Oliver Tambo Quotes

My problem in calling for pressures on South Africa is to convince the youth to convince their governments and people that it is not the South African goods that are cheap, but the forced labor of the Africans.

I engaged upon those activities because I believed that, in the dangerous circumstances which have been created in South Africa, it was my duty to do so.

We cannot have policies that punish people for taking action. Imagine the further harm it would have caused if the federal government banned civil rights leaders from boycotting buses in Montgomery, Alabama, or banning divestment from Apartheid South Africa.

I believe in a nonviolent movement of boycott, divestment, sanctions.

I believe boycotts are wrong.

I've been offered jobs by companies that supported apartheid many times in the 25 years of my modeling career, but I have never taken one of them. I have to refuse that money, because I'm not going to work against my people. They've suffered enough.

There are many ways of showing your protest and discontent without the actions of Kremlin.

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.

When I was a school kid in Coventry, I used to put up anti-apartheid stickers.

I canceled the Russian shows because, from the days of the first Dire Straits album, I've supported Amnesty International. It's not a good thing to read about people being jailed for no reason, so I raised my hand and made a small objection. It was good to do - but where do you stop?

I don't care if it's Saudi Arabia or if it's Israel or any other country. I can't imagine our members of Congress or even the residents back in the day that pushed back against apartheid in Africa not to be able to boycott.

I've been fighting BDS before people even knew that BDS existed.

We will protect our constitutional right to boycott, divest, and sanctions in this country.

The BDS movement goes way beyond any legitimate, reasonable criticism of a government.

Nelson Mandela was in jail when I was really young, and Winnie Mandela was one of the biggest faces of the movement. In South Africa we have a common phrase - it's like a chant in the street and at rallies: "Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo." Which means, "You strike a woman, you strike a rock."

Nelson Mandela sat in a South African prison for 27 years. He was nonviolent. He negotiated his way out of jail. His honor and suffering of 27 years in a South African prison is really ultimately what brought about the freedom of South Africa. That is nonviolence.

If you listen to 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' by Gil Scott-Heron, that album is dripping with rage.

Anyone who cooperates with BDS is operating against Israel and it is a form of antisemitism.

Civil disobedience has almost always been about expression. Generally, it's nonviolent, as defined by Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and King.

For those who may not know, it was the CBC that put in place the legislation that put sanctions against South Africa to end apartheid, and that took Mandela off the terrorist list.

In 1963, the U.N. Security Council declared a voluntary arms embargo on South Africa. That was extended to a mandatory embargo in 1977. And that was followed by economic sanctions and other measures - sometimes officials, countries, cities, towns - some organized by popular movements.

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.

I am inspired by Nelson Mandela. I was a volunteer teacher in South Africa during apartheid, where I witnessed his success liberating black South Africans.

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

On some campuses, change is effected through nonviolent or even violent means.