Here are several quotes from Haile Selassie I that shows His thoughts on racial discrimination.
I must say that black and white, as forms of speech, and as a means of judging mankind, should be eliminated from human society. Human beings are precisely the same whatever colour, race, creed or national origin they may be.
We have seen again during our visit that God has not been partial in His divine creation. The difference of colour is a notion which has no significance and the futility of asserting a difference has now become obvious.
But let us take pride in the fact that as free men we attack and abhor racial discrimination on principle, where-ever it is found and in whatever guise. We can, in addition to the economic pressures of which we dispose, bring our moral weight to bear and rally world opinion to our cause by revealing the brutality, the inhumanity, the inherent viciousness and evil represented by this policy.
This, then, is the ultimate challenge. Where are we to look for our survival, for the answers to the questions which have never before been posed?
We must look, first, to Almighty God, Who has raised man above the animals and endowed him with intelligence and reason. We must put our faith in Him, that He will not desert us or permit us to destroy humanity which He created in His image.
And we must look into ourselves, into the depth of our souls. We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us. We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.
Above all, Ethiopia is dedicated to the principle of the equality of all men, irrespective of differences of race, colour or creed.
As we do not practice or permit discrimination within our nation, so we oppose it wherever it is found.
As we guarantee to each the right to worship as he chooses, so we denounce the policy which sets man against man on issues of religion.
As we extend the hand of universal brotherhood to all, without regard to race or colour, so we condemn any social or political order which distinguishes among God's children on this most specious of grounds.
Specious basically means something which sounds good and possible to the listener and can be imagined to be real, but is actually false.
We here are all dedicated to the betterment of the conditions of man's life; we all know the sorrows and misery of those who do not live but merely exist, the lot of men whose living conditions are sub-standard. But when We speak of the betterment of man's life, We mean not merely the economic improvement of living standards; We refer, in addition, to the spiritual conditions in which man lives, for just as a man without means to feed his hunger and to clothe his nakedness can take no pride in his existence as a human being, so, also is one who is reviled and discriminated against because of his race or religion, robbed of his self-respect and human dignity.
Racial Discrimination
The spectre of racial discrimination which has for so long cast its dark and evil shadow over much of this globe is slowly disappearing. Men are coming increasingly to be judged by their talents and abilities rather than by the less meaningful and far more superficial standards of race and religion. But there yet remain those who, in their bigotry and ignorance, resist this flooding tide, and it is against these that our efforts must be directed. The struggle to win for our brothers in South Africa that status as free men, free to stand, heads high, among free men as equals, which so many millions of Africans and Asians have attained but yesterday, goes on. Our duty is not discharged, our course is not run, our victory not won so long as apartheid, the legitimized policy of the Government of the Union of South Africa, prevails in any area of the world.
It is upon this knowledge and understanding that we have sought to build the international unity of the spirit which today constitutes the most important force for good in the search for a lasting world peace and a decent way of life for humanity.
With the raising of all men to their rightful dignity and honour as individuals, they will be able to regard their fellows, of whatever nation, of whatever race, of whatever religious, linguistic or historical tradition, as equals, without jealousy, without fear, without undue pride.
Mankind, be it in past, present of future, has always been judged not by color, or creed, but by the wealth of its knowledge.
We reaffirm today, in the name of principle and right, our opposition to prejudice, wherever and in whatever form it may be found, and particularly do we rededicate ourselves to the eradication of racial discrimination from this continent. We can never rest content with our achievements so long as men, in any part of Africa, assert on racial grounds their superiority over the least of our brothers. Racial discrimination constitutes a negation of the spiritual and psychological equality which we have fought to achieve and a denial of the personality and dignity which we have struggled to establish for ourselves as Africans. Our political and economic liberty will be devoid of meaning for so long as the degrading spectacle of South Africa's apartheid continues to haunt our waking hours and to trouble our sleep. We must redouble our efforts to banish this evil from our land. If we persevere, discrimination will one day vanish from the earth. If we use the means available to us, South Africa's apartheid, just as colonialism, will shortly remain only as a memory. If we pool our resources and use them well, this specter will be banished forever.
And in an effort to carry out this teaching to pursue truth - to promote those bonds common to the human race - Your Excellency has dedicated your whole life. To free the human race from superstition and fear that originate from ignorance; to enable him to transcend the apparent obstacles of race and religion; and to help him recognize the blood-ties of the whole human race, Your Excellency has laboured.
In the history of the human race, those periods which later appeared as great have been the periods when the men and the women belonging to them had transcended the differences that divided them and had recognized in their membership in the human race a common bond. Your Excellency's constant endeavour to challenge this generation to transcend its differences. to recognize its common bond and to work towards a common goal has doubtless made this age pregnant with greatness.
Last May, in Addis Ababa, I convened a meeting of Heads of African States and Governments. In three days, the thirty-two nations represented at that Conference demonstrated to the world that when the will and the determination exist, nations and peoples of diverse backgrounds can and will work together. in unity, to the achievement of common goals and the assurance of that equality and brotherhood which we desire.
On the question of racial discrimination, the Addis Ababa Conference taught, to those who will learn, this further lesson:
that until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned;
that until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation;
that until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes;
that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race;
that until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained.
And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique and in South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed;
until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will;
until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven;
until that day, the African continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight, if necessary, and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil.
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