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If you don't understand history, you will not be able to deal with today's issues.

Thabo Mbeki

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Thabo Mbeki
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: June 18
Economist
Politician
South African Politician
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki
Issues
Understand
History
Today
Able
Deal
Deals

More quotes by Thabo Mbeki

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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
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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
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Of course we run a very open economy, and therefore what happens in the rest of the world, in economic terms, obviously has an impact on us.
Thabo Mbeki
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Those who oppressed us described us as the Dark Continent!
Thabo Mbeki
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There are established processes of consultation between the Government, the parastatals and the trade unions, which have worked in the past. And I don't see any particular reason why they shouldn't work.
Thabo Mbeki
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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
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If we only said safe sex, use a condom, we won't stop the spread of AIDS in this country.
Thabo Mbeki
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For an investor who is sitting in the United States, and South Africa is very far from the United States, you need to go out to that investor to say, these are the possibilities in this particular sector.
Thabo Mbeki
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I know there is a lot of concern I know 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… because they were hiding something. I can understand that.
Thabo Mbeki
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The problems that are arising at Johannesburg International Airport are because of the growth of volume, not because of inefficiencies at the Airport. But, the growth in movement of goods by air means that cargo capacity needs to be improved. And I am quite certain that we will do it.
Thabo Mbeki
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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
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You have to make sure that [grants] reach people by virtue of their Identity Documents.
Thabo Mbeki
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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
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The matter of people being attracted to other countries is a permanent problem in my view, it doesn't only face South Africa. A whole lot of countries in the world are faced with this problem.
Thabo Mbeki
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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
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While the WTO negotiations will continue, there are other trade negotiations of a bilateral nature, which among other things, should help to open up these markets for South African products.
Thabo Mbeki
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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
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The problem is not a lack of understanding of what we are saying and doing the problem is difference of opinion about what to do.
Thabo Mbeki
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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
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South Africa now needs skilled and educated people to say 'How do we manage and develop this democratic country?'
Thabo Mbeki