Thabo Mbeki Quotes

The Communal Land Rights Bill then said, since there would be those collectives set up in terms of the other legislation, there was no need for them to set up other structures to deal with the land issues.

There are two pieces of legislation that are related. There's the Communal Land Rights Bill. Then there is the legislation that was approved which has to do with the role and the place and the function of the institution of traditional leadership. Now that legislation, not the Communal Land Rights Bill, provides for the setting up of particular committees that would work together with the elected municipalities.

Part of the issue around communal land, which became a matter of controversy, is that we are saying that this land must go back to communities. Not chiefs and traditional leaders.

India knows that the subject of Land is not with the Central Government and the Centre does not require lands. All rights relating to land are with the states.

Every state has the right to take the necessary steps to maintain under public control the use, possession, disposal and reservation of land. Every state has the right to plan and regulate the use of land, which is one of its most important resources, in such a way that the growth of population centers both urban and rural are based on a comprehensive land use plan.

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect

The white race were a land-loving people, and had a right to possess it because they used it according to the intentions of the Creator.

My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away.

No man should be allowed to own any land he does not use.

What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth for the land is our mother… How can one man say it belongs only to him?

Men did not make the earth... It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.

Land is not merely soil.

It appears that land is the true center of power, and that the balance of dominion changes with the balance of property…

They (Native Americans) didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent.

Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.

This is community land that belongs to particular clans, and therefore, it must go back and its administration and the determination as to what to do, must rest in the hand of the communities. That is why you have these committees, among whose members, of course, they will be traditional leaders. You will have these collectives, which must then deal with the land, the issue of communal rights.

Like most people, I have no wish to live in a community organized by community organizers.

Among the fundamental likeness between the Revolutionary Republicans and the Anarchists is the recognition that the little must precede the great; that the local must be the basis of the general; that there can be a free federation only when there are free communities to federate; that the spirit of the latter is carried into the councils of the former, and a local tyranny may thus become an instrument for general enslavement.

Israel will not transfer Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza District to any foreign sovereign authority, [because] of the historic right of our nation to this land, [and] the needs of our national security, which demand a capability to defend our State and the lives of our citizens.

Americans are finally realizing that once you lose land, you can't get it back.

In a true democracy of India, the unit is the village.

Because Ajamu Baraka speaks in the language of his community, and makes no bones about it, he really invites in a whole new demographic of voters who have been locked out? - African-American and black and brown people and indigenous people? - who have felt like this system has no place for them. And he is unapologetic about standing up for the rights of the oppressed people and against colonialism and against imperialism.

The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man's business to divide it... Do not misunderstand me, but understand me fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with it as I chose. The one who has the right to dispose of it is the one who created it. I claim a right to live on my land and accord you the privilege to live on yours.

The first condition a community should set, if it aspires to be a nation, is to own the land whereon it lives, and supply its own needs.

The way, and the only way, to stop this evil is for all the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be yet; for it was never divided, but belongs to all for the use of each.