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The tide which is sweeping Africa today
cannot be stayed. No power on earth is great
enough to halt or reverse the trend. Its
march is as relentless and inexorable as the
passage of time. The day is long overdue for
a change of attitude on the part of those
nations which have heretofore sought to
hinder or impede this movement or which
have been content in the past to remain
passive in the face of the impassioned cries
for freedom, for justice, for the right to stand
with their fellowmen as equals, which have
gone up from this Continent. It is time for
them to enlist their sympathetic efforts on
behalf of the struggle of the African peoples
to gain the place in the world which is their
God-given birthright. Those who hail or
refuse to do so, those who lack the vision and
foresight to realize that Africa is emerging
into a new era, that Africans will no longer
be denied the rights which are inalienably
theirs, will not alter or reverse the course of
history, but will suffer the inevitable
consequences of their refusal to accept
reality.
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Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I, 1918-1967;
Published by: The Imperial Ethiopian Ministry of Information, Publication
and Foreign Languages Press Department, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1967, p.
205 Speech: April 18, 1960.
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