Kumi Naidoo
Kumi Naidoo
Kumi Naidoois a South African human rights activist and previously the International Executive Director of international environmentalist group Greenpeace. He was the first African to head the organisation. After battling apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s through the Helping Hands Youth Organisation, Naidoo led global campaigns to end poverty and protect human rights. He has served as the secretary-general of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. He was Secretary General of Civicus, an international alliance for...
strong moving commitment
This week we saw progressive business and faith leaders making strong commitments that are moving ahead of what world leaders promised today. The leaders of major economies must be bolder than they were today in providing a vision for 100% renewable energy for all.
moving profound people
Currently, we allow our political and business leaders to get away with murder. Now is the time to change that. We need direct liability for those who are destroying our future and this planet. We need fast, profound and systemic change. History only moves forward when courageous people get up and act. That's why I support this citizens' initiative to recognise ecocide as the crime it is.
struggle moving men
Struggles only move forward when decent men and women step forward and say, 'enough is enough and no more.'
impact resolution
The resolution will have no impact at all,
cost dashed empty hopes leaders leaders-and-leadership promises
Leaders have dashed hopes and squandered opportunities, and empty promises cost lives.
abject agenda appears decisions dominated given global lift millions needed people poverty security
With an agenda dominated by global security and U.N. reform, it appears that the decisions needed to lift millions of people from abject poverty are not being given the prominence they deserve,
exceptional persons understood
[Nelson] Mandela was very keen not to be understood as an exceptional person.
mean trying saint
Whenever anybody called Nelson Mandela a saint, he would say: "If by saint you mean a sinner who is trying to be better, then I'm a saint."
reading humble world
Nelson's Mandela own sense of himself was a very humble reading, [different] from how the world read him. And, quite often, you had the sense that he was not comfortable with all the accolades that would be.
hero world grew
In Durban, where I was born and grew up, and all over Africa, Nelson Mandela was a hero! Now he is a hero to the world.
mistake made spokes
Nelson Mandela also spoke about how, as a human being, he's made mistakes.
people leader gaps
Nelson Mandela was just a human being, a person like other people, and everyone relaxed. Within a minute, that sort of thing about the leader and the lead, the gap was closed, and that's a rare thing.
queens kings eye
One of the things that I noticed with my own eyes was Nelson Mandela ability to engage with kings and queens and heads of state on the one hand, and his ability to engage with ordinary people, equally comfortably.
real stupid media
I first met Nelson Mandela when I was in my late 20s, in 1993. I was helping facilitate an African National Congress (ANC) workshop to plan its media strategy. I went down to meet him for the first time and you know me I got stupid... I just choked. I said, "Hello Madiba, it's a real honour to meet you," and I couldn't get another word out.