RIP Nelson Mandela

Bleating Lamb

Sad to see a man of great esteem pass on,RIP Nelson.

moby2101

Christ, the man grew up in an apartheid world he served 27 years in jail and was the reconciling force that prevented a civil war meltdown...he has a place in history... may his soul rest in peace..

moby2101

The ANC betrayed Mandela.. he gave far too much away in negotiations to the white community.. SA is still the most unequal society on earth.. liberation, reconciliation ...yeah right!

Banjo String

moby2101 wrote: »

The ANC betrayed Mandela.. he gave far too much away in negotiations to the white community.. SA is still the most unequal society on earth.. liberation, reconciliation ...yeah right!

I'm pretty sure N.K (top of my head) pips them on that one.

FTA69

"During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it." - Lenin

Personally I find this revisionism of Mandela fairly nauseating to be honest. We are now seeing various members of the Conservative Party coming out eulogising him, calling him a "personal hero" and other such platitudes when it was only in the 1980s that the Young Conservatives were publishing "Hang Mandela" posters. Cameron himself was actually given a free-trip to South Africa by an anti-sanctions thinktank in 1989.

Even over on the After Hours thread we have people who are forever berating "terrorism" and bleating on about the joys of capitalism telling us he was a great man etc. We're in for a week of cringing platitudes and bare-faced hypocrisy I think.

http://www.latintimes.com/articles/10868/20131205/nelson-mandela-cuba-late-south-african-president.htm#.UqG8mNJdUU8

The above shows his fraternal association with Fidel Castro. It's also worth mentioning that Mandela was a great supporter of the Republican struggle here in Ireland and the ANC had links with Sinn Féin and the IRA going back to the early 1980s.

HansHolzel

Has Dick Cheney released a statement on Mandela's death? Ben Dunne? Margaret Heffernan?

*tumbleweed*

Sunnyisland

FTA69 wrote: »

Personally I find this revisionism of Mandela fairly nauseating to be honest. We are now seeing various members of the Conservative Party coming out eulogising him, calling him a "personal hero" and other such platitudes when it was only in the 1980s that the Young Conservatives were publishing "Hang Mandela" posters. Cameron himself was actually given a free-trip to South Africa by an anti-sanctions thinktank in 1989.

Even over on the After Hours thread we have people who are forever berating "terrorism" and bleating on about the joys of capitalism telling us he was a great man etc. We're in for a week of cringing platitudes and bare-faced hypocrisy I think.

http://www.latintimes.com/articles/10868/20131205/nelson-mandela-cuba-late-south-african-president.htm#.UqG8mNJdUU8

The above shows his fraternal association with Fidel Castro. It's also worth mentioning that Mandela was a great supporter of the Republican struggle here in Ireland and the ANC had links with Sinn Féin and the IRA going back to the early 1980s.

Agree,

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
Napoleon Bonaparte

FTA69

https://twitter.com/RetailExIreland

This is the best one yet. We now have Retail Excellence Ireland praising the role of the Dunnes Stores workers in popularising the apartheid boycott. No mention of course that Mary Manning was fired from her job for refusing to handle South African goods.

If Cameron jumping on the bandwagon wasn't bad enough, we now have bloody Netanyahu of all people telling us how much Mandela inspired him. Never mind the fact the Israelis were staunch allies of the apartheid regime.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.562059

Unbelievable stuff.

TOMASJ

FTA69 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/RetailExIreland

This is the best one yet. We now have Retail Excellence Ireland praising the role of the Dunnes Stores workers in popularising the apartheid boycott. No mention of course that Mary Manning was fired from her job for refusing to handle South African goods.

If Cameron jumping on the bandwagon wasn't bad enough, we now have bloody Netanyahu of all people telling us how much Mandela inspired him. Never mind the fact the Israelis were staunch allies of the apartheid regime.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.562059

Unbelievable stuff.

Hyprocrites is the only word to describe the crocodile tears shed by these morans,

They wouldnt have bid him time of day and now clamor to praise him

RIp Nelson Mandella, none of them could have laced your shoes

Fratton Fred

FTA69 wrote: »

Personally I find this revisionism of Mandela fairly nauseating to be honest. We are now seeing various members of the Conservative Party coming out eulogising him, calling him a "personal hero" and other such platitudes when it was only in the 1980s that the Young Conservatives were publishing "Hang Mandela" posters. Cameron himself was actually given a free-trip to South Africa by an anti-sanctions thinktank in 1989.

Even over on the After Hours thread we have people who are forever berating "terrorism" and bleating on about the joys of capitalism telling us he was a great man etc. We're in for a week of cringing platitudes and bare-faced hypocrisy I think.

http://www.latintimes.com/articles/10868/20131205/nelson-mandela-cuba-late-south-african-president.htm#.UqG8mNJdUU8

The above shows his fraternal association with Fidel Castro. It's also worth mentioning that Mandela was a great supporter of the Republican struggle here in Ireland and the ANC had links with Sinn Féin and the IRA going back to the early 1980s.

I wouldn't disagree. I also find it sickening that people are.hanging on to a.great.statesman's coat tails to try and score a few points.

Fr Tod Umptious

FTA69 wrote: »

Personally I find this revisionism of Mandela fairly nauseating to be honest. We are now seeing various members of the Conservative Party coming out eulogising him, calling him a "personal hero" and other such platitudes when it was only in the 1980s that the Young Conservatives were publishing "Hang Mandela" posters. Cameron himself was actually given a free-trip to South Africa by an anti-sanctions thinktank in 1989.

Even over on the After Hours thread we have people who are forever berating "terrorism" and bleating on about the joys of capitalism telling us he was a great man etc. We're in for a week of cringing platitudes and bare-faced hypocrisy I think.

http://www.latintimes.com/articles/10868/20131205/nelson-mandela-cuba-late-south-african-president.htm#.UqG8mNJdUU8

The above shows his fraternal association with Fidel Castro. It's also worth mentioning that Mandela was a great supporter of the Republican struggle here in Ireland and the ANC had links with Sinn Féin and the IRA going back to the early 1980s.

I also thing that this hypocrisy is stifling the debate about his legacy today
In the mainsteream media no one is willing to talk about his links with the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).
Which is a pity because I for one would like to find out more about his past and how involved he actually was in physical force activities

FTA69

On a more hilarious note, I posted a query on Chris De Burgh's Facebook page as to why he broke the boycott in 1986 to play in Johannesburg. Luckily for me I got a personalised response from the man himself (apparently he was "fact finding") as well as being barred from his page.

Lockstep

The rush for people on Facebook to post quotes by him was fairly bizarre, especially by people who oppose everything the man stands for.

jank

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I wouldn't disagree. I also find it sickening that people are.hanging on to a.great.statesman's coat tails to try and score a few points.

Yes, I am pretty sure that Hamas will tweet any day their own R.I.P and try and draw comparisons between his struggle and their struggle to drive the Jews from Israel.

Nodin

FTA69 wrote: »

On a more hilarious note, I posted a query on Chris De Burgh's Facebook page as to why he broke the boycott in 1986 to play in Johannesburg. Luckily for me I got a personalised response from the man himself (apparently he was "fact finding") as well as being barred from his page.

A vast trove of historically accurate (if colourfully phrased) comments have been removed from said page in the interim.

NUTLEY BOY

Legacy is what you leave behind. What is his legacy to modern SA ?

Nodin

NUTLEY BOY wrote: »

Legacy is what you leave behind. What is his legacy to modern SA ?

A democratic relatively stable country that emerged from centuries of repression without a bloodbath.

Eggy Baby!

"During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it." - Lenin

Thanks for that quote FTA!

Legacy is what you leave behind. What is his legacy to modern SA ?

He managed to end the institutionalised apartheid system without a massive, bloody blacks v whites civil war. He resisted the urges to punish the whites in South Africa (a temptation which influenced leaders like Mugabe) and instead strove to create a tolerant society out of what existed before...

I have noticed that usually that corrupt, lacklustre personalities like Obama, Cameron etc. come out and express their love for figures such as Mandela when they die. All they want to do is piggyback off the achievements of great men of integrity, ambition and achievement. Figures like Obama and Cameron aren't fit to clean Mandela's toiletbowl

Nodin

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

Thanks for that quote FTA!



He managed to end the institutionalised apartheid system without a massive, bloody blacks v whites civil war. He resisted the urges to punish the whites in South Africa (a temptation which influenced leaders like Mugabe) and instead strove to create a tolerant society out of what existed before...

Not only did he stop reprisals against whites, there was no reprisals against those actively involved in some of the worst deeds of the apartheid regime.

Fr Tod Umptious

Nodin wrote: »

Not only did he stop reprisals against whites, there was no reprisals against those actively involved in some of the worst deeds of the apartheid regime.

Very true
But that in mind, now that he is gone well certain less tolerant elements come to the fore.

I have often heard it suggested that respect for Mandela is the only reason that there are not more vocal anti white black leaders like that ANC guy who sings "Shoot the Boer", can't remember his name at the moment.

Nodin

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Very true
But that in mind, now that he is gone well certain less tolerant elements come to the fore.

I have often heard it suggested that respect for Mandela is the only reason that there are not more vocal anti white black leaders like that ANC guy who sings "Shoot the Boer", can't remember his name at the moment.

Julius Malema. Expelled from the ANC for life.

Fratton Fred

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Very true
But that in mind, now that he is gone well certain less tolerant elements come to the fore.

I have often heard it suggested that respect for Mandela is the only reason that there are not more vocal anti white black leaders like that ANC guy who sings "Shoot the Boer", can't remember his name at the moment.

There were also high profile white anti apartheid activists as well, people like Donald.Woods, Trevor Huddlestone, the leader of the opposition Helen Zille and the organisation Black Sash.

gizmo555

Fratton Fred wrote: »

There were also high profile white anti apartheid activists as well, people like Donald.Woods, Trevor Huddlestone, the leader of the opposition Helen Zille and the organisation Black Sash.

Don't forget husband & wife Ruth First & Joe Slovo. Ruth was assassinated in 1982 by the South African security services in Mozambique.

grainnewhale

FTA69 wrote: »

Personally I find this revisionism of Mandela fairly nauseating to be honest. We are now seeing various members of the Conservative Party coming out eulogising him, calling him a "personal hero" and other such platitudes when it was only in the 1980s that the Young Conservatives were publishing "Hang Mandela" posters. Cameron himself was actually given a free-trip to South Africa by an anti-sanctions thinktank in 1989.

Even over on the After Hours thread we have people who are forever berating "terrorism" and bleating on about the joys of capitalism telling us he was a great man etc. We're in for a week of cringing platitudes and bare-faced hypocrisy I think.

http://www.latintimes.com/articles/10868/20131205/nelson-mandela-cuba-late-south-african-president.htm#.UqG8mNJdUU8

The above shows his fraternal association with Fidel Castro. It's also worth mentioning that Mandela was a great supporter of the Republican struggle here in Ireland and the ANC had links with Sinn Féin and the IRA going back to the early 1980s.

Well white south Africans did give arms to the loyalist.

FTA69

grainnewhale wrote: »

Well white south Africans did give arms to the loyalist.

They did indeed. They were given in return for missile technology plans that Loyalists stole out of a munitions factory in Newtownards.

A Primal Nut

Some of the wild accusations against him are mostly by people he think they know more than everyone else because they read a couple of things online by writers who clearly have an agenda.

Most of the criticism is guilt by association which is hard to avoid if you are fighting a revolution - of course there are going to be extremist elements but the point is Mandela represented the more moderate side. Using necklacing, his allies' human rights abuses, and the genuine problems South Africa currently have is attempting to tar him with guilt by association; of course he allied himself with all kinds of people; it doesn't harm his legacy. If anything, it reinforces the fact that he is a symbol of reconciliation. It's interesting that the same people who criticise him for being friendly with Fidel Castro, are not criticising him for being friendly with some of the most brutal apartheid leaders who repressed millions of people, including Mandela himself.

Also have to laugh at people saying he is a communist. Yes he had communist allies but he was also friends with anti-communist revolutionaries such as Vaclav Havel. He's hardly the first person to form strange alliances because of a common enemy - Churchill and Stalin is the most obvious example. Also, I don't see anyone criticising the Irish government for going to trade missions to the ultra repressive Saudi government. There is nothing wrong with forming an alliance if it helps your own interests; every leader does it at some point. If you really think governments, revolutionaries or world leaders shouldn't form alliances with human rights abusers, then try to apply it consistently and you would have all sorts of problems.

Then there are his actions. With so much support behind him it wouldn't have been difficult to form a communist dictatorship; instead he allowed the free market, free elections, freedom of speech and stepped down after one term. It's as far away from the communist dictatorship his critics claim he wanted as it's possible to get.