome is a group of diseases resulting from acquired immune deficiency. — Thabo Mbeki

When President Mbeki said, if you get AIDS, you can have a shower and it goes away. It's like, oh, come on. Or it's caused by poverty. We faced those kind of issues. But now, with the new regime, they have really woken up, paid attention. And when South Africa speaks, then the whole of Africa will listen. And I have got great hopes for that. — Elton John

Her work sought to challenge all of us critically to reflect on the things we find comfort in believing without question. — Thabo Mbeki

We will continue to count on your unwavering support and commitment to working with leaders of our continent in bringing about the desired renaissance of Africa. — Thabo Mbeki

The King had been a good friend of the government and the people of South Africa and we all mourn his passing with our brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia. — Thabo Mbeki

We do not accept that human society should be constructed on the basis of a savage principle of the survival of the fittest — Thabo Mbeki

Science is always inquiring. — Thabo Mbeki

A matter that seems to be very clear in terms of the alternative view, is what do you expect to happen in Africa with regard to immune systems, where people are poor, subject to repeat infections and all of that. Surely you would expect their immune systems to collapse. — Thabo Mbeki

Gloom and despondency have never defeated adversity. Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times, — Thabo Mbeki

I am sure it would not be in the long-term interest of China, which would continue to depend on these African resources for a very long time, to see the emergence of any sense of hostility, animosity, tension between itself and the African continent. — Thabo Mbeki

I know there is a lot of concern about plans that Iran might have to develop nuclear weapons which arises from positions that Iran took in the past when in fact it did not disclose things to the IAEA. And therefore the conclusion that the reason that they are refusing to do it is because they are hiding something - I can understand that. — Thabo Mbeki

It is very much the theme of our President, President Thabo Mbeki, whose passion is for Africa to work together, and for Africans to get up and do things for us. We are trying as women to do things for ourselves. — Miriam Makeba

Those who complete the course will do so only because they do not, as fatigue sets in, convince themselves that the road ahead is still too long, the inclines too steep, the loneliness impossible to bear and the prize itself of doubtful value. — Thabo Mbeki

It is difficult to discuss history, and more difficult to talk about now, today, even simple things. — Thabo Mbeki

Those who oppressed us described us as the Dark Continent! — Thabo Mbeki

China surely must be interested in a more stable, non-antagonistic relationship with the African continent precisely because of its own needs and therefore has to say: in our own interest, as China, it is necessary that we participate in the process of development of the African continent. — Thabo Mbeki

One of the things that became clear, and which was actually rather disturbing, was the fact that there was a view which was being expressed by people whose scientific credentials you can't question. — Thabo Mbeki

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. — Thabo Mbeki

You cannot just depend on the market, because the market will say: China needs oil; China needs coal; China needs whatever, and Africa has got all these things in abundance. And we go there and get them, and the more we develop the Chinese economy, the larger the manufacturing is, the more we need global markets - sell it to the Africans which indeed might very well destroy whatever infant industries are trying to develop on the continent. That is what the market would do. — Thabo Mbeki

Pope Benedict XVI assumes leadership at a critical time in which the world's collective wisdom and leadership including that of the religious community is most important to face up to challenges of deepening poverty and under-development afflicting many people of the world. — Thabo Mbeki

It's very worrying at this time in the world that any point of view should be prohibited, that's banned, there are heretics that should be burned at the stake. — Thabo Mbeki

I think the Internet is absolutely extraordinary. It's very, very useful and I think one of the things we've got to do is make sure that the African continent gets on to that information super highway. — Thabo Mbeki