Kumi Naidoo Quotations

Leaders have dashed hopes and squandered opportunities, and empty promises cost lives.

With an agenda dominated by global security and U.N. reform, it appears that the decisions needed to lift millions of people from abject poverty are not being given the prominence they deserve,

The resolution will have no impact at all,

[Nelson] Mandela was very keen not to be understood as an exceptional person.

Whenever anybody called Nelson Mandela a saint, he would say: "If by saint you mean a sinner who is trying to be better, then I'm a saint."

Nelson's Mandela own sense of himself was a very humble reading, [different] from how the world read him. And, quite often, you had the sense that he was not comfortable with all the accolades that would be.

In Durban, where I was born and grew up, and all over Africa, Nelson Mandela was a hero! Now he is a hero to the world.

Nelson Mandela also spoke about how, as a human being, he's made mistakes.

Nelson Mandela was just a human being, a person like other people, and everyone relaxed. Within a minute, that sort of thing about the leader and the lead, the gap was closed, and that's a rare thing.

One of the things that I noticed with my own eyes was Nelson Mandela ability to engage with kings and queens and heads of state on the one hand, and his ability to engage with ordinary people, equally comfortably.

I first met Nelson Mandela when I was in my late 20s, in 1993. I was helping facilitate an African National Congress (ANC) workshop to plan its media strategy. I went down to meet him for the first time and you know me I got stupid... I just choked. I said, "Hello Madiba, it's a real honour to meet you," and I couldn't get another word out.

I've come across a lot of people in my life who talk about poverty and talk about the poor, but you rarely have a sense that it matters to them to the point at which they will be willing to sacrifice something.

I was 15 years old when I first heard the name Mandela, or Madiba, as he is fondly known in Africa. In apartheid South Africa he was public enemy number one. Shrouded in secrecy, myth and rumour, the media called him 'The Black Pimpernel'.

This week we saw progressive business and faith leaders making strong commitments that are moving ahead of what world leaders promised today. The leaders of major economies must be bolder than they were today in providing a vision for 100% renewable energy for all.

The struggle to avert catastrophic climate change is bigger than all the other struggles, whether it is slavery, democracy struggles, the woman's right to vote, and so on I would argue that if what is at stake is securing life as we know it, then there can be no bigger struggle that we face.

The reality is today most of our political leaders want to be treated as gods and semi-gods, from the security details to the fuss around them and so on.

If not one more cent in new aid money flowed [to Africa], we could with more urgency and efficiency and creativity be doing much more to take more people out of poverty.

With an agenda dominated by global security and U.N. reform, it appears that the decisions needed to lift millions of people from abject poverty are not being given the prominence they deserve.

The Social License is fundamentally about accountability to people and not just powerful interests. John Morrison’s book reminds all organizations – governments, business and civil society – to focus on the legitimacy of their own actions.

I think even though he [Nelson Mandela] was feted and praised as he was, he always was at pains to say, I'm a human being.

The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through.

Sandy was a climate change warning. Obama must now take the stage and fulfil the promise of hope the world needs.

You know how they say, 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?' What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.

Nelson Mandela once said "I can't help it if the ladies take note of me; I'm not going to protest."

My final advice for young people is to not wait for leadership from adult politicians. Step forward today, because our current leaders are denying the dire reality we are facing. Leadership can come form anywhere.

Currently, we allow our political and business leaders to get away with murder. Now is the time to change that. We need direct liability for those who are destroying our future and this planet. We need fast, profound and systemic change. History only moves forward when courageous people get up and act. That's why I support this citizens' initiative to recognise ecocide as the crime it is.

There is no definition of terrorism and there is still the reality that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.

Many people theorize poverty, but so many elements of poverty, individually, for most people who theorize about poverty would be really difficult to even comprehend the individual things. Just take homelessness. If you are homeless, what does it mean not to have a post box where people can contact you; what does it mean not knowing where you're going to sleep at the end of the day; what does it mean not having a place where you can store what little you might possess. So dealing with homelessness in itself is a huge thing for most people who are commentators [on] or benefactors to poverty.

Investing one cent more in oil, coal and gas is investing in the death of society, and the in the death of our children.

Struggles only move forward when decent men and women step forward and say, 'enough is enough and no more.'

A movement only becomes a movement of substance, size, and power when the artists say 'we want to add our voice.'