The reason I'm in San Diego is not because I want distance from South Africa but because I want proximity to the people I love. But I don't envy growing up in America. As ugly as aspects of it were, my biggest blessing was to be born a South African.
One of the biggest things I understood in a program like that was that it allowed more young African American scholars to do field research in the Caribbean and in Africa than had ever happened before in the history of the country and since.
So what we're talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live, period. And what we're facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.
It should be underscored that our goal is not, and should not, be a crusade against the ICC but a solemn call for the organisation to take Africa's concerns seriously.
We believe that the world, too, can destroy apartheid, firstly by striking at the economy of South Africa.
The only people who can fix Africa are talented young Africans. By unlocking and nurturing their creative potential, we can create a step change in Africa's future.
I am always asked, 'You grew up in Africa?' Every time I introduce a film, or I'm interviewed, 'You grew up in Africa?'
I am actually a resident of three worlds - of America, of India, and of Africa. I live in Uganda most of the year. It's extraordinary to have that worldview that is an expansive one rather than just looking at the world from where you sit.
When most people in the West think about Africa, is their first thought about the game reserves and who's chasing gazelles, or are they looking at Africans as people who are equally equipped to do great things, as in the West?
Reality shows that, contrary to other countries in southern Africa, we have no basis for a classical guerilla struggle. We have never had a hinterland, and we do not expect to.
We have known Hillary Clinton both professionally and personally for close to 20 years, dating back to before President Bill Clinton's first trip to Africa in 1998 - a trip that they both acknowledge changed their lives and gave considerable meaning to their post-White House years and to the activities of the Clinton Foundation.
It is my firm belief that action on the issues that matter for Africa must emerge from within Africa itself.
Big game hunters and the hunting industry in South Africa know a lot of people regard what they do as terrible, and the media have tended not to do them any favours. So it was an uphill struggle to win trust from the people and to get into the world.
I was fortunate enough to visit a lot of beautiful places around the world. The most astonishing and memorable experiences were my trips to Africa and Australia.
All these boundaries - Africa, Asia, Malaysia, America - are set by men. But you don't have to look at boundaries when you are looking at a man - at the character of a man. The question is: What do you stand for? Are you a follower, or are you a leader?
Despite the fact that I spend a lot of time in London, Switzerland and New York, Africa is the place I know and love best, and my heart will always lie here.
The painful truth may be that Zimbabwe, the youngest of Africa's former colonies, has simply followed where the continent has led, treading the well-worn path beaten out of the lie that taking power from the colonialists and delivering democracy to the people are one and the same.
Africa was the most exotic place I could conceive of - the end of the world - and I knew I would go there one day.
I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.
As a young boy, I had strange dreams of affecting people and somehow being instrumental in changing the makeup of Africa and helping to improve life there.
I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted.
Filmmaking is a great adventure. I'm as excited as a kid to be given tickets to fly suddenly to England, South Africa, America, everywhere. I'm still a 13-year-old kid, flying.
So the experts think we could have an AIDS-free generation in Africa by 2015, even if the mothers are positive.
We know that all interracial groups in South Africa are relationships in which whites are superior, blacks inferior. So as a prelude, whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realize that they are also human, not inferior.
Any atrocity that's committed against one person affects us all, and we are becoming more of one society, of a global society, so something that happens in the Middle East or something that happens in Africa, something that happens in Asia, affects all of us.
I've been to Japan, I've been to China, I've been to Africa, I've been to the Middle East, I've been to Europe a little bit. I've never been to South America.
For most of my writing life, I've refused to allow myself to believe that writing was a significant form of action. I always felt very uneasy about the fact that all I did was write in a situation as desperate as apartheid South Africa. Whether I was correct or not is a different issue.
With the kinds of progress we're seeing in Africa, we have people who have a very high expectation, and often people think that, you know, things would happen overnight. But I want people to understand that sometimes it even gets worse before it gets better.
There's a belief that since Africa got a raw deal from the colonial West, then the Chinese must be Africa's best friend. But the evidence doesn't show that, and the main criticism is that they are building infrastructure in exchange for Africa's resources in deals that are structured to favor China.
For Africa to move forward, you've really got to get rid of malaria.
The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this, and mean it. We do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off - we do not have to stand for this.
The southward advance of native African farmers with Central African crops halted in Natal, beyond which Central African crops couldn't grow - with enormous consequences for the recent history of South Africa.
But since independence, Gabon is one of the few countries in Central Africa that enjoys peace and stability.
The Cold War was waged in a particularly brutal and cynical way in Africa, and Africa seemed powerless to do anything to stop it.
South Africa gives me a perspective of what's real and what's not real. So I go back to South Africa to both lose myself and gain awareness of myself. Every time I go back, it doesn't take long for me to get caught into a very different thing. A very different sense of myself.
There are few people who define the word, 'rock star' better than U2's Bono. He's revered the world over not just for leading one of the biggest bands ever, but for his very public work on behalf of the underprivileged in Africa.
