Quotes About Africa

The future of Africa lies not with external actors but within Africa itself. The future of Africa lies here in Africa.

You can fit two United States and maybe a third one into the entire continent of Africa, but on a map we make the entire continent of Africa look like the size of the United States, which is why a lot of people don't know that Africa is a continent. They think it's a country because it looks as big as we do.

If we study history and anthropology we will find that all over the world the original people are Black people who migrated from Africa. This is confirmed by recent DNA studies. The only reason that we don't readily accept this is because we are indoctrinated to believe that Africa is the worst place that has ever been. If we had a more positive attitude about Africa we would run to it instead of running from it.

About the joys and the courage, I really don't know what other people think. I just know that I've never left Africa. I've lived there all my life. And one of the wonderful things, in spite of all the terrible things that happen in South Africa, is the way people continue to keep their dignity.

If I had not grown up in Nigeria- and if all I knew of Africa were of popular images- I too would think that africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals and incomprehensible people fighting sensless wars, dying of poverty and aids- unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind white foreigner.

Africa may yet prove to be the spiritual conservatory of the world ... When the civilised nations in consequence of their wonderful material development, shall have had their spiritual susceptibilities blunted through the agency of a captivating and absorbing materialism, it may be that they have to resort to Africa to recover some of the simple elements of faith.

The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.

Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that's it. No America, no jazz. I've seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Africa.

Africa is on the move; a new Africa is emerging!

I want us to be judged by the impact we have on the health of the people of Africa and the health of women. Improvements in the health of the people of Africa and the health of women are key indicators of the performance of WHO. This is a health organization for the whole world... But we must focus our attention on the people in greatest need.

I was doing the Black Issue in 2006 and then went to Africa for Uomo Vogue. I've worked with Gucci and Fendi, committed to create jobs. Fifty percent of those ads went to non-government organizations in Africa. [Nelson] Mandela was on the cover, it helped create attention.

Africa is a paradox which illustrates and highlights neo-colonialism . Her earth is rich, yet the products that come from above and below the soil continue to enrich, not Africans predominantly, but groups and individuals who operate to Africa’s impoverishment.

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?

There's the complex categorization of low warmth/high competence. This is the hostile stereotype of Asian Americans by white America, of Jews in Europe, of Indo-Pakistanis in East Africa, of Lebanese in West Africa, of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, and of the rich by the poor most everywhere. It's the same low-high derogation: They're cold, greedy, clannish - -but, dang, they're sure good at making money and you should go to one who is a doctor if you're seriously sick.

I helped found Artists for New South Africa, but it used to be called Artists for Free South Africa. Alfre Woodard and a bunch of us started this.

I am honoured to be asked to take on this role, especially as it comes at such an integral time for our relationship with South Africa and the African continent. There shall be many new challenges and opportunities ahead and I look forward to embracing them with great anticipation [on becoming the UK's high commissioner to South Africa]

It is considered in England and the United States that the Government of South Africa is altogether too harsh with its native peoples. It is sadly humorous to notice that the native in South Africa, however, holds an exactly reverse opinion and the fault he finds with the South African Government is that it is far too lenient in its administration of laws throughout the native populace.

The white man knows what a revolution is. He knows that the Black Revolution is worldwide in scope and in nature. The Black Revolution is sweeping Asia, is sweeping Africa, is rearing its head in Latin America. The Cuban Revolution - that's a revolution. They overturned the system. Revolution is in Asia, revolution is in Africa, and the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you think he'll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is?

The first myth to dispel is that Africa is not a country. It's made up of 53 different countries. So to say 'invest in Africa' is a no-go. It's meaningless.

My courage comes from my faith. I have come to one conclusion: All that I am, all that I aspire to be, all that I was before, is by the grace of God. There are so many women in Africa, and outside Africa, who are more intelligent than I am.

When President Mbeki said, if you get AIDS, you can have a shower and it goes away. It's like, oh, come on. Or it's caused by poverty. We faced those kind of issues. But now, with the new regime, they have really woken up, paid attention. And when South Africa speaks, then the whole of Africa will listen. And I have got great hopes for that.

Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.

We know nothing about Africa, although our roots are there in terms of our forbearers. But I mean as far as the average Negro today, he knows nothing about Africa. And I think he's got to face the fact that he is an American, his culture is basically American, and one becomes adjusted to this when he realizes what, what he is.

You are not a country, Africa. You are a concept… You are not a concept, Africa. You are a glimpse of the infinite.

I think hip hop allows us to talk about everything, and Africa is what I choose to talk about now. If people are not talking about Africa, that's them, that's cool, there's nothing wrong with that. But this is who I am, this is what I have to say, this is what I have to offer.

Where do whites fit in the New Africa? Nowhere, I'm inclined to sayand I do believe that it is true that even the gentlest and most westernised Africans would like the emotional idea of the continent entirely without the complication of the presence of the white man for a generation or two. But nowhere, as an answer for us whites, is in the same category as remarks like What's the use of living? in the face of the threat of atomic radiation. We are living; we are in Africa.

The World Health Organisation has a lot of its medical experts sitting in Geneva while hospitals in Africa have no drugs and desperate patients are forced to seek medication on the black market.

We're very prepared: Infection-control people in hospitals over the past two months have been reviewing all their infection- control procedures because we anticipated just this sort of thing happening-a person coming from West Africa, they were healthy at the time they traveled, but got sick here.

It's a real misconception that water is a problem in Africa only. It's also an issue in Nepal, in Honduras, and in the United States of America. If we don't start paying attention now and curb our use and stop taking it for granted, we're going to be in a bad place, like everyone else.

The Western stereotype of Africa and its black citizens as devoid of reason and, therefore, subhuman was often shared by white master and black ex-slave alike.

And I think that Africa is making progress that the world needs to recognize and assist the continent to continue on that path.

I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation...I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?

The racial conversation in the States is so multifaceted and multilayered. Obviously it's not always a positive conversation, but it's just so much more detailed than it was when I was growing up in South Africa.

It would be a huge mistake to abandon democracy promotion. Peaceful political change has been enormously successful in the past years in Eastern European countries as well as in countries like South Korea, South Africa, Chile and Indonesia. However, if possible, the use of force is something to avoid except in cases where genocide is threatened, like Bosnia or Libya or with regimes that threaten our security, like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

The second mode to deal with unsafe cities is to take refuge in vehicles. This is the technique practiced in the big wild-animal reservations of Africa, where tourists are warned to leave their cars under no circumstances until they reach a lodge. It is also the technique practiced in Los Angeles.

It's a bit shocking when you show up in Africa or you're in the middle of Spain and there are people that know the words and the young kids singing along.

We also look at farming. Are we making sure that we're getting the latest seeds out to women so they can get a bigger yield off of their farms? A new type of seed that gets out to a man, let's say, that's drought resistant - because, of course, the rains are changing in Africa with climate change - if you don't put it in the hands of a woman, she won't necessarily get it. We look at breaking down all those barriers.

Africa has no history and did not contribute to anything that mankind enjoyed.

I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.

Visit to Africa reshaped my point-of-view of colonialism. It reshaped my point-of-view of my own sense of source, and my own place of birth. It made it more organic inside of me, because it placed me in a position where my job was to understand and to become more African.

If we don't move forward with regard to creating a non-racial society in South Africa and we allow this legacy of apartheid to persist, these divisions between black and white in wealth and income and so on, in the future you would indeed have an ugly upheaval.

What do you want with these special Jewish pains? I feel as close to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putamayo and the blacks of Africa with whose bodies the Europeans play ball… I have no special corner in my heart for the ghetto: I am at home in the entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.

Racial discrimination, South Africa's economic power, its oppression and exploitation of all the black peoples, are part and parcel of the same thing.

I've been lucky to travel through quite a bit of Europe and Australia, but I would love to do Asia and South America and South Africa.

You have to make those mistakes. You have to do the work. You have to fail. I also realized that I should practice what I preach, which is that if you only do get one kick at the can . . . When you go to places like Africa or Asia or the Indian sub-continent, you realize that a lot of the people there don't ever get a kick at the can. There are no "kicks" at the can - you just don't have that shot.

Africa is the future.

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.

When I turn on my radio, when I hear that Negroes have been lynched in America, I say that we have been lied to: Hitler is not dead; when I turn on my radio, when I hear that Jews have been insulted, mistreated, persecuted, I say that we have been lied to: Hitler is not dead; when, finally, I turn on my radio and hear that in Africa forced labor has been inaugurated and legalized, I say that we have certainly been lied to: Hitler is not dead.