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Whites, like ourselves, belong to our country. They are compatriots, fellow citizens... we see them as Africans.
Oliver Tambo
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The A.N.C. is a national movement. We all - Communists and non-Communists alike - want a nonracial, democratic, united South Africa.
Oliver Tambo
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It was becoming clear that, from being at the top at Holy Cross, we were at the bottom at St. Peter's. Objectively, this was very good, for it offered us a challenge and an opportunity to grow if we were ready to take it; and we surely were.
Oliver Tambo
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For decades, we resisted violence - until Sharpeville.
Oliver Tambo
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Our target is not negotiations, it is the end of the apartheid system. There can be no compromise about that.
Oliver Tambo
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I didn't really want to be a teacher, but there was nothing else I could be. Most of those who went to the university became teachers. It was just the racial restriction on Africans.
Oliver Tambo
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I would not hesitate to vote for a white person as president if I thought he was the best person for the job.
Oliver Tambo
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Whoever says that sanctions will only deteriorate the situations of blacks in South Africa does not know the criminal, murderous character of genocide that represents the system of apartheid.
Oliver Tambo
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The true facts are not always obvious. They often have to be looked for.
Oliver Tambo
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I was just an ordinary student. I'd always gotten along with authorities quite well.
Oliver Tambo
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It was always my desire to strike new ground and help to lend weight where it was most required.
Oliver Tambo
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I can see quite clearly that if there was a single event that launched me on the road to ultimate involvement at the heart of South African politics, it was an assault on an African woman by her white employer in a kitchen in Fort Hare.
Oliver Tambo
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Using the power you derive from the discovery of the truth about racism in South Africa, you will help us to remake our part of the world into a corner of the globe on which all - of which all of humanity can be proud.
Oliver Tambo
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It was of limited usefulness to head great rallies. The government did not listen, and, soon enough, the tear gas and the muzzles of the guns were turned against the people. The justice of our cries went unrecognized.
Oliver Tambo
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How can it be said we should use only constitutional means in our struggle, when all resistance is illegal and we have no way to change the brutal realities of the racism regime?
Oliver Tambo
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This uprising of 1976-77 was, of course, the historic watershed... Within a short period of time, it propelled into the forefront of our struggle millions of young people.
Oliver Tambo
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The violence associated with the A.N.C. is minimal, infinitesimal next to the violence of the apartheid regime.
Oliver Tambo
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If apartheid is removed, then the violence that is necessary to maintain it will be removed along with the pressures from apartheid which create a violent response.
Oliver Tambo
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Who is a terrorist? Is it not the person who has been persecuting human beings simply because they are black?
Oliver Tambo
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The land on which the cattle grazed was communal property. It was owned by no one. It was nobody's private farm. It was the common property of the people, shared by the people. So the practice of sharing was central to the concept of ownership of property.
Oliver Tambo
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There is no way a spirit of resistance that has sunk so deep in the population can be repressed.
Oliver Tambo
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The sanctions will not kill us. It's apartheid that's killing us.
Oliver Tambo
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To go back means defeat.
Oliver Tambo
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It is often suggested that the A.N.C. is controlled by the Communist Party, by Communists. Well, I have been long enough in the A.N.C. to know that that has never been true.
Oliver Tambo
