I Stand Here Before You

We Recall Our Terrible Past So That We Can Deal With It, To Forgive Where Forgiveness Is Necessary, Without Forgetting; To Ensure That Never Again Will Such Inhumanity Tear Us Apart; And To Move Ourselves To Eradicate A Legacy That Lurks Dangerously As A Threat To Our Democracy.

The Cause Of Communism Is The Greatest Cause In The History Of Mankind!

There Are Many People Who Feel That It Is Useless And Futile To Continue Talking About Peace And Non-violence Against A Government Whose Only Reply Is Savage Attacks On An Unarmed And Defenceless People.

I Hate Racial Discrimination Most Intensely And All Its Manifestations. I Have Fought All My Life; I Fight Now, And Will Do So Until The End Of My Days. Even Although I Now Happen To Be Tried By One, Whose Opinion I Hold In High Esteem, I Detest Most Violently The Set-up That Surrounds Me Here. It Makes Me Feel That I Am A Black Man In A White Man's Court. This Should Not Be I Should Feel Perfectly At Ease And At Home With The Assurance That I Am Being Tried By A Fellow South African, Who Does Not Regard Me As An Inferior, Entitled To A Special Type Of Justice.

On The The Aids Epidemic: This Is A War. It Has Killed More People Than Has Been The Case In All Previous Wars And In All Previous Natural Disasters ... We Must Not Continue To Be Debating, To Be Arguing, When People Are Dying.