UN General Assembly
1959

108. It has been rightly said that the past year has been an African year. I think I may add that Africa remains the focus of international concern owing to the profound changes which have taken place or are about to take place and which will alter its whole aspect as well as its political and economic structures. The African peoples, desirous of recovering their individual and national dignity and of attaining sovereignty and independence, are being swept by a great wave of emancipation. That is a phenomenon characteristic of this second half of the twentieth century and it is to the credit of the United Nations that it has included among its principles that of self- determination and respect for the natural desire of peoples held under colonial or imperialist rule to, determine their own future. It is a particularly telling illustration of the universality of the Charter principles, which can be of one dimension only, a moral dimension that applies to all peoples on all continents, in all latitudes, regardless of their faith, the colour of their skin or their social system.