Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbekiis a South African politician who served nine years as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. On 20 September 2008, with about nine months left in his second term, Mbeki announced his resignation after being recalled by the National Executive Committee of the ANC, following a conclusion by judge C. R. Nicholson of improper interference in the National Prosecuting Authority, including the prosecution of Jacob Zuma for corruption. On...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth18 June 1942
I think that probably the most important thing about our education was that it taught us to question even those things we thought we knew.
Does HIV cause AIDS? Can a virus cause a syndrome? How? It can't, because a syndrome is a group of diseases resulting from acquired immune deficiency.
None dare challenge me when i say i am an Afrikan.
You cannot just depend on the market, because the market will say: China needs oil; China needs coal; China needs whatever, and Africa has got all these things in abundance. And we go there and get them, and the more we develop the Chinese economy, the larger the manufacturing is, the more we need global markets - sell it to the Africans which indeed might very well destroy whatever infant industries are trying to develop on the continent. That is what the market would do.
Many of our own people here in this country do not ask about computers, telephones and television sets. They ask - when will we get a road to our village.
I don't imagine Heads of Government would ever be able to say I'm not an economist therefore I can't take decisions on matters of the economy; I'm not a soldier I can't take decisions on matters of defence; I'm not an educationist so I can't take decisions about education.
A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable
We should never become despondent because the weather is bad, nor should we turn triumphalist because the sun shines.
As Africans, we need to share common recognition that all of us stand to lose if we fail to transform our continent.
When will the day come that our dignity will be fully restored, when the purpose of our lives will no longer be merely to survive until the sun rises tomorrow!
If you read a textbook it will tell you, these are the things, for instance, on the African continent that would contribute to immune deficiency: the various tropical diseases, which because of poor health infrastructure, poor nutrition, general levels of poverty, don't get treated; syphilis, untreated or not properly treated (which as I hear is a big problem, when it is treated and the symptoms disappear, but, in fact, it is not cured and incubates there) that will impact on the immune system. So you have got to deal with these things.
Our experience over the last 20 years has shown that indeed people must themselves become their own liberators. You cannot wait for somebody else to come and rescue you.
I am an African. I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.
Gloom and despondency have never defeated adversity. Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times,