Mandela died

[FalconFN]

Anyone who advocates violence and I include all governments in that to bring people or countries to their way of thinking are terrorists.to enforce your views onto others by means of violence and killing is wrong whoever you are.

Generally I would agree with that statement but sometimes situations are more complex than that. If you were aware that in 1938 they were building a Nazi death camp and the only way to stop it would be to bow it up, would you? If you also knew there were 10 labourers building it at the time and that there deaths would save 100,000 men women and children, would you then? If some of those 100,000 were likely to be your wife and kids, would you then?

 

Very few would support apartheid so is armed struggle against a cruel and barbaric regime always wrong?

[lincs1963]

Adams & MacGuinness are bit players even by Irish standards certainly not even in the same league as Collins or O'Connell, the comparison has no merit Mandela was fighting a "Just" cause unless someone is going to stand up and defend Apartheid,

 

Bin Larden please have a word with yourself or leave the debate to the grown ups

 

The "Prominent & Iconic" status of Mandela flows from his magnitude for forgiveness his desire to find peace to act as a conduit to bring reconciliation to a nation and a beacon for a different option to the world when war and blood shed are so often the easy option.

 

Churchill certainly charismatic the right man for the job in 1940 talked a good game that said the UK kicked him out day after the war ended, he would struggle to make top 10

Well put. The day Mandela was released he could have turned SA into a bloodbath, instead he urged his followers to throw their guns knives and pangas into the sea.

[Kes]

Just been watching Tony B Liar - How I dislike that man.

 

Nelson Mandela was a good man - once a terrorist, then supporter of reconciliation, let down by many, he wasnt by Britain - many joined the fruit boycotts simply because South Africa belongs to the native population not a load of Boers.

You cant blame a man for fighting for what he believed in and he never thought to kill or injure despite the violence his people met from the white ruling class.

I think we need to be sensible here - he was very fond of Margaret Thatcher. She also fought for what she believed in and refused to join sanctions against South Africa - perhaps for commercial reasons but also perhaps because she believed sanctions would harm the black majority in SA, as she said at the time. She also told Pic Botha his days were over and secretly helped Mandela. She wasn't anyone's fool.

She was a good woman - he was a good man.

[Hamster]

DILLIGAF

 

bostinmick

Anyone who advocates violence and I include all governments in that to bring people or countries to their way of thinking are terrorists.to enforce your views onto others by means of violence and killing is wrong whoever you are.

 

 

 

bullet1747

plus one

Just so we all benefit from your combined wisdom, how would you have reacted if the tables had been turned and a white majority were being subjugated by blacks and apartheid were to be visited upon you ?

[955i]

I have to wonder how many countries see Britain and America as terrorists as they have an alarming habit of inserting themselves into wars that are really none of their business as long as there is potential financial gain!

Edited December 6, 2013 by 955i

[Tadorna]

He was viewed as one because he was one. By the standards of the day and even by todays standards. I don't think SA would be what it is today if Mandea hadn't mellowed out in prison - and anecdotally he has admitted that too. He was most certainly a firebrand in his youth.

 

Sadly, he did not testify in the TRC, but his henchmen did, so many facts did come out. The transcripts are all online.

 

Don't forget that credit should also be bestowed on the majority of South Africa's white population. They voted for change in a referendum, not knowing what the future would hold if here was a yes vote. I know - because I voted in that referendum.

 

In the end though, it was the best outcome one could expect, despite all the social and economic issues in SA today. It certainly brings up a lot of philiophical questions with regards to te differences between a terrorist and a freedom fighter.

Quite funny because I was stabbed 3 times in the chest by a black man on my way back to work after voting in said referendum. I was annoyed and wanted to change my vote.

[secretagentmole]

Last night thousands of British people were displaced by the largest storm surge ever recorded, a lot of land where I live was under threat of flooding.

What do we get instead? Hours of tributes to man whose organization's favourite method of punishment was to put a tyre full of petrol round their victim's body and then setting alight!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing

 

Not a man I think should be given hours of eulogy on TV when the entirety of the east coast of this country was under threat!

Edited December 6, 2013 by secretagentmole

[kdubya]

Last night thousands of British people were displaced by the largest storm surge ever recorded, a lot of land where I live was under threat of flooding.

 

What do we get instead? Hours of tributes to man whose organization's favourite method of punishment was to put a tyre full of petrol round their victim's body and then setting alight!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing

 

Not a man I think should be given hours of eulogy on TV when the entirety of the east coast of this country was under threat!

agree 100%

 

KW

[figgy]

+1 man was a terrorist in his younger days. The good people of this country aren't as news worthy as a very old foreign ex convict.

 

Figgy

[overandunder2012]

i would think most people considered the apartheid regime "terrorists" lets face it the only people who thought they were in the right was well the white south africans and a few other assorted extreme right wing nutters

 

the whole world condemned apartheid they cant all be wrong or maybe the apartheid regime where nice boys really just misunderstood, maybe they had difficult childhoods and some parental abuse could anyone these days really raise there hand and say apartheid was a great idea whatever mandela may or may not have done he had to be an improvement

Edited December 6, 2013 by overandunder2012

[shakari]

i would think most people considered the apartheid regime "terrorists" lets face it the only people who thought they were in the right was well the white south africans and a few other assorted extreme right wing nutters

 

the whole world condemned apartheid they cant all be wrong or maybe the apartheid regime where nice boys really just misunderstood, maybe they had difficult childhoods and some parental abuse could anyone these days really raise there hand and say apartheid was a great idea whatever mandela may or may not have done he had to be an improvement

 

I think it's considerably more complicated than that. Sure, Apartheid was wrong but having said that, RSA hasn't made a success of black rule and in fact, the ANC policies are often about reverse apartheid and anti white.

 

Africa, not just South Africa should and could be the most successful continent on the planet. It has endless minerals & precious metals, fantastic tourism potential, a cheap and plentiful labour force but instead it's a basket case that requires constant foreign aid.

 

No matter what African country you name, it was a safer & more successful country under white rule than it is under black rule........ That comment might not be politically correct but it is true.

[Vermin]

A very big +1 from me!

+2

[ordnance]

 

It is almost as bad as when Diana died.

I hope there isn't the same mass hysteria.

[bostonmick]

Generally I would agree with that statement but sometimes situations are more complex than that. If you were aware that in 1938 they were building a Nazi death camp and the only way to stop it would be to bow it up, would you? If you also knew there were 10 labourers building it at the time and that there deaths would save 100,000 men women and children, would you then? If some of those 100,000 were likely to be your wife and kids, would you then?

 

Very few would support apartheid so is armed struggle against a cruel and barbaric regime always wrong?

 

the second world war was an entirely different situation bombing and killing the ordinary people of the land is not war.perhaps you think that winnie was justified in her acts whilst he was in prison.terrorism.I worked with a white south African who has a passionate hatred of the coloured people of the country when I asked him why as we all live together in this country fairly happily he said his family were farmers in s/a they left their farm with just what they stood in.his fathers brother would not leave his farm and two weeks later he was dead and his head was on a spike ouside his farm.but of course this was in yours and mandela's view entirely justified.and just to keep all the details correct up until a few weeks before his murder he employed most of the people who killed him and treated them well.he had photo's to back up his claim.now that's terror

I have to wonder how many countries see Britain and America as terrorists as they have an alarming habit of inserting themselves into wars that are really none of their business as long as there is potential financial gain!

 

 

now now the usa and gb only go in if there is a oil gain to be had.

[Cottonseed]

For those who do not believe he was a 'terrorist' as we define it today:

 

 

I am not condemning the man. In the end, everything turned out well, but it does bring into question our current view and definition of 'terrorism'.

And Jesse Jackson is a chancer and charlatan. He ran away and hid behind a wall as Martin Luther King was killed. He hired a Chicago publicist that same day to capitalise on Luther King's death and bring him into prominence. He's the last person anyone should listen to--he's full of self-importance as well as ****.

[Greymaster]

RIP Nelson Mandela

 

arguably the most prominent & iconic political leader in human history

 

Arguably Genghis Khan

[Catamong]

I spent a large part of my life in Africa and anyone who thinks Mandela was a saint or anything close to it is a fool. He was the first head of the MK and there is no doubt he had blood on hands but that said, the handover of power would have been a lot bloodier without him.

 

Love him or hate him, he made a lot of significant sacrifices for his beliefs and the saddest thing is that those sacrifices were all for nothing because those came after him squandered those sacrifices completely.

 

Mandela's Rainbow Nation has been dead and buried for years and in it's place is a sewer of crime, corruption, murder and genocide and it's going to get a whole lot worse when Madman Malema & his Economic Freedom ****ups take power as he surely will one day..... and when that happens, God help SA, especially the whites in SA because he's going to make Mugabe look like a saint.

 

As to when Mandela really died...... that's a very good but irrelevant point. Most of the black tribes of southern Africa have a belief that when someone dies but can't be buried on tribal lands, they can take a piece of buffalo thorn (ziziphus mucronata) and lay it on the body of the grave of the departed and the soul is transferred into the branch or twig and that can then be taken to the tribal lands/family plot and buried in place of the actual body and the Mandela family gathering some months ago looked suspiciously like that's what was going on.

 

Whatever the real situation is, I wish the country and it's peoples a peaceful time in the next days, weeks, months and years.

 

I normally make a point of not commenting on any posts on this forum that are about politics or religion, but I will make an exception this time and have to say that as far as I am concerned this one really hits the proverbial nail right on the head.

 

Well said Shakari, my father served in the RAF during WW2 in South Africa, he loved the place and all of the people there, I am sure that he would be very saddened by the way that South Africa is now heading.

 

Cat.

[FalconFN]

 

the second world war was an entirely different situation bombing and killing the ordinary people of the land is not war.perhaps you think that winnie was justified in her acts whilst he was in prison.terrorism.I worked with a white south African who has a passionate hatred of the coloured people of the country when I asked him why as we all live together in this country fairly happily he said his family were farmers in s/a they left their farm with just what they stood in.his fathers brother would not leave his farm and two weeks later he was dead and his head was on a spike ouside his farm.but of course this was in yours and mandela's view entirely justified.and just to keep all the details correct up until a few weeks before his murder he employed most of the people who killed him and treated them well.he had photo's to back up his claim.now that's terror

I didn't mention the second world war, my analogy was with pre-war Germany where the law of the land subjugated many, due to their parentage, and stripped them of property, rights and dignity.

 

If I had worked with a black South African (I don't think coloured is de-rigueur) who had a hatred of whites due to the injustices he had suffered, do you think I would base my opinion of a race on that one man? No, of course not, I would look at the bigger picture.

 

Mandela's legacy isn't what he did as a freedom fighter, it is his capacity to forgive, accept forgiveness and encourage others to forgive that have set him apart. South Africa is in no way perfect, and it never has been, but it could have been so much worse.

[FalconFN]

Africa, not just South Africa should and could be the most successful continent on the planet. It has endless minerals & precious metals, fantastic tourism potential, a cheap and plentiful labour force but instead it's a basket case that requires constant foreign aid.

Absolutely right. 200 years ago it was Europe ravaging Africa for it's resources, now it's China. If a handful of neighbouring African states could work together, gain control of corruption and retain control of their mineral deposits they could be a global force as many new technologies rely on rare earth elements from Africa.

[maxie]

 

I think it's considerably more complicated than that. Sure, Apartheid was wrong but having said that, RSA hasn't made a success of black rule and in fact, the ANC policies are often about reverse apartheid and anti white.

 

Africa, not just South Africa should and could be the most successful continent on the planet. It has endless minerals & precious metals, fantastic tourism potential, a cheap and plentiful labour force but instead it's a basket case that requires constant foreign aid.

 

No matter what African country you name, it was a safer & more successful country under white rule than it is under black rule........ That comment might not be politically correct but it is true.

Try telling the native population of the Belgian Congo how safe they were under white rule.

[old rooster]

What an amazingly varied range of points of view being aired here! Got to say that I'm probably leaning towards the direction of shakaris comments, having listened to the story behind it all from my partner, who originates from SA.

 

Government corruption is rife and while Mandela in post terrorist years may have had well intentioned ideas they will never actually come to true fruition. The kind of westernised democracy they seem to be trying to follow just isn't part of their psyche.

 

Many white people fled and I know of some who suffered family members in remote farms butchered and their farms stolen. They were not allowed to sell farms that had been built up by generations and had to desert them or risk the same fate.

 

I'm not convinced that the country will even retain a veneer of peace now, we will have to wait and see.

[shakari]

Maxie,

 

No doubt the Belgian Congo had pretty much the worst white rulers and I'm not excusing that for a moment but they've had independence since 1960, so over half a century to get over the abuses and get their economy, democracy and infrastructure back on track and what's more, they've had endless foreign aid & NGO work & workers to help them do it.

 

Instead, the country has regressed to the current situation where the country is completely rubber ducked AND has been subject to a whole lot of genocide & VERY bloody murders & human rights abuses etc.

 

Now compare that situation to the one the USA was in after 50 years of independence......... and they did it all without a cent of foreign aid or help from a single NGO.

 

It might not be PC to blame Africa and Africans for Africa's woes but the truth is they are entirely to blame.

 

Or put it another way, can you or anyone else name me one single African country that has made a success of independent rule and has a firm, stable democracy and a Govt that is anything like free of corruption etc?

Edited December 7, 2013 by shakari

[aris]

Or put it another way, can you or anyone else name me one single African country that has made a success of independent rule and has a firm, stable democracy and a Govt that is anything like free of corruption etc?

 

No country is free from corruption - but Botswana does a pretty good job.

[Gimlet]

Absolutely right. 200 years ago it was Europe ravaging Africa for it's resources, now it's China. If a handful of neighbouring African states could work together, gain control of corruption and retain control of their mineral deposits they could be a global force as many new technologies rely on rare earth elements from Africa.

 

There's an international conspiracy of silence over Chinese imperialism in Africa. They are plundering the continent on a scale undreamt of by European whites. They prop up some of the most loathsome regimes on Earth and strip countries bare, strangling local democracy at birth and buying off world opinion with infrastructure "investment" which throngs with Chinese workers and Chinese traffic. Or colonialism, as it used to be called. If it wasn't for China's self-interest Mugabe would be in jail or on the of a rope.

And all to swamp the world's markets with shoddy consumer tatt and counterfeit rubbish; and the best we can manage is to ease our consciences by dropping pennies into Africa's begging bowl while sending our Prime Minister on a butt-kissing exercise to Beijing, to scavange a few crumbs from the table.

[shakari]

Aris

 

Is that the same Botswana that banned hunting recently so they could get the people working for the hunting companies out so they could in turn get the fracking companies in so they could prospect for gas and oil in areas they weren't allowed to?

 

http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=4495

 

Where we can see other examples of what happens with mining operations

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517740/Nigeria-threatens-new-laws-punish-oil-companies-spills-continue-devastate-Niger-Delta-region.html

 

The same Botswana that I've been going in and out of for 30 odd years and have never passed through a border post or stopped by a cop without being asked for a bribe to ease the way?

 

The same Botswana where the game dept are willing to issue a PAC elephant permit for 5 elephants for $50 cash without even setting foot on the area to check the damage?

 

The same Botswana where the President and his family can be bought and sold for anything whatsoever at the drop of a hat?

 

Trust me. I know Africa and Africans very well indeed and nothing but nothing is ever as it first appears or is claimed to be by them.

 

The only reason people believe Botswana doesn't have much corruption is because the Bots Govt claims that's the case.

Edited December 7, 2013 by shakari