Mandela - Sinner or Saint

[HoreTore]

\and you should not cling pointlessly to the past for the purpose of hating someone.

I feel that this is the essence of what Mandela stood for.

Mandela is one of the few, along with leaders such as Vaclav Havel, who, when given power in a revolution chose not to persecute the old regime, but instead seek reconciliation. In my opinion, that is a massive contribution to world history, and I hope we will see more of it. In addition to that, Mandela didn't offer just silence on the crimes of the old regime, like the Spanish did, but he instead sought the truth without punishment.

That is the reason I personally admire him. He was a proponent of seeking the truth for the sake of truth itself, not for punishment. I sincerely hope that this will eventually become the norm when a country moves from an oppressive to a free society.

I truly believe it is more important to establish the truth than it is to punish the perpetrators.

[Pannonian]

well thanks, no friend i dont mean BRITISH PEOPLE! i meant BRITISH EMPIRE! no government is REAL representative of its country (except like sweden & switzerland)!

i know its the british PEOPLE in the government, but power is different, yes i alwayse hate and criticize british imperialism, not me, anyone who really suffered their cruelty & injustice!

so CHEERS mate, i have no hate on British or American PEOPLE !
i just expect them more open minded and think more & deeply....

And you're trying to wriggle out of blaming Britain now that it's been pointed out to you that Mandela actually rather liked us. And FWIW, I'd like to see you explain just how the British Empire was to blame for his imprisonment.

The Anglos conquered the Boers after the 2nd Boer War, with the Union of South Africa set up after the political settlement was complete. The Union of South Africa was led by the following PMs during its existence.

Louis Botha (former Boer general)
Jan Smuts (former Boer general)
JBM Hertzog (former Boer general)
DF Malan (Afrikaner Nationalist)
JG Strijdom
HF Verwoerd (founder of Apartheid)

Verwoerd, the man who founded the Apartheid regime, was so much a part of the British Empire you profess to hate, that he pushed for and got complete independence from Britain, turning the Union of South Africa into the Republic of South Africa, thus cutting even the few remaining ties to Britain, in 1961. Mandela was sent to prison in 1964.

Yup, Britain is completely to blame for Mandela's imprisonment.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Mandela is one of the few, along with leaders such as Vaclav Havel, who, when given power in a revolution chose not to persecute the old regime, but instead seek reconciliation. In my opinion, that is a massive contribution to world history, and I hope we will see more of it. In addition to that, Mandela didn't offer just silence on the crimes of the old regime, like the Spanish did, but he instead sought the truth without punishment.

Absolutely. Whatever condemnations may be laid at Mandela's feet, it is impossible not to count this to his credit. History is NOT replete with other such examples.

I have long been awed by the efforts of the USA's founding fathers, but must acknowledge that our treatment of the Loyalists in the USA following the Revolution was far harsher (no death marches or ethnic cleansing but pretty vicious and confiscatory) than the treatment of the Afrikaaners by the ANC under Mandela. After our own civil war, somebody murdered the one leader who really wanted to be conciliatory, so we ended up with the Reconstruction. Again, not a series of pogroms, but pretty harsh and mean. All in all, the ANC under Mandela did something pretty special.

My concerns regarding S.A. now center on what the ANC will do without their living legend and moral compass. Will they continue the path he blazed, lapse into just another kleptocracy as have so many African states, or will his absence allow those with violent grudges to wallow in gore. I am hopeful, but concerned.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

And you're trying to wriggle out of blaming Britain now that it's been pointed out to you that Mandela actually rather liked us. And FWIW, I'd like to see you explain just how the British Empire was to blame for his imprisonment.

The Anglos conquered the Boers after the 2nd Boer War, with the Union of South Africa set up after the political settlement was complete. The Union of South Africa was led by the following PMs during its existence.

Louis Botha (former Boer general)
Jan Smuts (former Boer general)
JBM Hertzog (former Boer general)
DF Malan (Afrikaner Nationalist)
JG Strijdom
HF Verwoerd (founder of Apartheid)

Verwoerd, the man who founded the Apartheid regime, was so much a part of the British Empire you profess to hate, that he pushed for and got complete independence from Britain, turning the Union of South Africa into the Republic of South Africa, thus cutting even the few remaining ties to Britain, in 1961. Mandela was sent to prison in 1964.

Yup, Britain is completely to blame for Mandela's imprisonment.

I wish you would stop posting via mobile device. It prevents me from adding my "thanks" to your posts -- which are usually worthy of such.

[Pannonian]

Absolutely. Whatever condemnations may be laid at Mandela's feet, it is impossible not to count this to his credit. History is NOT replete with other such examples.

I have long been awed by the efforts of the USA's founding fathers, but must acknowledge that our treatment of the Loyalists in the USA following the Revolution was far harsher (no death marches or ethnic cleansing but pretty vicious and confiscatory) than the treatment of the Afrikaaners by the ANC under Mandela. After our own civil war, somebody murdered the one leader who really wanted to be conciliatory, so we ended up with the Reconstruction. Again, not a series of pogroms, but pretty harsh and mean. All in all, the ANC under Mandela did something pretty special.

My concerns regarding S.A. now center on what the ANC will do without their living legend and moral compass. Will they continue the path he blazed, lapse into just another kleptocracy as have so many African states, or will his absence allow those with violent grudges to wallow in gore. I am hopeful, but concerned.

If anything bad happens to black-ruled South Africa, it won't have happened under Mandela's watch. It would never have happened under his watch.

[PanzerJaeger]

This is like linking to Hitler for evidence of Jewish crimes.

Do you dispute the information given on the page?

How you or anyone else can look at those charred bodies and mindlessly parrot the whitewashed propaganda that has been built up around this man is beyond me.

[Montmorency]

look at those charred bodies and mindlessly parrot the whitewashed propaganda that has been built up around this man is beyond me.

Why does it escape you that this is your very fault here?

[PanzerJaeger]

Never mind.

[Strike For The South]

I agree with meine lieble

I'll expand after my final, quite possibly after a responsible pub visit because Im an adult

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

well thanks, no friend i dont mean BRITISH PEOPLE! i meant BRITISH EMPIRE! no government is REAL representative of its country (except like sweden & switzerland)!

i know its the british PEOPLE in the government, but power is different, yes i alwayse hate and criticize british imperialism, not me, anyone who really suffered their cruelty & injustice!

so CHEERS mate, i have no hate on British or American PEOPLE !
i just expect them more open minded and think more & deeply....

The British Empire sent Mandela to university and gave him the vote - the Boer took that away from him.

Don't get me wrong, the British Empire has a lot to answer for - but the British Government tried to prevent Apartheid, and was certainly not responsible for what happened to Mandela.

[Empire*Of*Media]

The British Empire sent Mandela to university and gave him the vote - the Boer took that away from him.

Don't get me wrong, the British Empire has a lot to answer for - but the British Government tried to prevent Apartheid, and was certainly not responsible for what happened to Mandela.

thats exactly to say, we should not blame Stalin for all his executions and crimes, because someone else has done the order!!
im sorry but, pretty much bad Idea!

i dont know for europe, but the rest of the world that has been colony of the brits, and have suffered much that the post can not take the whole of it, have the experience of their so called GOODNESS & KINDNESS!! and thats why much of their past colonies are in very good situation!! Look Africa & India & Middle East and South East Asia!
at least USA have colonies but they spare a little to the colony! but Damn britain plundered and drained all of the coloies resources without giving them a bit! and anyone who stodd for, would be jailed or killed!
after all of this, still not blaming Government but its agents?!

[Brenus]

“after all, your in US army, i should not expect better that you” I can’t stop laughing. You do not read my post do you? You just see what you want to see, like a good fascist, Stalinist or other tenants of dictatorships you are.

“so dont think i cant defend against u in reality” That is not the real point. You can’t defend because you have no facts backing what you say. And the reason is because you just go for insults and denials. You never answer a point, you just telling that the points others mentioned are lies without supporting it with facts.

“im a dangerous person now” You are part of a dangerous system of mind, yes, shared by the Stalinist, the Fascist and the Nazi. You think that verbal attacks and insults is enough to win a debate. The problem is that in real life it is true. As the Hitlerian Brown Shirts sung once “the street belongs to those who take it”. It is your attitude in each of your interventions.

“all you Imperialists are like each other! all the world is bad and should be offensed but NOT YOURS! you are GOD! maybe upper than something like GOD!! no one should criticize you or he is CONSPIRACY THEORIST, Fascist ,Dictator ,liar and anything to cover your crimes!” There you go, swiping generalisation, personal attacks and insults. You would have thrived under Himmler or Beria.

“then you would post a thread like "Mandela, a nigger bastard that stopped and destroyed imperialistic colonization of south africa"!!” I would have? So now, you know what I would have posted. The fact, but don’t let fact go against you, a mistake that fascists/Nazi and Stalinists never allow anyway, is I didn’t. And I wouldn’t. Your lack of knowledge and control is amazing. You imagine what someone you don’t know would write and you write it. What those remind me? Ahhh, yes, the confessions forced by the Gestapo, KGB and others Stasi on interrogated prisoners.

“if it would not be Mandela or martin Luther king and revolts of black people, you still would be racist like 200 years UK & US has been and had black slaves like your beloved George Washington and British empire! no difference between Roman Empire in Wild ages with you so called democrat and modern!so please dont say the holy name of Mandela, for your tongue has the dirt of lies and hate and blood of innocent people!” Again, personal attack again someone you don’t know. I will give a clue. You link two separate facts and you assume a lot: I went in Iraq (Kurdistan) and I was in the Army. Theses two real facts but they are not linked. All your mental representation of me is based on wrong guesses so your hate speeches against me fall flat.
I suppose it is fun for all the others members of the org who read my posts how wrong your insults could go. Ok, I can’t resist that to show you how empty your hate rhetoric is: I am not American, or USAnian, nor British.

[HoreTore]

Do you dispute the information given on the page?

How you or anyone else can look at those charred bodies and mindlessly parrot the whitewashed propaganda that has been built up around this man is beyond me.

Yes, I do dispute the extremely limited text on that site.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Mandela seems like someone who was going to engage in violent terrorism, but figured out that verbal propaganda works much better, perhaps during his trial. You can much more easily get the support of the western countries that way. I have to say the "inspirational" quotes are pretty inane, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” etc. It just seems like for whatever reason people have made him (with his help) into an icon or symbol of some spiritually redemptive story.

I have long been awed by the efforts of the USA's founding fathers, but must acknowledge that our treatment of the Loyalists in the USA following the Revolution was far harsher (no death marches or ethnic cleansing but pretty vicious and confiscatory) than the treatment of the Afrikaaners by the ANC under Mandela. After our own civil war, somebody murdered the one leader who really wanted to be conciliatory, so we ended up with the Reconstruction. Again, not a series of pogroms, but pretty harsh and mean. All in all, the ANC under Mandela did something pretty special.

alexander hamilton worked hard to defend the loyalists, and the confederate leadership was treated quite well. Considering how standards for that kind of thing have evolved over time I don't see why people are so impressed with mandela not turning out to be mugabe. The fact that there has been a lot of horrible vengeance doesn't make decent behavior saintly. I feel like in the normal course of events mandela and the ANC would be judged by how well they have governed the new south africa, and not by their rhetoric.

I don't mean to bash him, but he seems like gandhi or lincoln, one of those figures that gets built up all out of proportion, to the point that when people actually see that he was involved with terrorists at all they are shocked. The real things you would judge a person by get covered up.

[Pannonian]

The British Empire sent Mandela to university and gave him the vote - the Boer took that away from him.

Don't get me wrong, the British Empire has a lot to answer for - but the British Government tried to prevent Apartheid, and was certainly not responsible for what happened to Mandela.

Around the time Mandela was being sent to prison, Britain was honouring a black foreign citizen for his work against racism in Britain, knighting him, fast tracking him through the judicial qualifications system, and eventually making him a Peer of the Realm.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

thats exactly to say, we should not blame Stalin for all his executions and crimes, because someone else has done the order!!
im sorry but, pretty much bad Idea!

i dont know for europe, but the rest of the world that has been colony of the brits, and have suffered much that the post can not take the whole of it, have the experience of their so called GOODNESS & KINDNESS!! and thats why much of their past colonies are in very good situation!! Look Africa & India & Middle East and South East Asia!
at least USA have colonies but they spare a little to the colony! but Damn britain plundered and drained all of the coloies resources without giving them a bit! and anyone who stodd for, would be jailed or killed!
after all of this, still not blaming Government but its agents?!

No

The BRITISH Government was not responsible - the SOUTH AFRICAN Government was.

Like I said, under the British government Mandela went to university, passed the bar and had the vote - once Britain LEFT the Dutch Boers instituted Apartheid.

You're also factually incorrect - The British Empire never instituted a policy of extraction of resources - what they did was enforce trading monopolies that benefited British merchants, which the British Government then taxed IN BRITAIN.

You want to talk about former British Colonies?

India is the largest democracy on Earth.

Get a grip - read the actual laws the British government passed - or just read the wikipedia article:

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

Nobody's saying Britain was wonderful - but they were not responsible for Apartheid - SA has been self-governing since 1931.

[Empire*Of*Media]

“after all, your in US army, i should not expect better that you” I can’t stop laughing. ...............:

well here is not a place to stand against your insults and lies!

the interesting matter, is that all those things you accuse to me, its directly going to you, but i have forgot to tell it, or my bad english. anything, but you too (if we suppose i didnt!) brought facts! you only BOLD what you wish to offense! and did never replied to ALL of my texts! only your own lies or some bull shit from some imperialist British & American officers & soldiers and you call it HISTORY!! well, you know, i have an idea, go rewrite history, and say before the birth of GOD Humanitarian Imperialism (!!) of Britain & USA created human civilization! and make all of us relax not to debate with you anymore!

so....go one on your army's goal. Humanitarian KILLing and Plunder and putting shitt y lies in your own history books and nerve War!!
ah....another question....how many people did you beat ?! and more....how many people did you kill for your master?!


ah .......sorry people, i know this thread is not for this, but i cant stand ignorance and lie and hatred !

THE.......END of quarreling with Imperialist Killers.....

[HoreTore]

Brenus is French.

A Frenchman cannot serve in the US army.

[Pannonian]

Dang it, why did you have to spoil it? I was hoping for more words of wisdom from EasternKurdikus on why Brenus's American compatriots are colonising the world after dropping the BRITISH ATOM BOMBS on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Brenus]

“Brenus is French.” “Dang it”. Don’t worry; I suppose EasternKurdikus will find a way to turn it… He is full of imagination and has a fertile brain. I will be personally responsible for the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). It was nice to be qualified as a Imperialist Yankee. It was entertaining. Can't wait for him to adapt to see what are my crimes...

[Fisherking]

Brenus is French.

A Frenchman cannot serve in the US army.

Unless they have changed the rules recently, even you could serve.

[Pannonian]

“Brenus is French.” “Dang it”. Don’t worry; I suppose EasternKurdikus will find a way to turn it… He is full of imagination and has a fertile brain. I will be personally responsible for the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). It was nice to be qualified as a Imperialist Yankee. It was entertaining. Can't wait for him to adapt to see what are my crimes...

Didn't the French invade Cambodia during the 1970s? At around the same time when Mandela was rotting in a British prison.

"i cant imagine myself be in a Damn brutal BRITISH prison for 27 years, and then, after all suffers and tortures and insults those damn british imperialists did to him, for goddamn 27 years, and he forgive them all! he even did not insult his torturers!! " - EasternKurdikus on Nelson Mandela

[PanzerJaeger]

Is it still too early to discuss the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption that characterized his administration, or are we still in sanctification mode? What about Mandela's denial of anti-retrovirals to HIV positive pregnant women - pregnant women - one of the most heinous acts of evil committed by any post-war leader that ended hundreds of thousands of lives?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

... I don't mean to bash him, but he seems like gandhi or lincoln, one of those figures that gets built up all out of proportion, to the point that when people actually see that he was involved with terrorists at all they are shocked. The real things you would judge a person by get covered up.

That's a fair point. Like both of those others you mentioned, Mandela the icon is being distanced somewhat from Mandela the person. In my post above, I did start with a caveat that this was not the ONLY issue that defines Mandela's career -- though it is one aspect that I believe is worthy of much credit.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Is it still too early to discuss the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption that characterized his administration, or are we still in sanctification mode? What about Mandela's denial of anti-retrovirals to HIV positive pregnant women - pregnant women - one of the most heinous acts of evil committed by any post-war leader that ended hundreds of thousands of lives?

So long as you're also willing to discuss his complete about-face on the issue - in the context that the majority of governments had not got to grips with HIV in 1995

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...cy-on-hivaids/

"The most important thing he did was after his own presidency. He decided in 2001 that he was not going to be quiet about the etiology* of AIDS and the importance of treatment.

The fact that he stepped out and talked about this was enormously important. Before the opening of Parliament in 2002, he made a speech in giving his Health and Human Rights Award, which spoke about the importance of preventing mother-to-child (PMTC) transmission. This was at the very time that the Mbeki government was being dragged to court by the Treatment Action Campaign because it was refusing — on denialist grounds to give PMTC to mothers with HIV. So his intervention on that was crucially important.


President Mandela’s most decisive acts on stigma were fantastic. He donned the HIV Positive T-shirt in July 2002, and when he spoke about his own son, Matata Mandela, who died of AIDS. But those were later. And they were magnificent acts. All of that to his enormous credit. … Now just imagine if he had done comparable things seven years earlier."

You're confusing him with Mbeki - and they don't even look alike.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Is it still too early to discuss the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption that characterized his administration, or are we still in sanctification mode? What about Mandela's denial of anti-retrovirals to HIV positive pregnant women - pregnant women - one of the most heinous acts of evil committed by any post-war leader that ended hundreds of thousands of lives?

I'm not sure who was directly responsible for that:

Tshabalala-Msimang's administration as Minister of Health was controversial, because of her reluctance to adopt a public sector plan for treating AIDS with anti-retroviral medicines (ARVs). She was called Dr Beetroot for promoting the benefits of beetroot, garlic, lemons, beer, and African potatoes as well as good general nutrition, while referring to possible toxicities of AIDS medicines.[3] She was widely seen as following an AIDS policy in line with the ideas of South African President Thabo Mbeki, who for a time publicly expressed doubts about whether HIV caused AIDS.

"Science denial kills. More than 300,000 South Africans died needlessly in the early 2000s because the government of President Mbeki preferred to treat AIDS with garlic and beetroot rather than antiretroviral drugs (Chigwedere, Seage, Gruskin, Lee, & Essex,2008). "

But it does seem very out of place to me for people to reminisce with rose colored glasses, while there are such tremendous problems. Shouldn't they at least take the opportunity to criticize mandela's successors?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/wo...tion.html?_r=0

the new york times takes that approach in this article at least.

[PanzerJaeger]

You're confusing him with Mbeki - and they don't even look alike.

Please educate yourself on the subject.

At the beginning of 1998, a battle for the provision of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) by the South African government that would last for much of the following decade began. South African AIDS activists and researchers alike called upon the government to distribute an ARV drug called Zidovudine (AZT) to pregnant women. However, all ANC-led provinces rejected the use of AZT, based primarily on claims that it was too expensive to distribute. Moreover, Health Minister Dlamini-Zuma openly opposed the drug, and asserted that the South African government’s policy was to focus on prevention rather than treatment. This argument seemed illogical to the Health Minister’s critics, however, as the drug has been shown to dramatically reduce HIV transmission from pregnant women to their unborn children.

Note that this was in 1998, not 1988. AIDS had been a known quantity for years at that point, and there was absolutely no excuse for the death sentence Mandela effectively issued to those children. He and the whole ANC cabal should have been sent back to prison. And yet today, those with only the slightest grasp of what Mandela actually did spout off a sanitized version of history that has no resemblance to reality in order to turn this villain into a hero. Your idolization is patently disgusting, but history does have a way of revisiting such characters, and I have no doubt the truth will emerge.

No matter how hard you would like to, you cannot separate Mandela from his administration's despicable and deadly handling of the AIDS epidemic. And the fact that it got so much worse under Mbeki only reinforces his culpability in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of the nation's most innocent and vulnerable children. Indeed, even after the extent of Mbeki's AIDS denialism was revealed, Mandela threw his full support behind him when he was in a unique position to end the senseless killing.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Please educate yourself on the subject.



Note that this was in 1998, not 1988. AIDS had been a known quantity for years at that point, and there was absolutely no excuse for the death sentence Mandela effectively issued to those children. He and the whole ANC cabal should have been sent back to prison. And yet today, those with only the slightest grasp of what Mandela actually did spout off a sanitized version of history that has no resemblance to reality in order to turn this villain into a hero. Your idolization is patently disgusting, but history does have a way of revisiting such characters, and I have no doubt the truth will emerge.

No matter how hard you would like to, you cannot separate Mandela from his administration's despicable and deadly handling of the AIDS epidemic. And the fact that it got so much worse under Mbeki only reinforces his culpability in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of the nation's most innocent and vulnerable children. Indeed, even after the extent of Mbeki's AIDS denialism was revealed, Mandela threw his full support behind him when he was in a unique position to end the senseless killing.

...and then he recanted.

[Montmorency]

PJ, it's like you don't even read your sources or the posts in this thread.

Your pious moral fervor does you massive disservice and outs you as a hypocrite.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Interesting piece on the Mandela/British issue.

You can't distance Britain entirely from the South Apartheid regime. Its mistreatment of both the Boers and the blacks created the foundations for Apartheid. And yet Mandela obviously had some sort of appreciation for British society/politics and the role in played in ending Apartheid.

Anyway, next point. Panzer. I share your sentiments about the early Mandela, I don't get the mindset of people that think it is OK to kill civilians, even if they are 'collateral'. But I think the criticisms of his tenure in office are a bit tame. I expect there were important reasons behind him backing Mbeki, and he made the fact that he didn't support his position on AIDS clear enough. At the end of the day he could have gone the way of Mugabe, instead he made a functioning country that is (for the most part) better for the majority of its people than it used to be. His legacy is largely positive.