Haile Selassie's speech to the UN 4 Oct 1963 - "War"
English translation as published in the 1972 book
Important Utterances Of H.I.M. by the Imperial Ethiopian Ministry Of
Information, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:
"On
the question of racial discrimination, the Addis Ababa summit conference taught,
to those who will learn, this further lesson :
that until the philosophy which holds
one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently dicredited and
abandoned; that until there are no longer first class and second class citizens
of any nation; that until the colour of a man's skin is of no more significance
than the colour of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are equally
guaranteed to all, without regard to race; that until that day, the dream of
lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will
remain but fleeting illusions, to be pursued but never attained.
And until the ignoble and unhappy
regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique and in South Africa in
sub-human bondage have been toppled and destroyed; until bigotry and prejudice
and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and
tolerance and good-will; until all Africans stand and speak as free beings,
equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven; until that day,
the African continent will not know peace.
We Africans will fight, if necessary,
and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over
evil.
The basis of racial discrimination
and colonialism has been economic, and it is with economic weapons that these
evils have been and can be overcome. In pursuance of resolutions adopted at the
Addis Ababa summit conference, African states have undertaken certain measures
in the economic field which, if adopted by all member states of the United
Nations, would soon reduce intransigeance to reason.
I ask, today, for adherence to these
measures by every nation represented here which is truly devoted to the
principles enunciated in the charter. We must act while we can, while the
occasion exists to exert those legitimate pressures available to us lest time
run out and resort be had to less happy means. The great nations of the world
would do well to remember that in the modern age even their own fates are not
wholely in their hands. Peace demands the united efforts of us all. Who can
foresee what spark might ignite the fuse? The stake of each one of us is
identical-life or death.
We all wish to
live. We all seek a world in which men are freed of the burdens of ignorance,
poverty, hunger and disease. And we shall all be hard-pressed to escape the
deadly rain of nuclear fall-out should catastrophe overtake us. The problems
which confront us today are, equally, unprecedented. They have no counterparts
in human experience. Men search the pages of history for solutions, for
precedents, but there are none.
This
then, is the ultimate challenge. Where are we to look for our survival, for the
answers to the questions which have never before been posed? We must look,
first, to the Almighty God, Who has raised man above the animals and endowed him
with intelligence and reason. We must put our faith in Him, that He will not
desert us or permit us to destroy humanity which He created in His image.
And we must look into ourselves, into
the depth of our souls. We must become something we have never been and for
which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us. We
must become bigger than we have been : more courageous, greater in spirit,
larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty
prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men
within the human community."
Haile
Selassie I
4 October 1963
United Nations, New York.
Posted: Thu - March 20, 2003 at 11:41 PM