Werk
Der lange Weg zur Freiheit
Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela Berühmte Zitate
Der lange Weg zur Freiheit
Original engl.: "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."
„Apartheid ist die Herrschaft der Gewehre und der Henker.“
Aufruf nach dem Aufstand in Soweto 1976, veröffentlicht vom ANC am 10. Juni 1980, anc.org.za anc.org.za http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/64-90/anvil.html
Original engl.: "Apartheid is the rule of the gun and the hangman."
auf dem Live8-Konzert in Johannesburg, 2. Juli 2005, bbc.co.uk http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4646231.stm
Original engl.: "History and the generations to come will judge our leaders by the decisions they make in the coming weeks. I say to all those leaders, do not look the other way. Do not hesitate."
"No Easy Walk to Freedom", Rede auf dem ANC-Kongress, 21. September 1953, anc.org.za http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1950s/sp530921.html
Original engl.: "To overthrow oppression has been sanctioned by humanity and is the highest aspiration of every free man."
Nelson Mandela Zitate und Sprüche
„Armut in Verbindung mit fehlender Bildung. Wir müssen dafür sorgen, dass Bildung alle erreicht.“
Antwort auf die Frage, welches nach Aids momentan das größte Problem der Welt sei. Interview im Reader's Digest, April 2005 rd-india.com http://www.rd-india.com/newsite/other/facetoface_apr05.asp
Original engl.: "Poverty and lack of education, those two combined. It’s important for us to ensure that education reaches everybody."
„Das Wahlrecht steht im Zentrum des Freiheitskampfes.“
Rede während der „Convention for a Democratic South Africa“, 20. Dezember 1991", anc.org.za http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1991/sp911220.html
Original Zulu: "Ilungelo lokuvota iyona nto ewumongo womzabalazo we nkululeko."
Grußwort am internationalen Tag der Solidarität mit dem Palästinensischen Volk, Pretoria, 4. Dezember 1997, http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1997/sp971204b.html
Original engl.: "I have come to join you today to add our own voice to the universal call for Palestinian self-determination and statehood. We would be beneath our own reason for existence as government and as a nation, if the resolution of the problems of the Middle East did not feature prominently on our agenda."
Rede am 10. Mai 1994 in Pretoria, nach seiner Wahl zum ersten schwarzen Präsidenten Südafrikas, anc.org.za http://www.anc.org.za/nelson/show.php?id=3132
Original engl.: "Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world."
bei seiner Vereidigung zum Präsidenten am 10. Mai 1994, dadalos-d.org http://www.dadalos-d.org/deutsch/Menschenrechte/Grundkurs_MR5/Apartheid/Apartheid/Entwicklung/suedafrika_heute.htm
„Wir wissen nur zu gut, dass unsere Freiheit unvollständig ohne die Freiheit der Palästinenser ist.“
Grußwort am internationalen Tag der Solidarität mit dem Palästinensischen Volk, Pretoria, 4. Dezember 1997 anc.org.za http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1997/sp971204b.html
Original engl.: "We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.
“The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC, and a change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable. Black economic empowerment is a goal we fully support and encourage, but in our situation state control of certain sectors of the economy is unavoidable.” - Erklärung vom 15. Januar 1990, die am 25. Januar 1990 veröffentlicht wurde. Mail & Guardian 26 Jan 1990 http://mg.co.za/article/1990-01-26-we-will-nationalise-mandela
Nelson Mandela: Zitate auf Englisch
“I have never regarded any man as my superior, either in my life outside or inside prison.”
Nelson Mandela on equaliy, From a letter to General Du Preez, Commissioner of Prisons, Written on Robben Island, Cape Town, South Africa (12 July 1976). Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes
1970s
Also quoted in Nelson Mandela: from freedom to the future: tributes and speeches (2003), edited by Kader Asmal & David Chidester. Jonathan Ball, p. 332
1990s, Speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (1992)
Kontext: Yes! We affirm it and we shall proclaim it from the mountaintops, that all people – be they black or white, be they brown or yellow, be they rich or poor, be they wise or fools, are created in the image of the Creator and are his children! Those who dare to cast out from the human family people of a darker hue with their racism! Those who exclude from the sight of God's grace, people who profess another faith with their religious intolerance! Those who wish to keep their fellow countrymen away from God's bounty with forced removals! Those who have driven away from the altar of God people whom He has chosen to make different, commit an ugly sin! The sin called Apartheid.
On a 1961 conference held in Ethiopia, as quoted in Rivonia Unmasked (1965) by Strydom Lautz, p. 108; also in Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Nelson Mandela : An Ecological Study (2002), by J. C. Buthelezi, p. 172
1960s
Kontext: Ethiopia has always held a special place in my own imagination and the prospect of visiting attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African. Meeting the emperor himself would be like shaking hands with history.
1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
Kontext: It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
“Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people.”
Nelson Madenla on leadership, Chief Albert Luthuli Centenary celebrations, Kwadukuza, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa (25 April 1998). Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes
1990s
1990s, Inaugural celebration address (1994)
Kontext: We succeeded to take our last steps to freedom in conditions of relative peace. We commit ourselves to the construction of a complete, just and lasting peace.
We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity — a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.
2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)
Kontext: He stepped down from his comfortable life to join the masses on their level to seek equality with them. "I can't hope to bring about economic equality... I have to reduce myself to the level of the poorest of the poor."
From his understanding of wealth and poverty came his understanding of labor and capital, which led him to the solution of trusteeship based on the belief that there is no private ownership of capital; it is given in trust for redistribution and equalization. Similarly, while recognizing differential aptitudes and talents, he holds that these are gifts from God to be used for the collective good.
He seeks an economic order, alternative to the capitalist and communist, and finds this in sarvodaya based on nonviolence (ahimsa).
He rejects Darwin's survival of the fittest, Adam Smith's laissez-faire and Karl Marx's thesis of a natural antagonism between capital and labor, and focuses on the interdependence between the two.
He believes in the human capacity to change and wages Satyagraha against the oppressor, not to destroy him but to transform him, that he cease his oppression and join the oppressed in the pursuit of Truth.
We in South Africa brought about our new democracy relatively peacefully on the foundations of such thinking, regardless of whether we were directly influenced by Gandhi or not.
1990s, Inaugural celebration address (1994)
Kontext: Your Majesties, Your Highnesses, Distinguished Guests, Comrades and Friends. Today, all of us do, by our presence here, and by our celebrations in other parts of our country and the world, confer glory and hope to newborn liberty. Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud.
“All of us have a role to play in shaping society.”
At his speech in Moria, on 3 April 1994
African National Congress (ANC Historical Documents Archive). Johannesburg, South Africa.
1990s, Speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (1994)
Kontext: “Why is it that in this day and age, human beings still butcher one another simply because they dared to belong to different religions, to speak different tongues, or belong to different races? Are human beings inherently evil? What infuses individuals with the ego and ambition to so clamour for power that genocide assumes the mantle of means that justify coveted ends? These are difficult questions, which, if wrongly examined can lead one to lose faith in fellow human beings. And there is where we would go wrong. Firstly, because to lose faith in fellow humans is, as the Archbishop would correctly point out, to lose faith in God and in the purpose of life itself. Secondly, it is erroneous to attribute to the human character a universal trait it does not possess – that of being either inherently evil or inherently humane. I would venture to say that there is something inherently good in all human beings, deriving from, among other things, the attribute of social consciousness that we all possess. And, yes, there is also something inherently bad in all of us, flesh and blood as we are, with the attendant desire to perpetuate and pamper the self. From this premise arises the challenge to order our lives and mould our mores in such a way that the good in all of us takes precedence. In other words, we are not passive and hapless souls waiting for manna or the plague from on high. All of us have a role to play in shaping society.”
1990s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1993)
Kontext: I am also here today as a representative of the millions of people across the globe, the anti-apartheid movement, the governments and organisations that joined with us, not to fight against South Africa as a country or any of its peoples, but to oppose an inhuman system and sue for a speedy end to the apartheid crime against humanity.
These countless human beings, both inside and outside our country, had the nobility of spirit to stand in the path of tyranny and injustice, without seeking selfish gain. They recognised that an injury to one is an injury to all and therefore acted together in defense of justice and a common human decency.
“We admire the achievements of the Cuban revolution in the sphere of social welfare.”
1990s, Speech at a Rally in Cuba (1991)
Kontext: We admire the achievements of the Cuban revolution in the sphere of social welfare. We note the transformation from a country of imposed backwardness to universal literacy. We acknowledge your advances in the fields of health, education, and science.
“Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way.”
1990s, Our March to Freedom is Irreversible (1990)
Kontext: Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way. Universal suffrage on a common voters' roll in a united, democratic and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony.
“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world”
" Lighting your way to a better future : Speech delivered by Mr N R Mandela at launch of Mindset Network http://db.nelsonmandela.org/speeches/pub_view.asp?pg=item&ItemID=NMS909&txtstr=education%20is%20the%20most%20powerful," July 16, 2003 at db.nelsonmandela.org. ; Cited in: Nelson Mandela, S. K. Hatang, Sahm Venter (2012) Notes to the Future: Words of Wisdom. p. 101.
2000s
Kontext: Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world and is a powerful part of that world changing arsenal.
2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)
Kontext: His philosophy of Satyagraha is both a personal and a social struggle to realize the Truth, which he identifies as God, the Absolute Morality. He seeks this Truth, not in isolation, self-centeredly, but with the people. He said, "I want to find God, and because I want to find God, I have to find God along with other people. I don't believe I can find God alone. If I did, I would be running to the Himalayas to find God in some cave there. But since I believe that nobody can find God alone, I have to work with people. I have to take them with me. Alone I can't come to Him."
1990s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1993)
Kontext: Together, we join two distinguished South Africans, the late Chief Albert Lutuli and His Grace Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to whose seminal contributions to the peaceful struggle against the evil system of apartheid you paid well-deserved tribute by awarding them the Nobel Peace Prize. It will not be presumptuous of us if we also add, among our predecessors, the name of another outstanding Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late Rev Martin Luther King Jr. He, too, grappled with and died in the effort to make a contribution to the just solution of the same great issues of the day which we have had to face as South Africans. We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want.
1990s, Inaugural celebration address (1994)
Kontext: We are both humbled and elevated by the honour and privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first President of a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist government.
We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom
We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success.
We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world.
Let there be justice for all.
Let there be peace for all.
1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
Kontext: I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
Interview (1961) http://www.radiodiaries.org/mandela/t_movement.html
1960s
Kontext: There are thousands of people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence — against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people. And I think the time has come for us to consider, in the light of our experiences at this day at home, whether the methods which we have applied so far are adequate.
1990s, Victory speech (1994)
Kontext: The calm and tolerant atmosphere that prevailed during the elections depicts the type of South Africa we can build. It set the tone for the future. We might have our differences, but we are one people with a common destiny in our rich variety of culture, race and tradition.
People have voted for the party of their choice and we respect that. This is democracy.
I hold out a hand of friendship to the leaders of all parties and their members, and ask all of them to join us in working together to tackle the problems we face as a nation. An ANC government will serve all the people of South Africa, not just ANC members.
2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)
Kontext: His philosophy of Satyagraha is both a personal and a social struggle to realize the Truth, which he identifies as God, the Absolute Morality. He seeks this Truth, not in isolation, self-centeredly, but with the people. He said, "I want to find God, and because I want to find God, I have to find God along with other people. I don't believe I can find God alone. If I did, I would be running to the Himalayas to find God in some cave there. But since I believe that nobody can find God alone, I have to work with people. I have to take them with me. Alone I can't come to Him."
“Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward.”
1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
Kontext: I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.
1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
Kontext: It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)
Kontext: Gandhi himself never ruled out violence absolutely and unreservedly. He conceded the necessity of arms in certain situations. He said, "Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor..."
1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
Kontext: It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
“The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa.”
1990s, Speech at a Rally in Cuba (1991)
Kontext: We have long wanted to visit your country and express the many feelings that we have about the Cuban revolution, about the role of Cuba in Africa, southern Africa, and the world. The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom, and justice, unparalleled for its principled and selfless character.
