Dangerous because your present Administration and its specialized agencies by all accounts know no restraint in hitting out at any perceived enemy of America, and nobody or nothing can protect one from their vindictiveness.

About Breyten Breytenbach

Breyten Breytenbachis a South African writer, poet, and painter who became internationally well-known as a dissident poet and vocal critic of South Africa under apartheid, and as a political prisoner of the National Party-led South African Government. Breytenbach is now informally considered by Afrikaans-speakers as their poet laureate and is one of the most important living poets in Afrikaans literature.

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More quotes from Breyten Breytenbach

The predominant yardstick of your government is not human rights but national interests.

Breyten Breytenbach

South African writer and painter

I think it’s an area that one writes from that is curious because it is not a clearly defined partisan one.

Breyten Breytenbach

South African writer and painter

Better still – your history has shown how powerful a moral catharsis expressed through popular resistance to injustice can sometimes be; I have in mind the grassroots opposition to the Vietnam War.

Breyten Breytenbach

South African writer and painter

It would be a tragic mistake for us out here to imagine that Bush represents the hearts and the minds of the majority of your countrymen. Many of your black and other compatriots must be just as anguished as we are.

Breyten Breytenbach

South African writer and painter

Dangerous because your present Administration and its specialized agencies by all accounts know no restraint in hitting out at any perceived enemy of America, and nobody or nothing can protect one from their vindictiveness.

Breyten Breytenbach

South African writer and painter

The goal, I submit, is obvious: subjugating the world (which is barbarian, dangerous, envious and ungrateful) to US power for the sake of America’s interests.

Breyten Breytenbach

South African writer and painter

In reality the workings of your governing system are opaque and covert, while hiding in the chattering spotlight of an ostensible transparency, even though the ultimate objective is clear.

Breyten Breytenbach

South African writer and painter

In dancing with the enemy one follows his steps even if counting under one’s breath.

Breyten Breytenbach

South African writer and painter

It may be an extreme example brought about by abnormal circumstances – but the criteria of human rights kick in, surely, precisely when the conditions are extreme and the situation is abnormal.

Breyten Breytenbach

South African writer and painter