Physicians from South Africa

"This mountain, I thought, was like education: The higher you climbed, the farther you could see."

"Last year a Dutch animal breeding centre sent me two chimpanzees as a gift. I killed one and cut its heart out. The other wept bitterly and was inconsolable. The sad chimp has long since happily mated again and lives with lots of other animals on a pleasant game farm near Villiersdorp. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures, but the memory of that weeping chimp has remained with me. It was taken for granted, of course, that he was weeping for his mate but I've since had some thoughts on the subject which made me wonder whether perhaps he was weeping for the human race. The idea is not as silly as it sounds. In our doings there is much to weep over and even a chimpanzee would never behave in some of the contradictory ways we think of as normal."

"Suffering isn't ennobling, recovery is."

"The prime goal is to alleviate suffering, and not to prolong life. And if your treatment does not alleviate suffering, but only prolongs life, that treatment should be stopped."

"It seemed little would be without controversy this year. The good news might have been that Christiaan Barnard of the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, had successfully transplanted the heart of a twenty-four-year-old into Philip Blaiberg, a fifty-eight-year-old dentist. This was the third heart transplant, the second by Barnard but the first that medical science regarded as successful. Barnard started 1968 and spent much of the year as an international celebrity, signing autographs, giving interviews with his easy smile and quotable statements, which from the outset in January was frowned upon by his profession. Barnard pointed out that despite his sudden fame he still earned only his $8,500 yearly salary. But there were also doubts about his feat. A German doctor called it a crime. A New York biologist, apparently confusing doctors with lawyers, said that he should be “disbarred for life.” Three distinguished American cardiologists called for a moratorium on heart transplants, which Barnard immediately said he would ignore."

"In theory, the operation involves two doomed patients. One gives up his heart and dies but would have died in any event; the other is saved. But some doctors and laymen wondered if doctors should be deciding who is doomed. Shouldn’t everyone hope for a miracle? And how is it decided who receives a new heart? Were doctors now making godlike decisions? The controversy was not helped by Barnard, who said in an interview in Paris Match, “Obviously, if I had to choose between two patients in the same need and one was a congenital idiot and one a mathematics genius, I would pick the latter.” Controversy was also fueled by the fact that Barnard came from South Africa, the increasingly stigmatized land of apartheid, and that he had saved a white man by removing a black man’s heart and implanting it in him. Such an irony was not likely to be overlooked in a year like this."

"To advance modernization in Africa, we need to look at our economic endowments and how it can unlock the huge development opportunities, which means creating a very positive business environment, improving the services to African people, and leveraging new technologies, including cleaner technologies around energy and the electrical vehicles."

"China is leading in these areas, so there is huge potential that we can strengthen our cooperation on advancing modernization."

"During my business trip to China by leading a delegation of 19 companies last year, I'm impressed that there was growing commitment among Chinese companies for partnership to work with local companies in Africa to strengthen cooperation in multiple fields, including new energy and the processing of agricultural products."

"We would also want to promote the relationship between our academic institutions as China has premier universities to skill our people to be able to manage the modernization and industrialization programs."

"We believe that cooperation between the two countries will further enable us to contribute more to the development of the Global South as well as the peace, stability and prosperity of the world at large."

"The three initiatives are very critical and will play an important role in promoting the development of African countries."

"We look forward to consolidating this relationship and taking it to the next level."

"My analysis is underpinned by relevant life writing and feminist criticism, such as the notion of female."

"It investigates questions of nationalism, gender and sexuality in the autobiographical texts of Petronella van Heerden and Elsa Joubert."

"As political scientist De Klerk (1975:xiv) claims, ‘[t]he key to the Afrikaners is Calvinism’ and the strict doctrines enforced by the state and church can be said to have inhibited Van Heerden’s self-defining quest in her writing since she might have been ostracised (or imprisoned), in my opinion, if she imparted her more radical political opinions or openly discussed her sexuality as ‘mannish [lesbian]'."

"Through focusing on childhood experiences in Kerssnuitsels, marketed as a youth memoir, Van Heerden succeeds to convey her gradual awakening to the discriminating binaries imposed on women of her cultural and historical context in late 19th century and early 20th century South Africa."

"She gave up practicing medicine and came to Harrismith to farm cattle and was legendary among the boere here."

"Every human being has God-given potential which is theirs to exploit. My background, which I had originally considered a hindrance, became the ideal sword to empower and inspire others who see themselves in me."

"True mentorship dismantles barriers and creates equitable pathways for innovation."

"Leadership is about creating opportunities for others to excel."

"Together, we will build a legacy of excellence that resonates across borders. I am ready for the CHALLENGE!."

"Believe in yourself: When I was young, I never thought I could be where I am today. I doubted myself. I lacked self-confidence."

"We drive transformative and sustainable change by supporting research that changes lives, informs policy, and empowers communities. Africa must see itself not merely as a consumer of knowledge, but as a producer of solutions."

"What really hurt, is when the world is faced with a threat, a global threat like Omicron, the way you defeat a threat like this, is to stand together, is to work together, to join hands and to deal with threat head on. We should be building bridges, not barriers."