Quotes from Oliver Tambo

The struggle to conquer oppression in our country is the weaker for the traditionalist, conservative, and primitive restraints imposed on women by man-dominated structures within our movement, as also because of equally traditionalist attitudes of surrender and submission on the part of women.

You were not wanted. You were, at best, tolerated. You had to be constantly on your guard, like an animal in a jungle full of beasts of prey. You experienced it all within the short distance of five miles from the gates of St. Peter's to Park Station in the city.

We had to forge an alliance of strength based not on colour but on commitment to the total abolition of apartheid and oppression; we would seek allies, of whatever colour, as long as they were totally agreed on our liberation aims.

Apartheid is inherently a practice of violence.

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.

I am convinced that the world-wide protests during the Rivonia trial saved Mandela and his fellow-accused from a death sentence. But in South Africa, a life sentence means imprisonment until death - or until the defeat of the government which holds these men prisoner.

We believe it is comprehensive international sanctions against the white regime that will save us from the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of South Africans, black and white.

The true facts are not always obvious. They often have to be looked for.

It may be that apartheid brings such stupendous economic advantages to countries that they would sooner have apartheid than permit its destruction.

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

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.

Using the power you derive from the discovery of the truth about racism in South Africa, you will help us to remake our part of the world into a corner of the globe on which all - of which all of humanity can be proud.

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.

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

The A.N.C. is a national movement. We all - Communists and non-Communists alike - want a nonracial, democratic, united South Africa.

We have a vision of South Africa in which black and white shall live and work together as equals in conditions of peace and prosperity.

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

We all belong to South Africa, and South Africa belongs to us all.

It was of limited usefulness to head great rallies. The government did not listen, and, soon enough, the tear gas and the muzzles of the guns were turned against the people. The justice of our cries went unrecognized.

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

How can it be said we should use only constitutional means in our struggle, when all resistance is illegal and we have no way to change the brutal realities of the racism regime?

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?

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

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