Oh, 1994, April 27. There won't be a day like that ever again. I mean, the sky was blue, with a blueness that had never been there before.
Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC's military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.
As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.
In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute - a white skin.
Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden.
What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?
People often speak of God being even-handed. God is not even-handed. God is biased, in favor of the weak, of the despised.
When a pile of cups is tottering on the edge of the table and you warn that they will crash to the ground, in South Africa you are blamed when that happens.
It's a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.
In its history, Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame.
In the Bible, we first encounter God when he sides with a bunch of slaves against a powerful Pharaoh, an act of grace freely given.
You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.
The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.
We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
