The other side of Nelson Mandela
- Thread starter Hedgehog
- Start date
I don't know to much about Him apart from His fight for Freedom.......Always 2 sides to a coin
A lot of the above is right-wing crap-trap ... Hedgehog, there are far more credible sources than a guy on Youtube with a video camera in his lounge...
1) any discussion about Mandela's actions NEEDS to be prefaced by an explanation of the human rights violations of the apartheid regime ... it's like discussing Allied bombing atrocities without the history of Nazi aggression
2) violence was a last option chosen by the ANC after decades of attempts at peaceful change were rebuffed -- the tactics were often unsavoury, but so were those of the Apartheid regime
3) ...also, if the WEST hadn't supported and SA goverment (for various cold war strategic resource and colonial reasons) , people like the ANC would not have turned to the Soviets Bloc ... there was no help to be had anywhere else.
If Cuba, Lybia, USSR were willing to help -- the help was greatly accepted.... my enemy's enemy is my friend, and the West has operated on that principle for decades. It made the communists in the movement quite strong, but in the end the change here was not socialist in any ways. -- one of Mandela's flaws perhaps was that he maintained an irrational loyalty to those who helped them in the past.
4) ... I do agree, and most South Africans agree, that he wasn't a saint (but then is NO leader or politician or man of power with a clean slate ... even revered leaders like Ghandi and Churchill have blood on their hands)
5) ... bottom line is still, that he was part of a group of remarkable leaders who took this country back from the brink of horrible civil war and utter economic collapse ...
6) ... the country may not be perfect and the current leadership a bunch of cleptocrats ... but the alternatives were much worse for everybody concerned ... some people have short memories.
I do agree that the mindless sanctifying on Mandela by the popular press etc is a little annoying, but this isn't the occasion for in depth discussion ... you mourn the passing of an undoubtedly great man and leave the discussion of the skeletons in the closet for another time.
1) any discussion about Mandela's actions NEEDS to be prefaced by an explanation of the human rights violations of the apartheid regime ... it's like discussing Allied bombing atrocities without the history of Nazi aggression
2) violence was a last option chosen by the ANC after decades of attempts at peaceful change were rebuffed -- the tactics were often unsavoury, but so were those of the Apartheid regime
3) ...also, if the WEST hadn't supported and SA goverment (for various cold war strategic resource and colonial reasons) , people like the ANC would not have turned to the Soviets Bloc ... there was no help to be had anywhere else.
If Cuba, Lybia, USSR were willing to help -- the help was greatly accepted.... my enemy's enemy is my friend, and the West has operated on that principle for decades. It made the communists in the movement quite strong, but in the end the change here was not socialist in any ways. -- one of Mandela's flaws perhaps was that he maintained an irrational loyalty to those who helped them in the past.
4) ... I do agree, and most South Africans agree, that he wasn't a saint (but then is NO leader or politician or man of power with a clean slate ... even revered leaders like Ghandi and Churchill have blood on their hands)
5) ... bottom line is still, that he was part of a group of remarkable leaders who took this country back from the brink of horrible civil war and utter economic collapse ...
6) ... the country may not be perfect and the current leadership a bunch of cleptocrats ... but the alternatives were much worse for everybody concerned ... some people have short memories.
I do agree that the mindless sanctifying on Mandela by the popular press etc is a little annoying, but this isn't the occasion for in depth discussion ... you mourn the passing of an undoubtedly great man and leave the discussion of the skeletons in the closet for another time.
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I do agree that the mindless sanctifying on Mandela by the popular press etc is a little annoying, but this isn't the occasion for in depth discussion ... you mourn the passing of an undoubtedly great man and leave the discussion of the skeletons in the closet for another time.[/quote]
Yes I Know you must be right, what I do know about him, a true great man who sacrificed 27 years of his life for a good cause
Yes I Know you must be right, what I do know about him, a true great man who sacrificed 27 years of his life for a good cause
Well said Rico. As I often tell people, there is a dark side to all men, and circumstances beyond their control, will bring this out of them. I know this from personal experience. It is one of the harshest realities I must deal with as I learn to cope with my PTSD.
