A Quote by Thabo Mbeki
I must say that, in the first instance, we got the request from many African countries who said, look, you people had better host the Parliament. So, the general feeling around the Continent was that it would be better that the Parliament was based here. In part, because of what this country has done with regard to establishing a democratic system, and we have responded to that. We have said, fine.
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What moved us was not so much what would it do for South Africa, but there has been a great keenness on the Continent that the location of the Pan African Parliament must add to its credibility. And, so we said, fine, it's a contribution to this process of the democratisation of the African Continent.
As I said, the matter of the Pan African Parliament was raised with us by other African countries who said we should host.
No doubt, you've got a parliament now - I mean, Malcolm Turnbull says he'll work with the parliament he's got. He's got a parliament where a majority of the members of parliament want that law to be changed. He's got a parliament where there's a majority in each House who have publicly said they want to have a Royal Commission into banks.
A number of African countries came to us and said, we request that South Africa should not field a candidate, because so many other African countries wanted to, and, in any case, South Africa would continue to play a role in terms of building the African Union, and so on. And they actually said, please don't field a candidate, and we didn't. As I have said, it is not because we didn't have people who are competent to serve in these positions.
In many European countries we have populist indirect democratic systems. The people elect, in a proportionate manner, a parliament. The parliament with all its parties is representative of the political opinions among the citizens. It is reasonable to claim that the people rule itself through the political institutions.
I believe Tunisia and Egypt should look to Turkey and see what not to do. Turkey seems to be a secular and democratic country but it is only a show. We are losing the effectiveness of democratic institutions like parliament and judiciary. They now are turning into tools for the benefit of a president-ordering system. A democratic government is possible only on a comprehensive democratic base surrounded by the participatory action of ordinary people.
We never said that we don't have faith in Parliament. We have great respect for Parliament.
I have advocated postal reform for many years. The parliament said it was an absurd argument. The people have said it was the right thing.
One could establish a system in one state in which Judea and Samaria are jointly held. The Jews would vote for a Jewish parliament and the Palestinians for an Arab parliament, and we would create a system in which life is shared.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.
When it’s all said and done, I want to be able to say I got the most out of my potential. I don’t want to look back, however many years from now, and say, ‘I wonder if I would have worked a little harder. I wonder if I would have done this or done that, how things would have turned out.’ I want to, when it’s all said and done, be able to put my head on my pillow and say, ‘I did everything I could do — good or bad.’
What I would really like to do, if I could have a sort of kingship for a short time and organize the group of my dreams - I would make one group which would be a combination of, say, Parliament and Kraftwerk - put those two together and say, "Make a record." Something that would be an extraordinary combination: the weird physical feeling of Parliament with this strange, rigid stuff over the top of it.
Parliament's job is to conduct discussions. But many a time, Parliament is used to ignore issues, and in such situations, obstruction of Parliament is in the favour of democracy. Therefore, parliamentary obstruction is not undemocratic.
I would say to the people of Queensland, and to all listeners around the country, is that if you want stable government in the next term of parliament, it's not just enough to reelect the [Malcolm] Turnbull government. It's also important to elect a senate which will be able to deal with the important reforms, with the important legislation, in a way in which the senate in the last parliament was unable to deal with.
We were asked to host the Pan African Parliament and we agreed to this.
I never thought anyone would come up to me and say, 'I like 'Better Call Saul' better than 'Breaking Bad.'' If you had asked me before we started, 'Would that bother you if someone said that?' First of all, I would have said, 'That's never gonna happen. And yeah, it probably would bother me.' It doesn't bother me a bit. It tickles me. I love it.
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