Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thabo Mbeki
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: June 18
Economist
Politician
South African Politician
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki
Society
Basis
Future
Bases
Human
Principle
Humans
Survival
Accept
Fittest
Accepting
Constructed
Principles
Savage
Vision
Savages

More quotes by Thabo Mbeki

Image
If we don't move forward with regard to creating a non-racial society in South Africa and we allow this legacy of apartheid to persist, these divisions between black and white in wealth and income and so on, in the future you would indeed have an ugly upheaval.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
Those communal areas have got elected municipalities, which have got to do their work as, as fully, democratically elected municipal councils.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
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
Image
We should never become despondent because the weather is bad, nor should we turn triumphalist because the sun shines.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
I don't suppose I would describe myself as a showman.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
We have a series of regular meetings with South African business. Big business. Black business. Agriculture. As well, of course, with the trade unions. A whole series of meetings like that which engage issues that these South African social partners need to address.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
You have to make sure that [grants] reach people by virtue of their Identity Documents.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
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
Image
Historically during the years of the White minority regimes, the State, the national Government held this land in trust for these communities. We said, but no, why should we do that ( return the land to the communities). We didn't say return the land to particular traditional leaders, but to the communities.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
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
Image
The problem is not unique the challenge is not unique to South Africa. Other African countries have faced it. But in our case, we have got to solve the problem. You have got an institutional traditional leadership, which functions in a particular way, in for instance, your communal areas.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
We can't treat the matter of black economic empowerment as just the redistribution of existing wealth. It really has to focus on new investment, on growth, on development of employment and so on and so on.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
We need to increase the capacity we need to improve performance so that we are more effective at lending that kind of support.
Thabo Mbeki
Image
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