Their words
“It is never shameful to be poor and to try to borrow to build my country… The shame is to suck the blood of peoples and suck away their rights.”
Source: Speech nationalizing the Suez Canal, Alexandria, 26 July 1956 (translated from Arabic)
Context From the speech in which he nationalized the Suez Canal, days after the US and Britain withdrew their offer to fund the Aswan High Dam.
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More words from Gamal Abdel Nasser
“Raise your head, my brother; the days of servitude are over.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt♥ 0
“Today, citizens, we say: this is our money, returned to us. These are our rights, about which we kept silent, come back to us.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt♥ 0
“Long battles lie ahead of us, so that we may live free, live with dignity, live with pride.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt♥ 0
“There is a basic principle I believe in, and my belief in it has not changed: what is taken by force cannot be regained except by force.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt♥ 0
“I said, and I still say, that I bear the whole responsibility.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt♥ 0
More words from Politics & Liberation
“It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Nelson Mandela South Africa♥ 0
“Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa.”
Kwame Nkrumah Ghana♥ 0
“It's true, you cannot kill ideas. Ideas do not die.”
Thomas Sankara Burkina Faso♥ 0
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