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Helen Suzman Quotes

Helen Suzman, DBE was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician. She represented a succession of liberal and centre-left opposition parties during her 36-year tenure in the whites-only, National Party-controlled House of Assembly of South Africa at the height of the apartheid era. She hosted the meeting that founded the Progressive Party in 1959, and was its only MP in the 160-member House for a period of 13 years. During that 13-year period she was the only Member of the South African Parliament consistently and unequivocally to oppose all apartheid legislation.

Suzman was instrumental in improving prison conditions for members of the banned African National Congress including Nelson Mandela, despite her reservations about Mandela's revolutionary policies, and was also known for using her parliamentary privilege to evade government censorship and pass information to the media about the worst abuses of apartheid. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Wikipedia  

✵ 7. November 1917 – 1. January 2009
Helen Suzman photo
Helen Suzman: 11   quotes 2   likes

Famous Helen Suzman Quotes

“You say your people brought the Bible over the mountains and ask what mine did. They wrote it, my dear.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "A lone voice has been silenced" https://web.archive.org/web/20160913173321/http://hsf.org.za/siteworkspace/the-star-pg-11.pdf (2 January 2009), by Peter Sullivan, The Star

“Are you going to put me under house arrest or put me on Robben Island?”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in Helen Suzman: Fighter for Human Rights https://web.archive.org/web/20160303201816/http://hsf.org.za/about-us/helen-suzman/suz01.pdf (2005), by Millie Pimstone, South Africa: The Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies
1960s

“It is not my questions that embarrass South Africa; it is your answers.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "About Helen Suzman" https://web.archive.org/web/20070927230210/http://www.hsf.org.za/shelen2.asp (February 2004), by David Welsh, South Africa: The Helen Suzman Foundation, p. 2

“Mugabe has destroyed that country while South Africa has stood by and done nothing. The way Mugabe was feted at the inauguration last month was an embarrassing disgrace. But it served well to illustrate very clearly Mbeki's point of view.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "Democracy? It was better under apartheid, says Helen Suzman" https://web.archive.org/web/20120901223952/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1462042/Democracy-It-was-better-under-apartheid-says-Helen-Suzman.html (15 May 2004), by Jane Flanagan, The Telegraph
2000s

“[T]he prime minister has been trying to bully me for twenty-eight years and he has not succeeded yet. I am not frightened of you. I never have been and I never will be. I think nothing of you.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "The Hon. Member For Houghton" https://web.archive.org/web/19960913173321/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/04/20/the-hon-member-for-houghton (20 April 1987), by E. J. Kahn, The New Yorker
1980s

“Every Nationalist MP should go to at least one funeral for unrest victims heavily disguised as human beings, instead of sitting on their green benches in parliament, insulated like fish in an aquarium.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "A lone voice has been silenced" https://web.archive.org/web/20160913173321/http://hsf.org.za/siteworkspace/the-star-pg-11.pdf (2 January 2009), by Peter Sullivan, The Star
1970s

Helen Suzman Quotes

“Don't think for a moment that Mbeki is not anti-white - he is, most definitely. His speeches all have anti-white themes and he continues to convince everyone that there are two types of South African - the poor black and the rich white.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "Democracy? It was better under apartheid, says Helen Suzman" https://web.archive.org/web/20120901223952/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1462042/Democracy-It-was-better-under-apartheid-says-Helen-Suzman.html (15 May 2004), by Jane Flanagan, The Telegraph
2000s

Thinking

“I do not know why we equate—and with such examples before us—a white skin with civilisation.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "The Hon. Member For Houghton" https://web.archive.org/web/19960913173321/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/04/20/the-hon-member-for-houghton (20 April 1987), by E. J. Kahn, The New Yorker

“For all my criticisms of the current system, it doesn't mean that I would like to return to the old one. I don't think we will ever go the way of Zimbabwe, but people are entitled to be concerned. I am hopeful about any future for whites in this country - but not entirely optimistic.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "Democracy? It was better under apartheid, says Helen Suzman" https://web.archive.org/web/20120901223952/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1462042/Democracy-It-was-better-under-apartheid-says-Helen-Suzman.html (15 May 2004), by Jane Flanagan, The Telegraph
2000s

People , Hope , Way , Thinking

“I had hoped for something much better… [T]he poor in this country have not benefited at all from the ANC. This government spends "like a drunken sailor". Instead of investing in projects to give people jobs, they spend millions buying weapons and private jets, and sending gifts to Haiti.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "Democracy? It was better under apartheid, says Helen Suzman" https://web.archive.org/web/20120901223952/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1462042/Democracy-It-was-better-under-apartheid-says-Helen-Suzman.html (15 May 2004), by Jane Flanagan, The Telegraph
2000s

People , Hope , Country

“Go and see for yourself.”

Helen Suzman

As quoted in "The profound legacy of a woman of imagination" https://web.archive.org/web/20160405233305/http://hsf.org.za/siteworkspace/bd-06-january-2009.pdf (6 January 2009), by Ann Bernstein, The Star

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