I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I am one of the affluent rich living the good life. But I like to think that I am doing my bit to resolve the problems of Africa and am certainly committed to Africa in the long run.
It was fortunate in looking back for South Africa and its entire people that Mandela and I found it possible to work together even though big strains developed between us from time to time.
Being the first black Nobel laureate, and the first African, the African world considered me personal property. I lost the remaining shreds of my anonymity, even to walk a few yards in London, Paris or Frankfurt without being stopped.
I wanted to wash off the experience of Africa but obviously I couldn't because that's who I was.
I fell in love with Africa and began helping people fix things there.
Most of the money I made has gone back to Africa or is going back to Africa.
The culture of philanthropy is alive and very well in Africa. International aid strengthens and extends it, but in the communities where I have spent time, it is all-pervasive.
I contracted malaria in rural Mozambique. I was a youth ambassador for Australia. For a year after high school, you give positive speeches about Australia and as part of it I traveled to lots of different countries.
When I went to live in South Africa, I immediately began to understand what went wrong. Because here was a place supposed to be under apartheid - I arrived there in 1991 - but here a black person had more say and had more influence over his white government than an average Kenyan had over the Moi government.
I went to Africa without the perspective of a balance between teaching people the truth, which has been my calling, and helping people who have physical problems, like AIDS and orphans and hunger.