Nelson Mandela has passed away>>>MOD WARNING<<<

It should be noted that he didn't support, or take up, armed resistance until it became clear that attempts at peaceful resistance were simply being met by brutal violence from the government. It wasn't until AFTER the Sharpeville Massacre (when the police shot and killed 69 unarmed protesters) that he co-formed MK, believing then (understandably) that there was simply no alternative left to armed resistance in the face of the brutal suppression of peaceful protest by the government. He chose that course then only because he believed that no other course was available to resist an evil and oppressive regime - he had tried the way of Gandhi (and was influenced by Gandhi), but it was met with violence.

It is wrong to characterise him even as a 'terrorist turned peacemaker' (though that would be remarkable enough on the scale that Mandela achieved) - he worked through peaceful and legal means until he was about 40, and the regime became increasingly brutal in its responses to such peaceful and legal means. He was a peaceful, resolute man with a firm (and entirely just) goal who was dragged reluctantly down a path of violence for a period because there were no other choices left that could ever bring about change, and who reverted to type when the circumstances changed and there was hope of an end to apartheid through peaceful means. He reverted to those peaceful means, and brought about that peaceful transition. It is a truly remarkable human being who can now only do that, but also show such forgiveness, courage and wisdom in such a situation.

 

Mandela admitted he was not perfect. I loved that clip of one of his speeches when he became pres, "I come to you as a servant, not as a leader." Was Mandela an expert in governing affairs? Probably not (although I do not know enough about SA to know for sure, or to know for sure if he had the wisdom to appoint those who could remedy the problems you mentioned). But Mandela was a huge inspiration to many millions, if not a billion+ people. I think he handled this position quite well, as there have been many throughout history who have commanded his influence, but inspired millions toward violence instead...

 

agreed, if Mandela was a terrorist I guess that would make George Washington a terrorist as well... "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"...

 

Mandela made a step in the right direction, once he stepped aside, it was up to his followers to continue the forward progress. South Africa is where the United States was in 1870, they have a long way to go before they are where we are today, and even then, we as a society have a long way to go if we are to live up to the words of Jefferson, Lincoln, Gandhi, and Mandela.

He is definitely greater than many others, he is not the greatest. If you look at history, Nelson Mandela is in the top 99.999999% of all great humans.

Last night, before I went to sleep, I posted this to Facebook.

No one country populated by human beings can be the greatest. There are several good countries and even a few great countries, but no single country can honestly call itself the greatest. To do that is to deny that country's faults and thus do it a great disservice. No country should ever settle for the status of good enough, either. Every country can always improve, to deny that is to deny reality.

No human is perfect, and no society of humans is perfect, we must acknowledge our faults and move to correct them in a neverending process in order to be better than we were.

 

Lest we forget....or be deceived by the crocodile tears of the world's Netanyahus and Camerons.

 

I'm far from being one to defend the Tories, but there are some elements who are trying to use the PM's statement on the passing of Mandela as an excuse for political point scoring of the worst and cheapest kind. That is every bit as unjustified as those elements seeking to dismiss Mandela as something other than what he was.

David Cameron in 2006:

 

There have been rumors for years that Mandela's death will cause the violence against Whites in South Africa to increase exponentially into a race war:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-chilling-dispatch-nation-holding-breath.html

We shall see. Why are Americans lowering their flags to half-staff over the death of a foreign person?

 

Because our flag represents the values of this nation. We are showing our respect for the values represented by Mandela's life, namely anti-racism, peace, and forgiveness of oppressors. They align with our values. That's what we are saying when we lower our flag.

 

But no half-staff for Margaret Thatcher..........I guess her values didn't "align with our values"..........funny stuff. Does "necklacing" people with burning tires align with our values?

 

Dumb comment! Margaret Thatcher was a great leader. . .but was NOT an "ICON" and did NOT influence the WHOLE WORLD by moving a whole country from a state of disgusting racism and segregation to a Democratic country where equality, if not fully achieve, is at least much closer WITHOUT any blood shed.

And. . .what is it to you? Almost every country in the world is flying their flag at half mast. . .But because OUR PRESIDENT is Black. . .the reason he decided to do it was because . . .HE is racist?

How ridiculous can ANYONE become?

 

Well you don’t have to be black to be abused, not in this country anyway. My son did the right thing by walking to a bar a few miles away, had his brewskis on a Friday night and took the safe and legal route home. Without notice, a gang of cops swooped down on him five cars, seven officers, grabbed him slammed him on the hood, twisting his arms, the headlock, shining flashlights in his eyes – “where ya been tonight, boy?” He said – “I’m not resisting” as they pushed his face down against the hot hood of the cruiser. “I was at a bar, I have witnesses, I was there all night.” After sitting in the backseat for an hour, a local school boy rode up on his dirt bike and said, “No its not him, I know him.” After letting him go, the police captain who was present said, “Sorry, you fit the description.” Two girls were attacked in the old neighborhood. Imagine if my boy wasn’t white, it’d have been a rape conviction by a bunch of fat, lazy redneck donut eaters. The police captain offered a handshake, “Sorry about that,” as he crushed my kids hand like a vice. My son said nothing, smiled and strolled away down the catwalk to the adjacent subdivision, under a street lamplight singing the song “Big Brother” by David Bowie, as he flipped the pigs the bird over his shoulder -

“Someone to claim us, someone to follow”

“Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo”

“Someone to fool us, someone like you”

“We want you Big Brother, Big Brother”

 

She did, but I'm not sure she inspired on the level that Mandela did, across the globe. Mandela represented one of the greatest voices in history in the fight against racism. This is important, because racism still exists in our world. It is one of humanity's greatest problems, and it needs to be solved. When I look at history, I see racism as a big source of suffering for my fellow humans. Specifically, it is smart, charismatic people using their knowledge of racism to further their ideologies or ambitions. And it is not only the smartest, or most charismatic people like Hitler that cause the problems. Even small town leaders, and many other people on the lower end of the smart/charismatic/racist spectrum (although I believe some aren't even racist, but simply use the gullibility of the masses to further their own power ambitions) that are causing much suffering.

Mandela made much progress toward the solution of racism. Only Dr. King or Gandhi would be comparable. It is this uniqueness in the nature of his leadership in a cause that many other men and women (although considered great for other accomplishments), fail to make much progress on.

 

PR? Flags to AA instead of power and influence

 

Even as you write this ' land of hope and glory ' tripe David Cameron and his sidekicks are striving to dump the UK's human rights commitments and end freedom of movement within the European Union. Mandela is an icon of common humanity and multiculturalism- Cameron an idol of gluttons and xenophobes . As for Netanyahu praising Mandela for his ' peaceful resistance '- that promoter of ethnic cleansing has just been declared genocidal by courts in Malaysia. Mandela wasn't removed from the US State Department's terrorism list until 2008 !. It can't be coincidence that the country's first black president was in the ascendant. The world is polluted with xenophobia and racism still and when I point to the crocodile tears of its Netanyahus and its Camerons my only guilt is that of omission.

 

I saw the opposite last night on Newsnight. Dianne Abbott correctly said that the Thatcher Government was not supportive of him. However the conservative on the program claimed that secretly she always had been.

I can remember being appalled at how she actually spoke of him at the time. This Conservarive was trying to rewrite history with spin and dishonesty. Mind you most of it was rather easy to see as he would say things like Mandela wanted to be friends with her - believing it would seem that that put Thatcher, not Mandela in a good light. However when he started saying they were secretly friends while she was dissing him, he went too far. People who have not made their position clear before, have a right to their point of view whatever party they come from, but people trying to pretend the old Conservative party was not antagonistic to Mandela are being dishonest. Not forgetting that at this time the Conservatives were wanting to give our own blacks money to 'go back home'

RIP Mandela. Looking at some of the film of the violence before he was released what he did, did have the Gandhi touch and yes he will now be one of the most respected of the last Century along with Gandhi and King.

 

So there's no 'racism' in South Africa today.........you might want to sell that fantasy to the families of the thousands of Boer farmers who have been beaten, raped and murdered for no reason over the past few years.........how silly can ANYONE be......

 

Of course they are. The old Conservative party was certainly not supportive of Mandela while he was imprisoned, although they certainly did make efforts to work with him once he was released despite their previous attitude - that probably does say more about him than about them, but it should still be noted.

The point, though was that in 2006, Cameron said that they needed to learn from the mistakes the Tories had made over Mandela. Those attacking Cameron for saying nice things about Mandela now are accusing him of hypocrisy, and ignoring the fact that he had already said in 2006 that the Tories had got it completely wrong previously. That is entirely unjustified - his position now is entirely consistent with his previous position and statements, and entirely consistent with his previous admission that his party (under Thatcher) had got it wrong. Yes, the Tories did get it wrong in the 1980s, but Cameron has already clearly and openly admitted that - some are trying to accuse him of hypocrisy now on the basis that up until now he'd not been a supporter of Mandela, but that accusation is entirely untrue and unfounded. I'm no supporter of Cameron at all, but I am a supporter of truth, and I really don't like unfounded smear campaigns being used to score cheap and nasty political points at a time when we should be honouring someone like Nelson Mandela.

It's not just Cameron, either - people have been doing the same kind of political point-scoring nonsense across the internet in regard to the statements made by the other party leaders in the UK, and I personally find that utterly revolting and repulsive behaviour. That particular attack on Cameron is actually materially unfounded - most of the attacks on the party leaders have simply been irrelevant and offensive nonsense. If that is the kind of attitude that those people making such attacks thin they have taken from the life and work of Nelson Mandela, they seriously need to take a long, hard look at themselves.

 

An excellent summaryof the unseemly rush to bask in his reflected glory:

" Asked for his feelings on meeting the Spice Girls in 1997 – shortly after Mel B had compared their "girl power quest" with the anti-apartheid movement – Nelson Mandela obliged. "I don't want to be emotional," he explained, "but this is one of the greatest moments of my life."

The twinkly-eyed gag was taken at face value by the group and plenty of dullard commentators, who were bemused, when they should simply have been amused. Mandela was a very funny man. In fact, every time I read the remark again I find myself laughing – not at Geri et al, which says something about how Mandela elevates even the cynical, but with him, who somehow contrived to tread the most elegant path through the unique absurdities of much of his later existence.

Less adroit, it must be said, are many of those lumbering to salute him in death – a global throng of Zeligs, from politicians to press, whose lifelong reverence for Mandela as a man and leader of a struggle was simply failed by the greatest superlatives. How on earth did apartheid endure so long, younger viewers may be wondering, considering everyone who was anyone seems to have been on Mandela's side?

"Nelson Mandela was a hero of our time," intoned David Cameron, who went off on a jolly to apartheid South Africa in 1989, with all expenses paid by a firm lobbying against sanctions. "President Mandela was one of the great forces for freedom and equality of our time," declared George W Bush, neglecting to mention that the ANC were still on a US terror-watch list until 2008, which meant the secretary of state had to certify that Mandela was not a terrorist in order for him to visit the country.

You have to laugh – mostly because that is probably what Mandela would have done. How often photos showed him roaring with laughter next to fawning leaders or dignitaries or whoever wanted a piece of him that day. I always imagined him getting the cosmic joke of it all – here he was, feted often by people who either couldn't have given a toss in his darkest times, or had transparently wished him ill.... "

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/06/follow-nelson-mandela-laugh-rightwing-fawning

 

Not sure why. The whole world, even the US was against apartheid then. It was simply common sense.

I think it would be more genuine if people recognised where they had made mistakes - then it might be easier to believe genuine change had happened. In a similar vein a lot of people are hoping this will give an opportunity to South Africa to think again about how it is progressing. She did mind you suggest it would be best to release him but was with the US on sanctions.

They might be thinking about this

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/06/nelson-mandela-in-britain

though yes, you are right about the speech but it was not just the old Conservative Party. He himself had fed that. Now if he had said....I myself being young and not having had time to learn how to think for myself was misled, then he might have been being more honest....but people cannot do that can they and as they cannot people cannot look at their attitudes and so they repeat whenever it is in fashion. The Conservatives were nasty bits of racist filth to be honest - much worse than getting it completely wrong. They were so right wing, Britain had no need of a far right party - thankfully in those days and much earlier too the press in this country was liberal. We were fighting apartheid from at least the 70's, though at that time Mandela's name was not heard.

I like the truth as well and of course a person's death is time to think good of them. However these issues, that is racism is far from gone and it would be, as I said above also good if people did wholeheartedly admit where they had been wrong rather than hiding behind party lines. That would make it much deeper and underline that such policies are unacceptable today.

Well Cenydd, I have not seen them but possibly the reason is that this kind of behaviour is still going on and being condoned in the world. Mandela was for more than personal gain but for fundamental change. It was not so much the man as his message so if people praise the man but support the actions he fought against, apartheid and inequality, I think it is understandable that people would respond. They will not have heard his message but simply be responding to the 'glitter'.

 

what's silly is you making an incredible leap of logic claiming that all white victims of crime is race related, that's a really dumb statement...I don't even have to do a search and I can safely assume that far more coloured people are victims of beatings, rapes and murder...

 

cameron is playing for votes to the xenophobic English electorate(the conservative base)...it's become universal tactic identify special interest groups within the population such as xenophobes, religious fundamentalists, gays, lesbians, shop keepers, pig farmers, gay pig farmers, white gay xenophobic pig farmers, etc and then throw them a bone to appease them and gain their political support...all those groups small special interest groups which by themselves are insignificant added together become the edge required to win reelection....

 

I guess you missed the part about the ANC's theme song being "Kill the Boer".........here's a video of your hero singing it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcOXqFQw2hc

And the South African Commission on Race Relations has come out and said that the farm attacks are race related......

 

The reason that the racist right are trampling each other to pay tribute to Mandela today is that he was a freedom fighter who won. Otherwise he would have been a terrorist who lost. They'd have preferred the latter, of course.
Mandela left a powerful message which all oppressed people should take on board and utilise. There is no point in offering your poorly-armed bodies to your oppressors clubs and guns. Live as saboteurs.



http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/mandela-training-algeria.html

 

Which is exactly what David Cameron did some years ago now, and hence why it is unfair to target him with the accusations that some are doing.

The trip to South Africa was indeed paid for by an anti-sanctions lobby group, and that was the position of the Conservative Party at the time. Cameron himself was 23 years old when he was sent on that trip. He was barely out of university, and working for the Conservative Research Department. His 'fact finding' trip may possibly have been 'a bit of a jolly' at times for the 23 year old party worker, as has been suggested by some, but he did also meet and talk to opposition leaders (and union leaders).

He has admitted that the Tories got it completely wrong on South Africa. He didn't specifically mention the trip, but I don't see that makes any difference at all. He was a very young party worker sent out to work for the party on the basis of the party policy - it's not as if he had separately decided to go there for himself, outside of the party's policy and the party machine. It was all part of the same issue of the Tories getting it completely wrong at the time, and he has acknowledged that they had go it wrong some time ago now. Personal attacks on him as if he hadn't are simply unfounded, as well as being unnecessary at a time like this - there are more than enough things to criticise the Tories about in terms of their actual current party policies without having to invent imaginary smears on the basis of past mistakes that have already been acknowledged as mistakes.

 

Certainly an unfortunate choice of song to be used as an 'anthem' by the ANC, although hardly a unique example of a bloodthirsty revolutionary song continuing in use after the context of its writing (i.e. the 'Boers' being the brutal oppressors of the other races in South Africa, which they were) has ended. As I understand it, the ANC have now said that they are going to stop using it, having previously tried to defend it as a song excusable by its original context (and I agree that they were mistaken in trying to make that claim - it's use should have been ended years ago, as soon as apartheid ended at least).

The French have not yet given the same kind of undertaking about their national anthem, of course.