Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.
Government by blackmail is incompatible with democracy.
Governments that use violence to stop democratic development will not earn themselves respite forever. They will pay an increasingly high price for actions which they can no longer hide from the world with ease, and will find themselves on the wrong side of history.
'Sabotage' was a work for hire. It wasn't my original idea or script or anything.
And I think detente had manifestly failed, and that the pursuit of it was encouraging Soviet expansion and rendering the world more dangerous, and especially rendering the Western world in greater peril.
After the assassination of my wife, our nation was perilously close to civil strife. If I, as the co-chairman of the Party, had asked my people to take to the streets, the very existence of the federation would have been threatened.
The risk of a terrorist victory is greater when in fighting terror, democracy betrays its own essence.
Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.
Few revolutions succeed, and when they do, you often discover they did not gain what you hoped for, and you condemn yourself to perpetual fear, as the parties you defeated may always regain power and work for your ruin.
It was very much a cry for democratic control at that time. Above all, breaking the accomplished power of a few people to rule the lives of everybody else.