Harry Schwarz (1924 – 2010)
South African lawyer, statesman and long-time political opposition leader against apartheid, who eventually served as the South African ambassador to the United States during the country’s transition to representative democracy.
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The quickest analytical mind in South African politics.
Freedom is incomplete if it is exercised in poverty.
If we are going to have greater unemployment, if we are going to have more unrest, the chances of a negotiated settlement will be less and in a revolutionary situation the chances of a truly free democratic society emerging are reduced.'"
Schwarz has not only been one of apartheid's most prominent opponents, but his ideas and the initiatives he had taken had played an important role in the development of the concept of a negotiated democracy in South Africa, based on the principles of freedom and justice. In this regard he is one of the conceptual and moral fathers of the new South Africa.
Morality is cheap when someone else is paying.
My Lord, it is difficult to reply in a restrained fashion. My learned friend must not use words such as 'Communist' lightly, when he refers to Kantor. Kantor is not a Communist. My learned friend has used the tactics of McCarthyism in an endeavour to smear him. I think, with respect, my learned friend is allowing himself to run away with facts that are not there. His complaint in count one is not that they found files with evidence. Oh not, he says that we found files with nothing in them. Not in Kantor's office, but in the office of Wolpe. Then my learned friend that the practice had been ruined and liquidated Knator's practice, my lord, it is not Kantor. It is not Kantor! Why I say it is so difficult to be restrained, is that my learned friend has thrown in everything hat concerns every accused in this case, and says 'that is why I don't want Kantor to get bail'.
Laws alone is not enough to ensure that freedom is safeguarded. What is required is a sprit of freedom among the people concerned. There must be an atmosphere of respect, a feeling of belonging together, an atmosphere of harmony with fellow beings.
I have an obligation to the 37 million people in South Africa to ensure their well-being. But the road from slavery to the promised land is a rough one.
We developed a mutual respect for one another. Schwarz was an extremely able MP with a good financial brain, and a hard worker who could devastate National Party members in Parliament, especially Ministers of Finance, who feared his vigorous attacks. Like me, he could be unpleasant both in and out of the House.
If the 60-year old MP for Yeoville is occasionally oversensitive, it is probably because - as one of the most talented and versatile people in Parliament - he finds himself frustrated by much of what goes on.
I said, 'Down with apartheid' before some of them [demonstrators] were born. I was supporting the dismantling of apartheid when America was standing on the sidelines and only a few people knew what apartheid was about.
I make this appeal to Mr Botha: Show this statesmanship, show that at this time you will not allow our unity of purpose to overcome the real problems to be threatened.
I must and will work to ensure that the new democratic South Africa has a fair chance to succeed economically as well as politically, and to try to assist in fulfilling at least a part of the dream of the oppressed and deprived when the new South Africa is born.
To risk making predictions is rather presumptuous and unwise. If I’m wrong, it will never be forgotten. If I’m right, no one will remember.
My lord, one can perhaps be pardoned for saying that perhaps his (Jimmy Kantor) biggest crime, if it is a crime, is that he was a partner of Harold Wolpe, and that Harold Wolpe was his brother-in-law.
Whenever I draw up economic policy I look at it from the point of view of the person who has nothing; I look at it from the point of view of my farther who tried to get a job but could not.
South Africa's most feisty politician.
The National Party does not care about people, it only cares about power.
The mission must be adherence to and the advancement of the concept of a truly democratic political system and economic system which gives not only rights and opportunity but also security.
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