Oliver Tambo Quotes

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Oliver Tambo

Profession : Politician

Birth : October 27, 1917

In South Africa, I feel I am a stranger, at best an animal.

Oliver Tambo

Whites, like ourselves, belong to our country. They are compatriots, fellow citizens... we see them as Africans.

Oliver Tambo

The more pressure you bring from without, the less internal pressure is necessary.

Oliver Tambo

Racial discrimination, South Africa's economic power, its oppression and exploitation of all the black peoples, are part and parcel of the same thing.

Oliver Tambo

In Holy Cross, I came to like school, to like studying in a way I had never done before.

Oliver Tambo

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

We believe that the world, too, can destroy apartheid, firstly by striking at the economy of South Africa.

Oliver Tambo

My sister had some ailment and convulsions that she suffered from, and she had been sent to some place to go and get healed there. She was brought back and prayed for by those people. She recovered; in fact, she grew to be an evangelist in her own right, healing people and traveling around.

Oliver Tambo

How do you deal with a criminal that will not listen to what you have to say and who continues his policy of violence? Some say you continue to talk and let him tire himself out. But nearly 40 years after the institution of apartheid, is there anyone who still believes that verbal persuasion will work?

Oliver Tambo

The people of South Africa are ready to stand up to the oppressions of the Pretoria regime, and they are ready to fight back.

Oliver Tambo

The U.S. is the last country that should see itself as an ally of the apartheid system.

Oliver Tambo

The violence associated with the A.N.C. is minimal, infinitesimal next to the violence of the apartheid regime.

Oliver Tambo

In May 1961, South Africa was to be declared a Nationalist Republic. There was a white referendum, but no African was consulted.

Oliver Tambo

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

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

The popularity of leaders like Mandela was an invitation to counter-attack by the government. Mandela was banned from speaking, from attending gatherings, from leaving Johannesburg, from belonging to any organization.

Oliver Tambo

I was just an ordinary student. I'd always gotten along with authorities quite well.

Oliver Tambo

Apartheid either is or is not. And it must not be.

Oliver Tambo

Who is a terrorist? Is it not the person who has been persecuting human beings simply because they are black?

Oliver Tambo

The results showed that Joe Mokoena and I had made history. For the first time in the history of education in South Africa, two African students had passed the JC with a First Class degree, regarded as a rare achievement for any student.

Oliver Tambo