Kumi Naidoo
Kumi Naidoo (born 1965) is a South African human rights and climate justice activist. He is the current president of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, a joint diplomatic and civil society campaign to create a treaty to stop fossil fuel exploration and expansion and phase-out existing production in line with the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement, while supporting a just transition to renewable energy.
Quotes
[edit]- In 1983, the message of the ANC president Oliver Tambo emphasised the need for a broad united front in the struggle against apartheid.
He said: "We must organise the people into strong mass democratic organisations; we must organise all revolutionaries into underground units of the ANC; we must organise all combatants into units of uMkhonto we Sizwe; we must organise all democratic forces into one front for national liberation.
- He [Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota] stressed that we had to build non-racialism - we couldn't just declare it and hope for the best. If we were to build a mass democratic movement, we would have to do the hard work of dismantling the barriers the apartheid system had put in place to keep us apart in separate townships, separate schools, separate hospitals>
- Yet this brings home to me the crucial role that young people played in the struggle against apartheid. We were clear-sighted and idealistic, and we were unencumbered by the adult responsibilities that led many people to make compromises with the regime. Young people's hunger for justice made a decisive difference in South Africa's freedom struggle.
- 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.
- Ha! Well, they get us in different ways in the sense that AI is altering the landscape for democracy, for human rights, and so on. But climate change is, you know, I like to say that the planet does not need saving. If we continue on the suicidal path we are on, where we burn up our water resources, destroy our soil, get so hot we can't plant food, we will be gone. The planet will still be here.
- The good news for everybody who's concerned about saving the planet: once we become extinct as a species, the oceans will recover, the forests will grow back, and so on. So I understand that the struggle to avert catastrophic climate change is nothing more and nothing less than protecting our children and their children's futures.
- When we lose somebody close to us, and people come to share their condolences, they all are very well intended and they, but we all struggle to say the right things. While I appreciated the gestures and the comments that people made, it never helped me at that moment.
- But one of my father's friends, who was an activist, said to me, “My boy, I don't know how you recover from something like this. But one thing I can tell you, however bad you're feeling, there are people in our country, in our continent, Africa, and around the world who are actually suffering a much more difficult life on a day-to-day basis. So my advice to you, if you want to do something good with your life, use your knowledge, and your skills, and your capability to work for the betterment of all people, and live with purpose.
- One of the things some of our leaders used to say: “We have a simple choice. You either can choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution.” And choosing to be indifferent, neutral, and passive, sadly, is the choice of choosing to be part of the problem.
- We are living with a terrible reality of eco-anxiety and climate anxiety, right? And we are seeing, youth suicides on the rise and all of that, right? And young people saying things in South Africa to us, like, “We appreciate your generation, you fought the apartheid regime, you buried a lot of friends, but you all had one thing that we didn't have. You all had hope that things will get better.
- And part of what we need to do today is to genuinely, realistically, meaningfully create hope for young people that their participation can actually make things better.
- One of the most frequently used lines I have in speeches is this: “In the moment of history that we find ourselves, pessimism is a luxury we simply cannot afford.”
And the pessimism that justifiably emerges from our analysis, our lived experiences, and our observations can, must, and should be responded to by the optimism of our thought, our action, our creativity, our courage, and our sense of humanity.
- So people need to understand that if you reach that point where you think there is no hope, you are handing victory to the people that are promoting racism, authoritarianism, climate denialism. Participation itself is going to be the biggest antidote to despair and depression, right?
- And here’s where the connection with AI comes: because AI, in a way, pulls us into individualized, atomistic existence where we're spending far too much of time just on social media and virtual engagement with the world. And we need people to engage with the world in where they live, where they work, where they worship.
- When I say participation is going to be the biggest antidote in this moment of despair, it's also about finding the right way of participation. What I mean by that is, let's say you are an art teacher, and you join a climate justice organization. You should be working with young people, painting murals in the communities where you are operating, right? And getting joy from doing that which you enjoy.
- So part of what we need to be doing is creating multiple pathways for people to participate. Because I like to say, and many others say this with me: irrespective of what the question is, the answer is always community, community, community.
- Sometimes people say climate change threatens the planet. Well, actually, the planet will survive. What is at stake here is humanity's ability to live on this planet.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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.
