Revolutionaries

"The reality is that we are dealing with the legacy of Apartheid. The economy of Apartheid was racially skewed and structured to take care of the minority, not the majority of the country. Everything you look at, be [it] the infrastructure, or energy, or economic [...], it was all based on wrong and distorted ideology. When commentators comment on this matter of [...] energy, they forget this and want to put the blame to a democratic government. ... before 1994 there was a wrong belief that energy in South Africa was in abundance, ... It was a mistaken view. It was because energy was made to serve a few. Immediately after 1994 when we had to grow the economy to the size of the population, ... when we had to implement the constitution ... and therefore rolled out [...] electricity to the remotest areas of this country, suddenly we realised we don't have enough energy ..., because we're now applying energy not in a false belief, but to [the] reality of the demand of the country."

"South Africans cannot believe that a man who never went to school is the President and that is the reason why he must be attacked 24/7 ... No one has ever said it is a miracle for this man to have become president and wrote a column about it."

"The intention was not in pursuit of corrupt ends or to use state resources to unduly benefit me and my family. Hence, I have agreed to pay for the identified items once a determination is made. There are lessons to be learned for all of us in government which augur well for governance in the future."

"The economy is not in our [i.e. black] hands, we are not in control of economic power. We have identified the weaknesses in [land reform]. Willing buyer, willing seller did not work. It made the state’s price tag an unfair process. In addition there are many laws dealing with land which cause confusion and delays. … Land hunger is real."

"When I became ANC president in 2007, we needed to deal with the immediate challenge of HIV/Aids decimating our people. Today, millions of lives have been saved and transformed and we no longer see and read about “Aids babies” who die before their fifth birthday. South Africa today has the biggest treatment programme in the world with more than 3.9 million people on treatment by August 2017."

"Western paradigm brands this criminal."

"Do you seriously want us to leave the future of the ANC and the future of this country in the hands of such a man? Is that what you want?"

"President Zuma‚ from being a child‚ never had a chance‚ because of the situation in this country‚ even to go to school. But he was educated the ANC way. ... President Zuma‚ out of the top six positions‚ [was the only person to occupy] most of those positions – deputy secretary general‚ national chairperson‚ deputy president and now president. ... It shows love‚ respect and adoration. [Zuma's leadership within the ANC was] a long‚ beautiful history but spoiled at the last moment. [The transition is peaceful, but painful also,] because this is telling somebody [that] your time is up when [he] should have known by himself that his time is up."

"With a malleable, corrupt or dysfunctional prosecuting authority, many criminals – especially those holding positions of influence – will rarely, if ever, answer for their criminal deeds. Equally, functionaries within that prosecuting authority may […] be pressured […] into pursuing prosecutions to advance a political agenda."

"To witness the damage a single person can inflict on a country, one can head to South Africa. Following the liberation from apartheid, Nelson Mandela, as president from 1994, created a climate of reconciliation while democratizing the country and liberalizing the economy. Under Mandela and his successor, Thabo Mbeki, inflation was tamed, government debt was halved and the growth rate reached 5 per cent. The outside world thought South Africa could be the next economic miracle. But the leader of the ANC’s left wing, Jacob Zuma, agitated against this ‘neoliberal’ model and gained power in 2009–18 on a programme promising that state control of the economy would create fair distribution. He really did change things – for the worse."

"Zuma jacked up public spending, but for consumption and corruption, not investment. State-owned companies were drained by Zuma and his lackeys, who are suspected of having looted about the equivalent of 20 per cent of GDP. Constant power outages and collapsing infrastructure contributed to growth collapsing and soon becoming negative. After being halved under the predecessors, public debt doubled under Zuma. Extreme poverty had also halved under the previous administration; under Zuma it not only stopped declining but even began to increase. That’s the way it usually goes. Strongmen who complain that growth takes too long to provide results are like the farmer who has no patience with the harvest and quickly makes himself popular by letting everyone gorge on the seed. Fewer seeds means you will have less to eat next season. Sooner or later, you’ll run out of other people’s harvests, as Thatcher would have said."

"No task is more urgent than that of preserving peace. Without peace our independence means little. The rehabilitation and upbuilding of our countries will have little meaning. Our revolutions will not be allowed to run their course. . . ."

"More than the somewhat ambivalent Hitler, Tôjô seemed sincere in his declarations of support for India's 'desperate struggle for independence'. 'Without the liberation of India,' he told the Japanese Diet in early 1942, 'there can be no real mutual prosperity in Greater East Asia.' Ba Maw and Aung San's Burma Independence Army also enjoyed Japanese backing, though at the price of being reduced in size and renamed the Burma Defence Army until the Japanese had made up their minds to grant Burmese independence. In Java and Bali volunteer armies known as Peta (Army Defenders of the Homeland) were also formed. In Malaya, Sumatra, Indo-China and Borneo there were volunteer defence forces too, known as Giyugun."

"We cannot bank our hopes on possibilities. We must put our trust in ourselves, in our capabilities and efforts and strength and preparations not only for our success but even to avoid our own defeat."

"I am well aware that there is such a great craving in man for heroism and the heroic, and that hero worship forms not a small motif in his complex. I am also aware that, unless man believes in his own heroism and the heroism of others, he cannot achieve much or great things. We must, however, take proper care that we do not make a fetish of this cult of hero-worship, for then we will turn ourselves into votaries of false gods and prophets."

"It would be consistent and proper for us to join the war for democratic freedom, only if we would likewise be assured that democratic freedom in theory as well as in practice."

"Let us therefore join hands, Britons, Burmans and all nations alike, to build up an abiding fruitful peace over the foundations of the hard-won victory that all of us desiring progressive direction in our own affairs and in the world at large, have at long last snatched firmly and completely from the grabbing hands of Fascist barbarians, a peace, as I have said, not of the graveyard, but creative of freedom, progress and prosperity in the world."

"If we succeed in doing so, the effect of it for the freedom, independence and the welfare of man will be great on the world at large. The Light of Understanding has again been lit, the Pillar of Cooperation again erected. The likelihood of success of this Conference is proved already by the very presence of you all here today. It is for us to give it strength, to give it the power of inspiration-to spread its message all over the World."

"So, let this Asian-African Conference be a great success! Make the "Live and let live" principle and the "Unity in diversity" motto the unifying force which brings us all together-to seek in friendly, uninhibited discussion, ways and means by which each of us can live his own life, and let others live their own lives, in their own way, in harmony, and in peace."

"I have often since then asked myself why these five were successful when others, with long records of diplomacy, were unsuccessful, and, in fact, had allowed a bad situation to get worse, so that there was a danger of the conflict spreading. . . . I think that the answer really lies in the fact that those five Prime Ministers brought a fresh approach to bear on the problem. They were not seeking advantage for their own countries. They had no axe of power-politics to grind. They had but one interest-how to end the fighting in such a way that the chances of continuing peace and stability were enhanced. . . ."

"Look, the peoples of Asia raised their voices, and the world listened. It was no small victory and no negligible precedent! The five Prime Ministers did not make threats. They issued no ultimatum, they mobilised no troops. Instead they consulted together, discussed the issues, pooled their ideas, added together their individual political skills and came forward with sound and reasoned suggestions which formed the basis for a settlement of the long struggle in Indo-China."

"In this struggle, some success has already been scored. I think it is generally recognised that the activity of the Prime Ministers of the Sponsoring Countries which invited you here had a not unimportant role to play in ending the fighting in Indo-China."

"What can we do? We can do much! We can inject the voice of reason into world affairs. We can mobilise all the spiritual, all the moral, all the political strength of Asia and Africa on the side of peace. Yes, we! We, the peoples of Asia and Africa, 1,400,000,000 strong, far more than half the human population of the world, we can mobilise what I have called the Moral Violence of Nations in favour of peace. We can demonstrate to the minority of the world which lives on the other continents that we, the majority are for peace, not for war, and that whatever strength we have will always be thrown on to the side of peace."

"And do not think that the oceans and the seas will protect us. The food that we cat, the water that we drink, yes, even the very air that we breathe can be contaminated by poisons originating from thousands of miles away. And it could be that, even if we ourselves escaped lightly, the unborn generations of our children would bear on their distorted bodies the marks of our failure to control the forces which have been released on the world."

"Not so long ago it was possible to take some little comfort from the idea that the clash, if it came, could perhaps be settled by what were called "conventional weapons"-bombs, tanks, cannon and men. Today that little grain of comfort is denied us for it has been made clear that the weapons of ultimate horror will certainly be used, and the military planning of nations is on that basis. The unconventional has become the conventional, and who knows what other examples of misguided and diabolical scientific skill have been discovered as a plague on humanity."

"Today, the picture is more black. War would riot only mean a threat to our independence, it may mean the end of civilisation and even of human life. There is a force loose in the world whose potentiality for evil no man truly knows. Even in practice and rehearsal for war the effects may well be building up into something of unknown horror."

"Not so very long ago we argued that peace was necessary for us because an outbreak of fighting in our part of the world would imperil our precious independence, so recently won at such great cost."

"And, I beg of you do not think of colonialism only in the classic form which we of Indonesia, and our brothers in different parts of Asia and Africa, knew. Colonialism has also its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, actual physical control by a small but alien community within a nation. It is a skillful and determined enemy, and it appears in many guises. It does not give up its loot easily. Wherever, whenever and however it appears, colonialism is an evil thing, and one which must be eradicated from the earth. ."

"We are often told "Colonialism is dead." Let us not be deceived or even soothed by that. I say to you, colonialism is not yet dead. How can we say it is dead, so long as vast areas of Asia and Africa are unfree."

"All of us, I am certain, are united by more important things than those which superficially divide us. We are united, for instance, by a common detestation of colonialism in whatever form it appears. We are united by a common detestation of racialism. And we are united by a common determination to preserve and stabilise peace in the world. . . ."

"Yes, we are living in a world of fear. The life of man today is corroded and made bitter by fear. Fear of the future, fear of the hydrogen bomb, fear of ideologies. Perhaps this fear is a greater danger than the danger itself, because it is fear which drives men to act foolishly, to act thoughtlessly, to act dangerously. . . ."

"Perhaps now more than at any other moment in the history of the world, society, government and statesmanship need to be based upon the highest code of morality and ethics. And in political terms, what is the highest code of morality? It is the subordination of everything to the well-being of mankind. But today we are faced with a situation where the well-being of mankind is not always the primary consideration. Many who are in places of high power think, rather, of controlling the world."

"The result of this is fear. And man gasps for safety and morality."

"But has man's political skill marched hand-in-hand with his technical and scientific skill? Man can chain lightning to his command-can be control the society in which be lives? The answer is No! The political skill of man has been far outstripped by technical skill, and what lie has made he cannot be sure of controlling."

"This twentieth century has been a period of terrific dynamism. Perhaps the last fifty years have seen more developments and more material progress than the previous five hundred years. Man has learned to control many of the scourges which once threatened him. He has learned to consume distance. He has learned to project his voice and his picture across oceans and continents. Lie has probed deep into the secrets of nature and learned how to make the desert bloom and the plants of the earth increase their bounty. He has learned how to release the immense forces locked in the smallest particles of matter."

"Never forget history."

"Spank the Yanks and hit the Brits!"

"What really happened to her? How did she die?"

"Tyrannical towards himself, he must be tyrannical towards others. All the gentle and enervating sentiments of kind ship, love, friendship, gratitude and even honor must be suppressed in him and give place to the cold and single minded passion for revolution."

"The revolutionary despises public opinion. He despises and hates the existing social morality in all its manifestations. For him, morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way."

"He [Nechaev] was, in short, a Bolshevik before the Bolsheviks."

"In revolutionary circles, the word Nechaevism was long to be a term of harsh condemnation, a synonym for risky and reprehensible methods of attaining revolutionary goals. Lenin was to hear himself accused hundreds of times of ‘Nechaevist’ methods by his opponents."

"To weld the people into one single unconquerable and all-destructive force – this is our aim, our conspiracy, and our task."

"Therefore, in drawing closer to the people, we must above all make common cause with those elements of the masses which, since the foundation of the state of Muscovy, have never ceased to protest, not only in words but in deeds, against everything directly or indirectly connected with the state: against the nobility, the bureaucracy, the clergy, the traders, and the parasitic kulaks. We must unite with the adventurous tribes of brigands, who are the only genuine revolutionaries in Russia."

"Our task is terrible, total, universal, and merciless destruction."

"Its twenty-six articles [of Nechaev’s Revolutionary Catechism], setting out the principles of the professional revolutionary, might have served as the Bolshevik oath. [Only might?] The morals of that party owed much to Nechaev as they did to Marx."

"By a revolution, the Society does not mean an orderly revolt according to the classic western model – a revolt which always stops short of attacking the rights of property and the traditional social systems of so-called civilization and morality. Until now, such a revolution has always limited itself to the overthrow of one political form in order to replace it by another, thereby attempting to bring about a so-called revolutionary state. The only form of revolution beneficial to the people is one which destroys the entire State to the roots and exterminated all the state traditions, institutions, and classes in Russia."

"The Society has no aim other than the complete liberation and happiness of the masses – i.e., of the people who live by manual labor. Convinced that their emancipation and the achievement of this happiness can only come about as a result of an all-destroying popular revolt, the Society will use all its resources and energy toward increasing and intensifying the evils and miseries of the people until at last their patience is exhausted and they are driven to a general uprising."

"The women who are completely on our side – i.e., those who are wholly dedicated and who have accepted our program in its entirety. We should regard these women as the most valuable or our treasures; without their help, we would never succeed."

"The revolutionary enters the world of the State, of the privileged classes, of the so-called civilization, and he lives in this world only for the purpose of bringing about its speedy and total destruction. He is not a revolutionary if he has any sympathy for this world. He should not hesitate to destroy any position, any place, or any man in this world. He must hate everyone and everything in it with an equal hatred. All the worse for him if he has any relations with parents, friends, or lovers; he is no longer a revolutionary if he is swayed by these relationships."