Nelson Mandela

Mugabe isn’t the only one!

Mandela was one of the few politicians I had any respect for,sure he started out on the violent side but he did renounce violence and in the end seemed to become a genuine statesman !
I am not watching any telly about him and I do not know too much about conditions in SA these days but if you want to point a finger at an african leader you could do no better than ‘EBAGUM’ – a little to the north…now there is a true bstard !!

So does South Africa hand out free food to those without work in the townships? I am not getting at you but asking how it works.

I have retreated from the TV over the Mandela mania. For gawds sake let it rest and concentrate on the UK. What has South Africa achieved anyway? It is still a violent starving place for the majority of its inhabitants who had hoped for better. Snapper I agree with you.

A small correction if I may…..

South Africa is one of the few places in Sub Saharan Africa that does not starve.

It is an exporter of food.

Starvation did not happen under Apartheid either, which accounts for an oft ignored and inconvenient point:

Black Africans from neighbouring countries would fight to try and get into apartheid South Africa, legally and illegally, to the point where the government of the day had to put up patrolled electric fences on the border to try keep foreign black folk out of apartheid South Africa.

The truth is often far more complex than the simplistic claptrap trotted out by the media.

Nelson Mandela chose the violent route…

Nelson Mandela was a terrorist and a murderer. He was head of UmKhonto we Sizwe, the terrorist wing of the ANC…

Thank you both for taking the trouble to make those ‘balancing’ posts…

…I don’t think either of your posts will make News-at-Ten…..but thanks anyway!

That is what I like about this forum; both the extremes of the spectrum, and everything in-between, are represented and then we make-up our own minds.

I have retreated from the TV over the Mandela mania. For gawds sake let it rest and concentrate on the UK. What has South Africa achieved anyway? It is still a violent starving place for the majority of its inhabitants who had hoped for better. Snapper I agree with you.

As surely as night follows day, some form of canonisation will follow – as it will for his fellow former terrorists, Adams and McGuinness when they depart this mortal coil.

Wilhelm.

Excellent and comprehensive viewpoint.

Free Mandela from my TV screen, even the Queen Mother didn’t get this amount of damn coverage..

People die, get over it World.

I did look up the A.N.C Moggs, and what they did to Men, women, and kids, ie, lighting car tyres which the victims had, had put around their necks. Horrifying, to say the least.Also found some very interesting stats.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

He wore nice shirts.

Snapper – interested in your observation about the country today. I am well aware that all in the garden is far from rosy but worse, more dangerous? Is that the view of the majority?

In the interests of being balanced…

http://thebackbencher.co.uk/3-things-you-didnt-want-to-know-about-nelson-mandela/

:0 he was a data base error 🙂
Error establishing a database connection

The problem you have is if you make a stand for what YOU believe in there will be others that disagree so to each other ones a hero the others an enemy.
Trying to get them to stitch together in some sort of harmony is probably the best you will get ,maybe he did it ,maybe not.

We just have to make sure that when the history books are written the true balanced picture come out

No, not stirring Moggy. Balance. Stirring is derekf who has all but called me a racist – my memory is not selective and I doubt you feel Griffin et al more odious than I do; can’t stand that fool or his views or his mates. Race has no part of this – a terrorist, be it mandela, bin laden, adams has the same contempt from me regardless. Terrorists and murderers do not become heroes to me.

My maternal family has been in Africa for over a century including part of that in south africa, I am not sitting with a media-created view of the place, nor from a rose-tinted colonial view. I find apartheid to be utterly contemptible too. Enlightened as I am about the reality I have also been through large parts of that country and spent time there and had, shall we say, experiences…I won’t expand, I do not wish to nor do I feel the need to. Oh, Charlie, I also disagree that South Africa is a better country now. It is a vastly more dangerous country now than it was before the nineties for all races.

Nelson Mandela was a terrorist and a murderer. He was head of UmKhonto we Sizwe, the terrorist wing of the ANC and South African Communist Party. At his trial, he pleaded guilty to 156 acts of public violence including mobilising terrorist bombing campaigns in public places. He refused to renounce violence and Amnesty International refused to take his case stating that it “could not give the name of ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ to anyone associated with violence, even though as in ‘conventional warfare’ a degree of restraint may be exercised”.

Now, I am not taking offence at any of the comments that might be construed as a bit personal towards me and I do not agree with the mantra about only saying nice stuff about dead people – hitler and stalin (not comparing them to mandela) are hard to be nice about for example. Nope, this is a discussion forum. At least discuss when confronted by an opposing point of view rather than condemn out of hand. I made my point, succinctly. I did not belittle anyone else’s, to which they are rightfully entitled.

For many years through the 1970s and 1980s I was predicting a racial bloodbath in S Africa as the only way in which apartheid could possibly end.

I am glad I was wrong. We owe it all to two men. Mandela and De Klerk

The thousands who outlived Mandela, who might otherwise have been hacked to death, necklaced, shot, disappeared in that strife, have good reason to be thankful for what he became.

Moggy

The necklacing, hacking etc were unfortunately by-products of the ANC’s path to violence, something that Nelson Mandela played a very big part in, unfortunately.
The very first recorded instance took place in Uitenhage on 23 March 1985 when black African National Congress (ANC) supporters killed a black councillor who was accused of being a White collaborator.

A favoured ANC terror tactic that resulted in untold misery.

Also, it is often overlooked that the the white poplulation voted for change in the March 1992 referendum.

Also overlooked is that the violence instigated by the ANC, as well as the external terror threat were actually not the primary driver behind change in South Africa.

It was very firmly the end of the Cold War that was the primary driver, with the communist threat receding that allowed change to take place.

Never underestimate the fear of communism had on white South Africans (private property, religion, etc…), particularly seeing as the ANC and the South African Communist Party were, and indeed still are, bedfellows.

As said, not being negative, but attempting to bring balance into the orgy of eulogising going on.

Nelson Mandela’s behaviour once released was exemplerary, again as mentioned.

You can’t say that…..well, not without backing it up with some facts!

At least it is nice to see that this forum has adopted it usual ‘balanced’ commentary on world events. 😉

In the interests of being balanced…

http://thebackbencher.co.uk/3-things-you-didnt-want-to-know-about-nelson-mandela/

For many years through the 1970s and 1980s I was predicting a racial bloodbath in S Africa as the only way in which apartheid could possibly end.

I am glad I was wrong. We owe it all to two men. Mandela and De Klerk

The thousands who outlived Mandela, who might otherwise have been hacked to death, necklaced, shot, disappeared in that strife, have good reason to be thankful for what he became.

Moggy

A good and balanced as well as true post. But I am, not sure that it detracts from most of the posting here, does it, as I suggested previously? He became a reformed individual and brought far greater enfranchisment to his country than it had ever had before. Yes, the scars are still there and will take a long time to heal but few would argue that South Africa is not a better country now and that is in large measure because of Mandela.

Moggy has a point.

To be fair and balanced about some of the uncritical eulogies going around, it is important to remember a few points.

Nelson Mandela could have follow two recent examples of his time.

Ghandi, who followed a peaceful route.
Che Guevara who espoused violence.

Nelson Mandela chose the violent route.
This went against the grain of the ANC at the time, and in fact alienated several of the more famous ANC leaders who rejected violence, and actually caused a little bit of a schism.

He was influenced, like Guevara and others at the time, by violent comminist or marxist doctrine.
This lead him and a cadre of others to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing dedicated to violence.

There is no dispute over this. He himself acknowledged this.

Some of the first victims of the new policy of volence were black pipeline workers killed whilst going about their job, feeding their families.
One doubts they, nor the hundreds of other dead or maimed victims that came after, will even be mentioned.

He was offered release up to 10 years earlier, with the only condition being a renunciation of violence.
He chose not to.

It is important, in this time of uncritical adulation calling him a saint, as witnessed right here on this forum (axel-edwards), to remember this.

He himself has always stated he was no saint.

So he was imprisoned for treason and violence. I’ve spoken to people who assumed he was jailed simply because he was black.
That is the level of ignorance out there.

His prison term, as pointedly mentioned by Nelson Mandela himself, was what turned him away from violence in the end. Toward a position geared more toward understanding the history and fears of the Afrikaner, of which Britain had dreadfully contributed toward in the lifetimes of many of the leaders of the National Party.

He was also aware that most of the cards were held by the NP government. That included a very strong military, police force, and not least, nuclear weapons.

He did indeed come out of prison a changed man, and South Africa can be thankful.
But the campaign of violence and violent disobedience, orchestrated by him, haunts that country today.

All these are verifiable facts, very checkable, and indeed, acknowledged by Mandela himself.

His path after release was exlempary, and he should be lauded for it.
But equally, the violence unleashed by him, that still haunts a nation today, should equally not be forgotten.

But the news media and certain sectors of the West will simply find it convenient to ignore these uncomfortable points, for either guilt or selfish reasons.

The uncritical sainthood bandwagon orgy will continue relentlessly, unfettered by inconvenient facts.

Which is something he himself never wanted.

I am sure that many are well aware but surely the fact that he determined to put the horrors of what was South Africa at that time behind him and seek reconciliation from all sides with de Klerk is what he is being mourned for. Yes one time terrorists do become statesmen of a sort – Adams and McGuiness to name two.

…[he] was, at one time, defined by the S African government as a terrorist.

Not sure I d take a great deal of comfort from that definition of a fact! 😉

But I take your (and, I think, Snapper’s) point about the ANC and terrorism; I wonder how many of those people mourning Nelson Mandela today, do so in absolute ignorance of his early political (and ‘military’) life?

I cannot claim any real knowledge myself, other than knowing what I don’t know, but it cannot just all be about ‘the Special AKA’ and ‘Free Nelson Mandela’!