South Africa's Nelson Mandela dies | Hacker News Reader

South Africa's Nelson Mandela dies

bbc.co.uk

1,137 pointsantr341 comments

Mandela reminds us that it's possible for a single man to create peace amidst a huge push for war. Forgiveness is the first step in changing a society, without it we are doomed to repeat the failures of our ancestors.

He continues to be an inspiration, particularly us Africans. Rest in peace Madiba.

Do not allow liberals to sanitise history. Mandela was a symbol of non-peaceful resistance and of the progress that it can bring.

Do not allow liberals to do anything. Safer that way.

Do not allow anyone to do anything. Safer that way.

/reductio-ad-fascism

Ha ha. Fair point.

U.S. GOP strategy summed up right there.

You say it like it's a bad thing.

Regardless of the success of one side's v.s. the other side's policies, a system which seeks to prevent either political "side" from accomplishing anything can hardly be called democratic. Only by honestly attempting mutually exclusive policies can we discover their efficacy in the real world. I think your eagerness to see a substantial proportion of the population lose their political agency to be far more disturbing than any particular political issue.

Oh, some may want to remain neutral but I assure you, it is a bad thing. I found one of your compatriots on C-SPAN the other day, a member of House, saying he thought the solution to the Iranian problem is a series of "small" tactical nuclear strikes. Sounds like a winner party you have there.

http://santee.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/dunc...

> Mandela was a symbol of non-peaceful resistance

Yes, and:

"Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated as "Spear of the Nation") was the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), co-founded by Nelson Mandela, fought against the South African government....

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

Indeed, let's not allow anyone to sanitise history. It's a fact that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and PW Botha all called him a terrorist.

While this is true, the remarkable part about Mandela is that his greatest accomplishments came 27 years after leaving the path of violence. He left prison not seeking revenge when it was possible, but offering forgiveness and hope.

Mandela was a pragmatist. Non-violence was a tactic that fit the strategic need.

tactic yes, but also a great appeal to his humanist intellectual position.

He could've been out of jail in a moment if he ever wanted to be a pragmatist.

Would leaving jail under those circumstances have helped his cause? If not, then doing so would not have been pragmatic.

I'm not sure that being called a terrorist by PW Botha is all that meaningful.

True, but Reagan and Thatcher's statements had economic and military impact.

The Reagan administration implemented the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.

The Act that Reagan himself vetoed, yes.

Reagan's explanation for vetoing is the same that many on the left use for advocating removal of the Cuba sanctions: they hurt the people more than they help.

Reagan's real reason (as opposed to his explanation) was that during the cold war the USA would support any regime even really shitty ones like Pinochet in Chile or the National Party of South Africa that was openly anti-communist.

Reagan actually vetoed it, what i find funny is this line: " President Reagan enlisted South African foreign minister Pik Botha to call Republicans on the fence." Pik Botha was one of the hardest apartheid officials, he held out until the end and wanted war. Source below.

'''Veto by President Reagan[edit] Reagan vetoed the compromised bill on September 26, calling it "economic warfare" and alleging that it would mostly hurt the impoverished black majority and lead to more civil strife.[10] He again offered to impose sanctions via executive order, while also working with Senate Republicans on concessions to avoid them overriding his veto. Reagan's veto was attacked harshly by anti-Apartheid leaders like Desmond Tutu who said Reagan would be "judged harshly by history".[11] In the week leading up to the subsequent vote, President Reagan enlisted South African foreign minister Pik Botha to call Republicans on the fence, though this was seen to backfire.[12] Veto override[edit] Reagan's veto was overridden by Congress (by the Senate 78 to 21, the House by 313 to 83) on October 2.[13] This override marked the first time in the twentieth century that a president had a foreign policy veto overridden.[2] Apartheid opponents in America and South Africa applauded the vote, while critics argued that it would be either ineffectual or lead to more violence.[12][14]'''

All true. The American and UK right-wing lead by Reagan and Thatcher were hugely influential in supporting the apartheid regime - they may have been nasty but they were at least anti-communist.

It is not a coincidence that after the Berlin wall fall and the "threat of communism" receded, a political settlement became possible in South Africa. The cold war has a lot to answer for.

I can't reply to your statement below for some reason but Reagan vetoed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid act. His veto was overridden by congress.

Well put.

It's a fact that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and PW Botha all called him a terrorist.

Is a bit like being called a wanker by Onan.

edit - pekk, it won't let me reply at the moment, but in answer to your comment, Thatcher was no idiot by any stretch of the imagination, but she did send the SAS to train Pol-Pot led forces, while Reagan put up the money, so I think she definitely had more than a little blood on her hands. - http://www.newstatesman.com/node/137397

In hindsight, yes.

Margaret Thatcher (to pick one) was a terrible idiot, but not a terrorist.

Terrorism is a term used to describe almost exclusively violence conducted at the intersection of non-state endorsement and non-Western. A definition of terrorism which is derived from the impact and motivations of the violence would be impossible: state-sanctioned and non-sanctioned violence are separated by very blurry lines in those dimensions.

Therefore to say Margeret Thatcher is not a terrorist is like saying "blue things are not yellow." Duh. The term exists specifically to describe violence conducted by people who are not Thatchers.

> Therefore to say Margeret Thatcher is not a terrorist is like saying "blue things are not yellow." Duh. The term exists specifically to describe violence conducted by people who are not Thatchers.

Unless you're Mark Thatcher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thatcher#2004_Equatorial_G...

Margaret Thatcher's rule started in May 1979, the genocide in Cambodia ended in 1979, the Khmer Rouge were defeated in January 1979 by the Vietnamese army. Blaming the genocide on Thatcher is one of the most ridiculous and intellectually dishonest anti-Thatcher argument I've read yet.

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

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

Also, if you're going to judge statesmen by the regimes they supported, then you should know that Mandela was a big supporter of Cuba's Castro, Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi and North Korea. Does that make Mandela a horrible man or statesman? Probably not, you'd be hard put to find a single statesman in history who never supported at least one evil regime.

I didn't say that Thatcher was responsible for Cambodia's Year Zero. As you rightly say, she gave Pol-Pot support after Year Zero. At least the folk who gave him support before that have the excuse that they didn't know how he was going to turn out.

Year Zero corresponds to 1975, starts of the genocide, saying that she helped Pol Pot after Year Zero is disingenuous. She went into power in May 1979, when the genocide was over and the Khmer Rouge overthrown. So she had nothing to do with the killings. Also, the newstatesmen is highly leftist and the article very messy. I couldn't find any other source verifying all of these claims or to what extend did she personally help anything.

Also, the newstatesmen is highly leftist and the article very messy. I couldn't find any other source

from that article -

Until 1989, the British role in Cambodia remained secret. The first reports appeared in the Sunday Telegraph, written by Simon O'Dwyer-Russell, a diplomatic and defence correspondent with close professional and family contacts with the SAS. He revealed that the SAS was training the Pol Pot-led force. Soon afterwards, Jane's Defence Weekly reported that the British training for the "non-communist" members of the "coalition" had been going on "at secret bases in Thailand for more than four years". The instructors were from the SAS, "all serving military personnel, all veterans of the Falklands conflict, led by a captain".

Or is The Telegraph and Jane's Defence Weekly still too left wing for you?

> Indeed, let's not allow anyone to sanitise history. It's a fact that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and PW Botha all called him a terrorist.

That says more about them than it says about Mandela.

What's more, he was on the US terrorist list until 2008.

I think the fact that Mandela was on it until 2008 is pretty much all you need to know about the US terrorist list. It can't be a very good list.

One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. But Mandela fought for a very important cause: the freedom of an oppressed people. And he always used the most effective and appropriate weapons to fight that fight.

Anyone who calls him a terrorist is a crook.

I have no views on political matters but anyone who feels oppressed and fights back would by your argument be perfectly acceptable and their violence legitimate. If I feel oppressed, is violence by me perfectly acceptable? I suppose it depends who is defining what "oppressed" means.

It's not about feeling oppressed, it's about being oppressed, and not having any democratic means to change it. Use the soap box and the ballot box first. It's only when they take away your right to vote and your right to express your political ideas, that violence becomes your only option for change.

The US is a symbol of non-peaceful dominance but somehow, thats okay, because 'destroying WMDs' or 'getting rid of the Taliban' are all better reasons to use violence than decades of systematic oppression.

His peaceful assumption of power and non-violent transition of government are his lasting legacies. His violent struggle which resulted in his imprisonment became his advocacy for peaceful transformation. As the movement became focused on peaceful resistance it gained moral weight against the brutal violence perpetrated by the South African government.

Emphasizing the non-peaceful roots, and the fact that there was much violence in the struggle against the oppression of apartheid is to ignore his own words on the topic and to only tell half a story.

Mandela's address after being released from prison emphasises the need for continuing struggle against oppression and is completely devoid of pacifist white washing: http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=4520

An unfortunate turn of phrase, but it's not about pacifist white washing... his release from prison was into a society where apartheid had yet to be removed and he advocated that in many circumstances people need to use force to defend themselves against oppression for most of his life. The point is that it takes a certain obtuseness to focus on that when his crowning achievement was avoiding a bloodbath on transition away from South Africa, choosing instead a path of peace and reconciliation.

Also your flame-baiting attack on liberals is very confused - the key criticism by conservatives against liberals on this topic, for years, was their support for a terrorist who advocated violence, thereby themselves supporting violence. The truth is nuanced, but not to such a degree that it's incomprehensible to ordinary people.

The word "struggle" occurs 16 times in that speech, and while it is not "pacifist", it is not "guerilla" either. The word covers every means of bringing about the end of Apartheid and start of democracy, from campaigning for votes through negotiations and yes, "Armed struggle". e.g. "mass marches and other forms of struggle" It refers to every means of bringing about the right ends.

There's a paragraph near the end starting "Our struggle has reached a decisive moment...". I read it as "keep your guns, they're what's keeping those guys at the negotiating table.". He was a smart politician, neither dogmatically for violence ... or dogmatically against it.

Your reading of that speech is incredible -- literally lacking credibility. No person familiar with the English language could reasonably conclude that it is in any way a call to arms. "Struggle" is a word with many connotations, something that you certainly must know already. Therefore, to me it's clear that you're attempting to manufacture a narrative in spite of the facts: the man became president of a majority black nation and could easily, if he was so vengeful as you'd like to portray him, have commanded force against his former jailers.

" Our resort to the armed struggle in 1960 with the formation of the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, was a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid. The factors which necessitated the armed struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue. We express the hope that a climate conducive to a negotiated settlement will be created soon so that there may no longer be the need for the armed struggle.

Can you please elaborate on this? The ANC (Mandela's political party) including Mandela himself certainly committed a wide range of violent acts in response to a vast display of vile force from the ruling South African government. However the respect that Mandela receives is for his actions after he was released from prison. After winning political power democratically, he was in a strong position to take retribution on those that had imprisoned him and caused such misery and hardship to his people.

But he didn't. He tried to bridge the huge divide. At the time, and I speak as someone who was living through it, there was a real fear that the country would erupt into a civil war. There was so much hate on both sides. It is widely believed by people from all South African political views that Mandela was responsible for reconciling the opposing sides and beginning a path of building a new country.

Was he perfect? Of course not. But he achieved what so many deemed impossible in a noble manner and this is extremely rare in political leaders anywhere in the world.

What I found interesting from reading his autobiography is that he didn't consider non-violence to be an end in itself. Rather he viewed it as one tool among many.

Edit: found the citation. http://books.google.com/books?id=RHwLqVrnXgIC&lpg=PT189&dq=l...

>Others said that we should approach this issue not from the point of view of principles but of tactics, and that we should employ the method demanded by the conditions. If a particular method or tactic enabled us to defeat the enemy, then it should be used. In this case, the state was far more powerful than we, and any attempts at violence by us would be devastatingly crushed. This made nonviolence a practical necessity rather than an option. This was my view, and I saw nonviolence in the Gandhian model not as an inviolable principle but as a tactic to be used as the situation demanded. The principle was not so important that the strategy should be used even when it was self- defeating, as Gandhi himself believed. I called for nonviolent protest for as long as it was effective. This view prevailed, despite Manilal Gandhi's strong objections.

Effective exercise of leadership is more like a dance than doing steps. Rather than doing one step correctly, try to dance to music.

There is no ONE correct solution for every situation. Sometime peaceful non-violence is required, sometimes using high tech solution is appropriate to make things more productive, and sometime military force is required to defend one self.

Rather than standing behind one principle, try addressing the concerns of relevant parties.

Leadership is granted by those people who lead you and those whom you lead.

  "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to
   change the world."

   - Nelson Mandela

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies." - Nelson Mandela

Mandela founded the MK, a terrorist organization that bombed both military and civilian targets.

Mandela: "...without violence ... no way ... to succeed in .. struggle against ... white supremacy."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkhonto_we_Sizwe#Motivation_fo...

He might have turned into a pacifist, at some point, but he certainly gained political capital, intially, through violence. As with Arafat, I think he reached a point where violence as a tactic wasn't possible or useful.

It seems to me that both casca and mathieuh are correct - he was both a symbol of non-peaceful resistance, and a creator of peace amidst a push for war. Furthermore, his post-apartheid actions seem the more historically important, as they were the more novel and their relative success the more surprising.

That's cute. A man dedicates his life to freeing his people from their oppressors, including spending 27 years in jail on principle, and upon release (and with overwhelming support) calls for "truth and reconciliation". We're talking about an entire life spent resisting an oppressive and violent regime. Many of us can't even begin to comprehend what that means, or what actions we may choose if in the same situation. Yet here you are with the benefit of hindsight, in relative comfort, analyzing a statement he made decades before his death. If you're going to judge, the least you can do is judge the man on the totality of his actions.

I'm more interested in simply highlighting the whole truth rather than making a value judgement. The truth is that Mandela was a pragmatist in regards to tactics. When bombing fast food restaurants was tactically viable his organization did that. When the situation changed, he advocated an alternative approach.

"If the oppressor uses violence, the oppressed have no alternative but to respond violently." - Mandela (Long Walk to Freedom, p.537)

"If the state decided to use peaceful methods, the ANC would also use peaceful means. It is up to you... not us to renounce violence.” p.537

Looking at things tactically, it's a question of where your opponent is vulnerable: internally or externally. Pacifism is necessary to create the perception of legitimacy needed to mobilize external political support.

No, you're attempting to portray him as someone who employed peaceful protest only when it proved convenient, or as a last resort. One only needs compare your 'quote' (all ellipses and no context) with the full quote posted by azernik.

He might have turned into a pacifist, at some point, but he certainly gained political capital, intially, through violence.

The opposite, you've got the wrong order. Read the link you posted on motivation for the formation of MK, then watch his interview in 1961, here (first posted by Q_the_Novice): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrBCgiFhmNA.

As Q_the_Novice put it, "first educate yourself ... before posting ...".

I'm pointing out facts about him, nothing more. My quote was brief because I'd tweeted it and ended up copying the abbreviated form, but the substance of it is clear: it is a statement advocating militant struggle. The video clip you posted for some reason expresses a similar sentiment. And the quotes from his book I mentioned earlier, advocating violence in certain conditions, were from his book published in 1994.

Pacifism is defined as opposition to violence. Mandela, unlike many Western leftists, never ruled out violence as a tactic. Would his movement have succeeded without killing civilians and torturing enemies? Possibly not.

That's cute. Now find me one instance of the white apartheid government intentionally bombing innocent civilians like Mandela's ANC did.

I can see how that kind of logic applies to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but to apply it in this case is horrible and racist. Shame on you.

Wait, it is racist to ask for one instance of white apartheid South Africans intentionally killing women and children like Mandela's ANC did repeatedly?

Well, golly. If you insist.

I was employing irony there, which can be a useful tool for those on the right of the political spectrum.

My issue is not really with whether Apartheid is great, or Israel is great.

What my post was about was the way people on the far left or far right get away with their views whatever they are, but people in the center are required to assert that Apartheid is evil, while Israel is OK. You literally cannot call yourself a moderate if you do not believe these two things. And yet Israel and Apartheid South Africa are not very different. Both commit human rights violations against the native population. Both have (had) no clear path for the native population to become politically independent. Both claimed to look after the native population better than they could look after themselves. Both justified the situation because it was necessary to preserve their cultural/ethnic identity, and by claiming their opponents were terrorists.

So I call myself a moderate, but because I cannot accept the discrepancy between the way people are expected to view Israel and Apartheid, I would probably be considered a racist (for thinking that Apartheid was partly understandable) and also and anti-semite (for thinking that the desire for a Jewish state is not different for the desire for a White state).

Both commit human rights violations against the native population.

You mean when Hamas or Islamic Jihad detonates a bus bomb in Tel Aviv?

To pretend that Israeli military and/or police action against the terrorist government in Gaza takes place in a vacuum, or that it is aimed principally at civilians, ignores the reason why Israel is so militarized in the first place - very real security threats against the Israeli people and state.

The South African resistance to apartheid also bombed civilians. And I suspect that they did not recognize the right of South Africa to exist as a White country.

Are you specifically interested in bombing as a method of killing innocent people, or are you more generally interested in the killing of innocent people, the method notwithstanding? Coz, surely, you're not implying that white, apartheid South Africans didn't kill innocent people, are you?

The Sharpeville Massacre

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

You're welcome.

Well, when you control the police and the army, bombing innocent civilians is neither necessary nor logical.

16 JUNE 1976!

Cook1929, your name suits you as you are still trapped in the 1920s.

As a white South African who was born in apartheid I saw first hand just how evil the system was. As for your examples you are after with regards to " one instance of white apartheid South Africans intentionally killing women and children" here you go: 1.) Ruth First (Joe Slovo's wife) was killed by a parcel bomb in Maputo. 2.) Soweto Uprising in which about 170 to about 600 people (mainly children) were killed by police... oh and one of the first people to be killed there was not some older man, the poor person was Hector Pieterson, he was only 13.

I know that Nelson Mandela wasn't a saint, (even he said that). However he gave to South Africa what it really needed. Peace and reconciliation, something that is still sorely needed in this world.

If you can't find instances of the apartheid government intentionally doing terrible things to civilians all by yourself, then you don't deserve to be on the internet.

His torrorist organization bombed many civilian targets, such as railway stations. He also cheated on his first wife, and was a member of the communist party.

I'll judge him on that.

edit: Downvote this if you like, but the above are facts. Rather than the liberal whitewash that the media in the west prefers.

You don't know much about it. You could start educating yourself here: http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=3430

> If you're going to judge, the least you can do is judge the man on the totality of his actions.

Which is exactly why it's problematic to present Mandela as a symbol of Peace, Love and Understanding. There are people here trying to represent his advocacy of armed struggle during the apartheid era as some kind of youthful indiscretion for which he should be overlooked or forgiven, which does the man's legacy no favours at all.

I think there is a very different perspective (namely one that spans the entirety of Mandela's adult life) from which one can look at this. Yes, under a violent and oppressive racist regime which virtually anyone in the technologically-literate world would condemn, Mandela founded the MK and rebelled violently. He was imprisoned for a long time, released, and became the figurehead for positive, reconciliatory, peaceful change in a tumultuous part of the world. It's important to not deify the man, but it can come across as pedantic to bring to light the long-ago wrongs of someone who did, and stood for, an awful lot of right.

That's a lot of ellipses.

In full:

  Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be
  no way open to the African people to succeed in their
  struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All
  lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle
  had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a
  position in which we had either to accept a permanent
  state of inferiority, or take over the Government.

Not that it changes the immediate political meaning much, but it shows some of the thought processes involved.

The point of quoting it was simply to show that Mandela considers violence a legitimate tactic. Mandela, unlike Western pacifist activists, has never claimed violence should be ruled out as an option.

Such short sightedness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrBCgiFhmNA . Do you have any idea what it was like to be black or non-white in Apartheid South Africa? First educate yourself about our people's history before posting ignorant public comments.

I am not making a value judgement, simply pointing out facts. Mandela's organization killed innocent people and tortured enemies. Why they did this is entirely understandable, given the circumstances, but pretending it didn't happen and painting Mandela as a pacifist, when he was in fact a pragmatist that never condemned violence wholesale as Western pacifists do, is to distort history.

ah yes the mythical "western pacifist" who thinks violence is never justified and that, for example, police forces should not forcefully arrest violent criminals but limit themselves to trying to convince them of going to jail.

You've made yourself quite a frail stawman. You will find that this "western pacifist" you speak of is a figment of your imagination and doesn't exists in any serious form.

The decade or so I spent involved in activism in a variety of organizations is, hopefully, not a figment of my imagination.

Let it not be forgotten, Mandela prevented 2 wars! The first war of whites against blacks and a second war amongst blacks as there was a power struggle amongst the different black parties, most notably the IFP. Either of those wars would have been catastrophic.

Thank you, Young Conservatives!

Just a reminder of the kind of thing members of the UK's ruling party were up to in the '80s: http://www.leftfootforward.org/images/2011/11/Conservative-F...

mathieuh does not seem to be criticizing Mandela's use of violence. Rather, I believe he is criticizing the failure of others to recognize and appreciate Mandela's use of violence.

Could you explain why you think that "liberals" are trying to sanitise history more than anyone else?

They didn't say that. Misrepresenting popular / successful struggles as peaceful and overstating the effectiveness of pacifism are liberal tendencies though.

The parent poster, mathieuh, says exactly that: "Do not allow liberals to sanitise history."

'Do not allow liberals to sanitise history.' vs '"liberals" are trying to sanitise history more than anyone else'

It is possible [Edit: and, I think, reasonable] to think the former but not the latter.

What reasonable interpretation, "only allow right-wingers to sanitise history"?

I apologise for the clumsy phrase. The semantics of that doesn't matter, I just want to know what mathieuh is trying to say by calling special attention to "liberals" and not mentioning anyone else.

I suspect trolling. Mandela was deeply "liberal".

Presumably mathieuh used the word liberal as they were drawing attention to a liberal fallacy. I have no idea if they're an introspective leftist with a critique of pacifism or a paid Koch shill or something in between. The thing they said seems entirely reasonable to me though.

I am about as far from the right as is possible to get.

I am calling special attention to liberals because at this moment liberal media are writing him off as having been a 'peaceful protestor' or some such banality.

I don't know why you are reading so much into this, I meant only what I wrote, I wasn't implying anything else.

I am fully aware (as I assumed most people were) that the right has labelled him a terrorist, and that until as recently as 2008 he was officially a terrorist according to the US.

I read what you wrote, I still have no idea what you meant.

matthieuh seems to be saying, don't buy the story that rosy nonviolence accomplished all this. Strategic use of violence, and the threat of it, were necessary to force negotiations and compromise.

So liberals are singled-out apparently because they tend towards this particular narrative of pure nonviolence.

Probably, and you are correct about the ANC's "Strategic use of violence, and the threat of it"

But as discussed in other comments, he could mean anything by "liberals" so we have no idea why he calls them out.

Language is hard... You appear to be using different definitions for "left" and "liberal" than many of us are familiar with. Perhaps because you are from a different country or culture than those of us who are confused (seems like mostly Americans), or perhaps it is because you usually talk to people in a "bubble" where everybody recognizes the same definitions (I'm personally more familiar with the unique word definitions of more right-leaning "bubbles"). Either way, once confusion arises, saying "I meant what I wrote" is not all that helpful in resolving it.

I hope you'll think about what kind of replies you got here the next time you post something like this.

You may have had a point, but your phrasing was atrocious, essentially built to generate conflict and suppress any rational thought.

You could have made your point in a much better way such that people would actually reflect on what you said, rather than start political fights.

He had to include the word "liberals". In other words, excluding every one else. Given the tone of the use of the word liberal and the unfounded accusation, its reasonable to assume he is a right wing type, and there for means to exclude the right from the accusation. There for he must be suggesting the "liberals" alone are likely to try to rewrite history, because, you know, the right would never do such a thing...

From here in the UK, Americans sneering the word liberal is a give away for a right wing nut job. Glen Beck etc. To us, well, me at least, it is highly amusing that so called right wing patriots wet them selves over the USA which is supposed to champion liberty, while using the word liberal as some sort of insult. Mean while, the right seem to actually support liberty in gun ownership etc. Very strange. Actually, very funny.

I am neither a right-winger nor an American. I am very much left-wing.

You should be aware that the left is vehemently against liberalism, as it presents such a rosy view of current society that it reduces the terrible things happening to being some floaty idea that doesn't apply to Me. As liberal media are doing currently by saying that Mandela was just a peaceful protestor.

> You should be aware that the left is vehemently against liberalism

What does that statement even mean?

This might help clarify, the semantics can be a bit confusing:

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

Much of this terminology is muddled, particularly in America, which makes this difficult to talk about in a clear manner, but my understanding is that some leftists believe that liberals stand in the way of the true reform that leftist's want, and often take credit for the achievements of leftists to boot.

(Perhaps it is easier to consider that right wingers and conservatives are not necessarily the same thing, and can very easily be in conflict with each other. I'm not entirely sure if that helps..)

In this instance, it seems to me that mathieuh is very much a leftist, and likely considers Mandela to be the same. Certainly he seems to approve of what Mandela did (I think several people here are misinterpreting what mathieuh has said as criticism of Mandela). He thinks that liberals are attempting to co-opt Mandela as one of their own and apply ideologies associated with liberalism (nonviolence as an ends of its own) to Mandela, even if those associations are not grounded in history. In doing this, they obscure Mandela's true leftist ideologies, which were exceedingly successful. By rewriting leftist victories as liberal victories, diminishing the perceived value of leftist techniques, they present a threat to leftists.

> some leftists believe that liberals stand in the way

I'm still not 100% sure if mathieuh (and you) are using the word "liberal" to mean "left" or "not left". I first assumed "left" but he's not making much sense that way.

I suggest that if you insist on using that word, be aware for the potential for great misunderstanding and confusion, and define somewhere what you mean by it. matthieuh's statement "I meant only what I wrote" is really not that, it presupposes that we speak the same language. And we don't.

> mathieuh is very much a leftist, and likely considers Mandela to be the same.

I also consider Mandela a leftist. This is due to the fact that his political party, the ANC, was in alliance with the South African Communist Party, and produced the Freedom charter http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=72 (see particularly nationalisation advocated in the section "The People Shall Share in the Country`s Wealth").

So it's not really a subjective matter, it's historic fact.

> I'm still not 100% sure if mathieuh (and you) are using the word "liberal" to mean "left" or "not left".

I think, in the sense used in the post at issue:

"Left":"Liberal"::Bolshevik:Menshevik

So liberal is to the left of Center but to the right of Left.

Yes, in the US you must also consider the fact that center would actually be described right wing everywhere else. So you can see why a some leftists would deride so called liberals seeing them as fake leftist.

I believe the way mathieuh is using the word "liberal", a liberal would be under the general umbrella of leftism, or at least presents itself that way, but has interests that are not compatible/aligned with other brands of leftism, or the tactics employed by other leftists.

So in more concrete terms, mathieuh thinks that liberals oppose violent resistance, instead insisting on forms of nonviolent resistance such as civil disobedience (perhaps even when that proves ineffective). Liberals, wanting to claim Mandel as one of their own, "rewrite history" to make Mandel align with nonviolent resistance in a more strict way.

I believe mathieuh views liberalism as the enemy in the same way a Lamborghini owner might rage at a minivan in the fast lane. That is being a bit uncharitable though.

(I am trying hard not to inject my own opinion on what liberalism and leftism are; I am trying to explain how mathieuh is using these words, while remaining relatively charitable to his point of view. As such, I may be incorrect about what mathieuh thinks but the things I think he thinks might be correct. Similarly, I might be correct about what he thinks, but the things that he thinks may be incorrect. It would be best if he just gave a clear explanation of what he thinks...)

What it does show is that left v right is a useless axis to try and represent political views. Nobody ever really agrees what the terms even mean.

Also, the word 'liberal' is hopelessly lost for definition when having an international conversation.

> Misrepresenting popular / successful struggles as peaceful and overstating the effectiveness of pacifism are liberal tendencies though.

Seem to be more pacifist tendencies than liberal tendencies. Most pacifists may be liberals, but the converse is not even approximately true.

The truth of what you say depend entirely on which of the many meanings of "liberal" you are thinking of.

Because the liberal sales wing of the ruling class have the most influence among the segment of the population most likely to advocate change disruptive to the status quo. Pacifism is promoted as the only legitimate strategy in order to promote a political mindset that sees militance as taboo.

You're just talking partisan jibber jabber. Some people think peace is a useful route as violence tends to be a cycle that is hard to stop. Will peaceful action always work? No, the world is complicated. The fact that you say "the liberal sales wing of the ruling class" just makes you seem ridiculous.

> The fact that you say "the liberal sales wing of the ruling class" just makes you seem ridiculous.

"ridiculous" is generous here.

I'm not trying to be partisan, simply implying that both sides are shilling for the same core interests (with social policy as the differentiator).

What?

I'll try to clarify my thinking here...

An earlier poster asked "Could you explain why you think that 'liberals' are trying to sanitise history more than anyone else?"

The ideas that keep the left and right from posing a political problem to the established order are, respectively, pacifism and patriotism. Pacifism limits conflict to electoral and symbolic efforts. Patriotism does the same by loyalty rather than dissidence. To reenforce the idea of pacifism, for the benefit of the left wing, the mainstream media canonizes pacifist heroes, such as Mandala and Ghandi, downplaying the roles of militants in their self-determination movements.

He has come to represent forgiveness and peace over time by learning from his past mistakes. No one is saying he never fought fire with fire. It is untrue to say his life "was a symbol of non-peaceful resistance and the progress that it can bring." Especially because his greater achievements were made through peace and reconciliations.

No one's perfect but it's unreasonable to only focus on the negative.

Except it is you who is projecting his value system over who you are responding to. Nobody implied 'violence' was wrong in this context, violence is at many times necessary and was so in mandela's case, he had to do what he had to do to achieve progress, and when it wasn't necessary he did, but when it was he did as well.

We cannot allow people to only paint him as peaceful completely simply because non-violent struggle is not what brought about long-term peace. Both did.

I do not believe that mathieuh considers Mandela's "not always nonviolent" stance to be a negative.

I think the idea is more along the lines of "violence had its place in that conflict, it was for a good cause, and it worked."

Injecting my own opinion here: I think that if we forget the usefulness of violence then we may risk failing to repeat Mandela's success, should the need ever arise. Nonviolence is great, but only when it works. When it doesn't, violence should be embraced. We should embrace whatever is necessary to get the job done, nonviolence should be seen as a (typically very effective) means to an end, not an end in itself.

Obama's address points out to his non-peaceful background: "His journey from a prisoner to a president embodied the promise that human beings and countries can change for the better." And, in this case, we are talking about one of the better humans that ever lived.

"Change for the better"? That assumes that change happened at all. There's no inconsistency between using violence to effect political change and being magnanimous in victory.

Yes, I also remember the bloody, vicious civil war he advocated after his release from prison that finally brought down Apartheid.

Oh, wait. That's not what happened at all, is it?

> The factors which necessitated the armed struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue. We express the hope that a climate conducive to a negotiated settlement will be created soon so that there may no longer be the need for the armed struggle.

...is what Mandela said in his first speech after being released from prison. I'm not sure which half of your comment is intended to be sarcasm, but fwiw those are the words he used.

"I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I've cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

-Nelson Mandela

edit: also, "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner."

Your statement on Mandela is un-nuanced and simplistic. We all evolve through life, hopefully for the better. Mandela clearly became one of the great 20th century champions of peace alongside MLK and Gandhi. None of them were perfect human beings, but that doesn't diminish their greatness at all.

I wouldn't call Mandela a champion of peace, but of freedom.

AND of peace.

Mandela was in prison for 27 years, oppressed his whole life before and after that, and once he gets power, his watchwords? Truth and Reconciliaton.

That's why he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, because with any other leader (just pick a country on the same continent, Zimbabwe's right next door) that situation turns into a shitshow at that point.

The fact that he was in the ANC isn't what makes him notable, plenty of other guerilla leaders in Africa who threw out colonialists or white minority rule. That's not why we're talking about him. What he did when he won made him notable.

The "he wasn't peaceful" idiots on this thread are either incapable of seeing the big picture or fighting some dumb US domestic political battle.

I agree what he did after he won was amazing, and a great precedent, but I value the victory against Apartheid by ~any means (largely non-violent) more, mainly because if he hadn't won that victory, he wouldn't have been in a position to be noble in victory.

(I don't think the Rhodesia precedent was exact, as the white rulers of Rhodesia were probably far more acceptable, and blacks far less oppressed, than they were in RSA; RSA was sufficiently self-sufficient that this could have gone on indefinitely. The other cases were anti-colonialism, which is also different; the Boers were not particularly tied to any European power, so there was no European state pulling out to end the colonial situation, either.)

Let me get this right. Your logic is that intentionally bombing and killing mothers and children at civilian shopping malls are perfectly okay as long as apartheid exists.

Did I get that right?

You have (at the time of my writing this) 3 comments, all in this thread, all anti-Mandela to the point of being almost pro-apartheid. Nice throwaway account!

Nice ad hominem that completely ignores the argument!

Calling your comments 'pro-apartheid' is certainly not ad hominem.

You can be anti-apartheid, whilst also disagreeing that a good solution is to start bombing shopping malls and railway stations.

Of course it is, it's the very definition. Obviously he's just trying to justify his stance, but you're still disregarding his argument which could be just as easily made by someone pro-apartheid or anti-apartheid since it's orthogonal.

Blowing up civilians is probably required at times, I don't know, but the exact border line where it moves from acceptable to unacceptable is a difficult one. Some people (justly) hold that it is always unacceptable and there is definitely nothing wrong with that stand. Others are more pragmatic and can accept that killing 10 civilians is preferable to having 10,000 slaves.

It's not an easy answer, don't dismiss it as an ad hominem.

Weren't all those bombings carried out when Mandela was in jail? He was certainly responsible for a lot of industrial sabotage and preparations for armed revolt, but I'd put that in an entirely different category.

  > We all evolve through life, hopefully for the better.

Somehow this does not apply for war criminals who are persecuted even at Mandela's age.

Tryanny is the suppression of nuance.

In other words, Gandhi should be shunned because he was a sleazy lawyer who was screwing his wife while his father was dying across the hall.

We respect our heroes not for their flaws, but for their feats. It's no secret to anybody that the ANC used terror for political causes; what followed Mandela's jail term, however, is far more important. He didn't fix South Africa completely. Nobody could have, but the forgiveness he showed during his tenure, to both blacks and whites alike, is the notable part of his life. To myopically describe Mandela's actions as terroristic is to do a disgrace to one of the great leaders of our time.

When did the interpretation of history become the sole prerogative of liberalism?

Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

Ignoramuses I know but many us, dare I say, don't understand Latin. Assuming you're not quoting yourself, a source would be appreciated.

First goog hit:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tacitus

I think it is a little more complicated than "he was peaceful" or "he was non-peaceful".

Some great listening on the subject:

http://mandelahistory.com/ -a 5-part radio series documenting the struggle against apartheid through rare sound recordings, the voice of Nelson Mandela himself, as well as those who fought with him, and against him.

> I think it is a little more complicated than "he was peaceful" or "he was non-peaceful".

He used violence when violence was needed, he used peace when peace is needed.

I'd like to be as pacifist as I can possibly be, but there simply are situations where violence is necessary. And severe oppression without non-violent means to end the oppression, is one of them. Some things need to be fought.

You're saying that it's fine to target your bombings at children and women if you're fighting to end something like apartheid?

Wow.

So what, exactly, is your point? Are you saying that what the Apartheid government did was legal and legitimate? Obviously bombing civilians is wrong, nobody disputes that. But the Apartheid government killed and tortured many innocent people. Both sides did bad things. None of this is news. Why are you pointing this out?

Edit: the thing that makes Mandela special is that, once he became the government, it would have been just as "legitimate" for him to have behaved as the Apartheid government had, but he effected peace instead.

That's part of the point. A single man -- even one who has engaged in violence -- can create peace in a situation where revenge is natural. In fact I wonder if his past willingness to use violence when he thought it justified is what gave him the credibility to say "it's not justified now" at the critical moment.

The armed struggle went nowhere for decades until international sanctions forced the hand of the ruling party.

What Mandela fully understood at the time of his release was that the country required reconciliation. Nobody expected the power handover to go as smoothly as it did. Mandela was a huge contributor to that.

Is it acceptable to allow non-liberals to sanitise history, or is this your own political bias spilling over into your implied complaint about other people's political bias?

>Do not allow liberals to sanitise history.

It was the right that supported apartheid, almost until the end like Reagan and Thatcher. Dick Cheney voted against a 1986 resolution calling for the release of Mandela from prison. A month before Nelson Mandela was elected president Ron Paul's newsletter warned of a'South African Holocaust.' Get your facts straight.

It seems you're the one right-washing this.

> a single man to create peace

Let's keep in mind that South Africa has been very far from a peaceful place over the last 20 years. Many thousands have been murdered, and many thousands more have left the country.

but it also hasn't been the bloodbath many who lived there expected it to become on the fall of apartheid - and Mandela bears a huge portion of the credit for this

South Africa's murder rate peaked before the end of apartheid; it has been on the decline since. It's still very high, but the idea that it's a result of the collapse of apartheid is not plausible.

"Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro... Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom, and justice. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious imperialist campaign designed to destroy the advances of the Cuban revolution. We too want to control our destiny... There can be no surrender. It is a case of freedom or death. The Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people."

Nelson Mandela, 1991

History is truly written by the victorious ones. I find it funny that people praise a communist guerrilla fighter, responsible for so much violence. That's like praising Che Guevara. Oh wait... And don't get me wrong - I hate the apartheid as much.

I really admire his ability to walk away from power. Instead of making himself indispensable and hanging on to power indefinitely, he understood the importance of grooming the next generation, walking away, and letting the others to continue the work.

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." - Nelson Mandela

Just some inspiration for everyone here. RIP Madiba.

> it's possible for a single man to create peace

No it's not possible. Nelson Mandela is a great and admirable man. But he did not work alone. The peace is the work of many men and women, and is still a work in progress.

> Forgiveness is the first step in changing a society

Yes, but sometimes it backfires. Sometimes a Nuremberg is necessary.

However, it has to be quick, but within limits of reason and fairness. It also has to be set in motion immediately after a change of hands. It should be more of a "fair compensation and equalization" than merely about retribution.

Although this will be a controversial comment, to see an example of where (Mujib ur Rahman's) "lets forgive, no harm, no foul" did not go down well is Bangladesh's war of independence.

The little that I know of the SA situation, Mandela chose right. But the right choice is not the same in every situation.

Your comment reminds me of Nicolae Ceaușescu, the brutal dictator of Romania between 1967 and 1989.

In on December 23, 1989 he and his wife were captured while attempting to flee the country. On December 25 they were given a show trial (playing more than a little fast and loose with fairness...), found to be guilty, and shot.

Nearly immediately after the execution, execution was declared to be abolished. This upset some Romanians who thought that more executions were in order, but their new constitution (ratified in 1991) cemented this decision. Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu remain the last people ever executed in Romania.

From wikipedia:

"The manner in which the trial was conducted was widely criticized inside and outside Romania. However, Ion Iliescu, Romania's provisional president, said in 2009 that the trial was "quite shameful, but necessary" in order to end the state of near-anarchy that had gripped the country in the three days since the Ceaușescus fled Bucharest[23] Similarly, Victor Stănculescu, who had been defense minister before going over to the revolution, said in 2009 that the alternative would have been seeing the Ceaușescus lynched on the streets of Bucharest.[24]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu

I am a bit conflicted on the whole affair, but I think my main take-away is that what needs to be done is not always pleasant, but if it must be done, do it fast and make sure it does not happen again. If you are going to do something unpleasant, make sure that you at least do it to break the cycle.

Could you explain a bit more on who Bangladesh forgave that didn't go well?

There was no push for war. The apartheid government just wanted to finish their plundering and not be liable for the economic position they created.

"I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power and be in these positions to block things that you and I need. Because this is the situation, you and I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation, and it doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't even call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence." - Malcolm X

I'd say "Rest in a necklace, Madiba".

It completely escapes me how sane people can so seriously worship cannibals like Mandela.

Can you justify what you said here?

sure, like http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing for example?

Moloko said her sister was burned to death with a tire around her neck while attending the funeral of one of the youths. Her body had been scorched by fire and some broken pieces of glass had been inserted into her vagina, Moloko told the committee.

In my book it's a perfect example of "cannibalism".

Not sure you have any idea what cannibalism is...

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

Not sure if you have any idea what sarcasm is. I didn't mean he actually eat people, actually even if he did that wouldn't have changed a lot.

> I didn't mean he actually eat people

That's not sarcasm. That's lying.

When you call some political leader a "butcher" you lie, because he actually doesn't work in a butcher shop and doesn't have a license?

I linked to the wikipedia article about necklacing. Did you find any factual errors in there?

Reverse apartheid?

Just until July 2008 Nelson Mandela was on the USA TERRORIST list (link).

Do you know who the Nelson Mandelas of our time are? Do you support them?

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela_taken_off_US_ter...

Margaret Thatcher too, called him a terrorist. They (Thatcher and her party) were on the wrong side of history then.

Margaret Thatcher almost makes me wish Hell existed.

And here we have the left's equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church.

The left sounds exceedingly reasonable then, because the right's version of the Westboro Baptists is the Westboro Baptists.

They are only right wing if you subscribe to an extremely simplistic and binary view of politics.

Yeah, but the joke is responding to a post that is saying that davidgerard is the left wing equivalent of them, so to include more nuance would have made it less funny.

But he was involved in terrorist activities. He was a terrorist.

The lesson is that the difference between "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" is not as well defined as you might think. He was a great leader.

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

To paraphrase James Bond: "Some Freedom Fighters are not interested in anyone's freedom"

I'm not sure where you're going with that. Nelson Mandela was the opposite of that; he cared deeply about everyone's freedom.

Would you call the French Resistance terrorists?

They certainly performed acts that could justify the label, but would you call them terrorists?

They called themselves terrorists. Terrorisme was the state terror and was not an accusation, but rather a boast by the Jacobins.

edit - oops, as splat points out, I got the wrong end of the stick there by a country mile.

I think Crito was referring to the French Resistance during WWII, not the French Revolution.

I'm sure the Germans would have. Which is the point really; terrorism vs freedom fighter, war vs cou, revolution vs insurgency.

It all depends which side your on.

I get that, which makes me wonder about somebody who claims that Mandela was a terrorist. What does choosing that terminology say about them? What side they are on?

Doesn't terrorism have to be again the civilian population? If the French resistance were attacking the German Army or the Vichy Regimes troops, it wouldn't really be terrorism.

They derailed their fair share of trains. There was little shortage of civilian casualties, and if they were operating in Germany, where civilians were more likely to align with the opposition, you can bet your ass there would have been more.

Were the American Revolutionaries also "terrorists"? Where do you draw the line between revolutionary armies and terrorism?

I don't know where the line is exactly, but I don't think Sam Adams blew up a school bus or dozens of passers by in downtown Pretoria with a car bomb.

Since school busses, cars, and downtown Pretoria didn't exist when Sam Adams was alive, that's probably a good bet.

Neither did Nelson Mandela, if that's what you're implying.

To wit, the Church Street bombing (which is presumably what you're referring to by the Pretoria car bomb) by the MK happened in 1983. That's 20 years after Mandela was imprisoned.

Unless you have some credible evidence that he was somehow the kingpin behind all the violent activities of the ANC and/or MK during the time that he was in prison, I think it's fair to say you're wrong.

I believe the car bombing you are referring to was the Church Street bombing, which took place in 1983 while Nelson Mandela was in jail and Oliver Tambo was leading the ANC. I'm not sure you can really say that he bore responsibility for that attack.

Before Mandela was jailed, when he was actively leading the ANC, he was careful to target only infrastructure and economic damage, not civilians. When Nelson Mandela was arrested, they were in the process of moving from that type of sabotage toward actual guerrilla action against the military, but were still not targeting civilians. Hmm. Escalating from boycotts and economic attacks to guerrilla warfare against the military; not too different than what Sam Adams did. What the ANC did after while he was jailed did escalate beyond that, but as far as I can tell, what he did and advocated never went much beyond what the American Revolutionaries did.

From the Truth and Reconciliation report http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%202.... volume 2 page 326-7:

  In the course of the armed struggle, a number of military
  actions took place which resulted in the death or injury of 
  civilians, and where gross violations of human rights can 
  be said to have been committed, despite ANC policy to avoid 
  unnecessary loss of life. Police statistics indicate that, 
  in the period 1976 to 1986, approximately 130 people were 
  killed by ‘terrorists’. Of these, about thirty were members
  of various security forces and one hundred were civilians. 
  Of the civilians, forty were white and sixty black.

A total of 130 civilian deaths is quite low for a violent conflict over that long of a period. That's far lower than the number of civilian casualties caused by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Heck, per year the US has killed more civilians in Afghanistan than the ANC killed in that entire period.

I don't endorse attacks like the Church Street bombing at all; I find them quite abhorrent. But you need to keep some perspective on this. "Terrorist", in many cases, is just a convenient label for particular people who we want to judge more harshly than we judge ourselves.

I'd say if you're an Irish person Thatcher could be seen as a terrorist.

Half of England agrees with you

Yes, she was so unpopular she won three elections on the bounce.

Yeah, yeah, popular vote blah blah blah.

I'm guessing you know how daft you sound. She frequently registered the lowest ratings in opinion polls of any PM. Ever. She was for much of her time despised by the majority, regarded as dangerously idiotic by the civil service and as an embarrassment by her own parliamentary party.

Do not fool yourself into thinking she won on her own volition. She won because of external influences, at least some of which were the fault of her opposition.

For example, the same political system, we here in Canada have Harper there is no way he is popular but he keeps winning elections.

She won, like any other politician, because she was the best choice for the people at the time.

I don't think what the civil service thinks of you is of particular relevance. She may have been despised by the majority of people in the North of England, but she was (and is) revered across most of the Sourth.

Terrorist is a loaded term.

http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-editors/2007/06/13/when-doe...

The US was actively opposing apartheid at the same time as the ANC was added to the watch list, during the Reagan administration. Reagan has a weird relationship with apartheid; he vetoed the comprehensive anti-apartheid act, but his veto was overridden by his own party in the Senate.

It's worth knowing that the ANC was implicated in violence in South Africa --- or, rather, splinter groups of the ANC.

Having Nelson Mandela implicated in "terrorism" is obviously stupid, as was having the entire ANC listed as a "terrorist organization", but it would be misleading to suggest that the US Government was supporting apartheid based on this fact; it was a complicated time period during which the government was to greater and lesser extents working to oppose apartheid.

The US government was not at all opposing apartheid, but had to react to pressures. They could easily have imposed a boycott and collapsed the regime way before it did. Instead they send military support to the oppressors.

And sure Mandela was a terrorist, to some... He terrorized the dictators.

Now seriously, Who is a Nelson Mandela today and do you support him/her?

I have no idea what it means for a representative democracy to "not oppose" something but rather "react to pressures". Whatever that pressure was, it caused the Republican-controlled Senate to override the veto of a Republican President. If it's helpful for you, here's the law, which not only opposed apartheid but also banned imports from the South African state and cut off aid; it also stated the sense of Congress that the US should meet with... wait for it... Nelson Mandela.

http://uscode.house.gov/statutes/1986/1986-099-0440.pdf

Here and elsewhere in this thread you are giving a misleading impression of the GOP's and Reagan's relationship to sanctions legislation. They fought it tooth and claw, and were eventually shamed into doing something, which turned out to be as little as possible, too late to matter.

That's what the parent comment is trying to get across. I have no idea why you're failing to see the distinction between legislators genuinely working on an issue vs. being dragged by public opinion.

The background is that most of the GOP leadership (political and think-tank) rejected sanctions against the apartheid government of SA during the 1980s. Similar to other muddles today, a cloud of confusion was thrown up to stop or delay passage of US sanctions. ("Sanctions would hurt the poorest most", etc.) It was all just a BS rationale to keep from implementing sanctions against a government considered a US ally (the ANC was associated with Communism), but it was all taken seriously at the time. Vintage Cold War logic.

A watered-down bill eventually passed the Democratic House, and went to the GOP-controlled Senate, where it was diluted and barely passed. Reagan had not anticipated this, and vetoed the bill. And it was then over-ridden. His administration never went along with the sanctions implementation.

By the time the GHW Bush administration took over and did somewhat better, the jig was up. The Berlin wall fell in 1989, removing the "bulwark against communism" rationale for US support of apartheid, and Mandela was released from jail in 1990.

I have some attachment to the issue because my roommates were involved in sit-ins, a tent city, and other political organizing at the time. It was a defining issue of the mid-1980s.

The idea that the USG put Mandela on a terrorist watchlist as a way of sabotaging efforts to end apartheid is false. That is the only argument I'm making.

If you're looking to me to stick up for the Republican Party, you're going to be disappointed.

"If you're looking to me to stick up for the Republican Party, you're going to be disappointed."

I'm aware of that, which is why your comments puzzled me.

I'm just trying to be honest about the Reagan record regarding apartheid South Africa.

The US had to support the South African regime during the Cold War, because South Africa was strategically important. After the Cold War, there was no further reason to support it, and the US stopped supporting it.

He was a great man, maybe the Greatest who ever lived in my lifetime, he prevented so much bloodshed and demonstrated a level of forgiveness I doubt we will witness again for a very long time.

I still find it hard to believe South Africa ended up the way it did, rather than going the Zimbabwe route of decades of revenge leading to economic stagnation, poverty and mob violence.

He was a terrorist. The ANC persecuted those who they believed cooperated with the white people. They "necklaced" them with burning tires. They bombed and assassinated.

The Taliban are terrorists, even if they believe the USA is a dictator/devil.

Believing that the ends justifies the means (as Mandela did) is very dangerous. Who gets to decide which innocent must be sacrificed to achieve the ends? Do the innocents get a say? History is littered dictators (and democracies) who are well meaning (from their/their culture's POV) who engaged in blood baths. Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe is an example of what might of happened in South Africa.

Edit: Its worth mentioning that Archbishop Desmond Tutu is another Nobel Peace Prize wining South African. He advocated the end of apartheid without violence. Another great man from that country.

Edit edit: I met a South African man in North Carolina. We had a long discussion about history and politics. He had (or at least claimed) to have participated in ANC guerrilla training in the Congo or Angola (can't remember which). I asked him why they did not want white blood in revenge, and why they were still not furious. I can't remember his reply, but I remember wondering if Mandela and Tutu had not preached forgiveness, would his attitude have been the same.

> Believing that the ends justifies the means (as Mandela did) is very dangerous.

Yes, yet disbelieving that is often worse.

And that cuts both ways, right? The ends don't justify the means for the US either, correct?

Sorry, it amuses the hell out of me how we like to define terrorists, freedom fighters, and so on. And then place artificial constraints on those we decide are bad, and allow all sort of evil to be done by those we decide are good. So how a suicide bomber or an IED is cowardly, but a drone strike is a wonderful act of patriotism. Its makes me sick.

Frankly, violence is needed for change most of the time. Sometimes its good, sometimes its bad. Depends who gets to write the history after the event.

> Believing that the ends justifies the means (as Mandela did) is very dangerous.

The ends is the only thing that can justify any means taken.

Its only wrong to believe that a particular set of ends justifies a particular set of means when, well, it doesn't.

There's really no simple fortune-cookie answer to morality of difficult situations.

To many people, Osama Bin Laden was their Nelson Mandela.

Osama Bin Laden? Hugo Chavez? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

You don't need to look too far from home.

>Now seriously, Who is a Nelson Mandela today and do you support him/her?

it is great to have a Mandela like champion of your cause. Yet what about uncountable people (or animals) - victims of violence and injustice ( or they may be even not considered to have any rights for justice thus even "injustice" can't be claimed ). Sirian war is still going on. Women's rights in muslim world still an issue to say the least. Hungry and ill children around the world. Tibetans still set themselves on fire (latest one - 2 days ago). Gestation crates, dog fights, eutanasia of multi-millions annually and all the other things we do to animals.... A lot of causes needing their Mandela.

> Reagan has a weird relationship with apartheid

If by "weird relationship" you mean "supported it", then yes. Reagan was an out-and-out racist asshole, whose pro-apartheid policies were so extreme that his own party, despite itself being a party filled with racist fucks, nonetheless felt a need to override his veto to try to distance themselves from his over-the-top level of extremism.

That's a rather inaccurate way to describe it!

If you're hoping I'm going to chime in defending Ronald Reagan, sorry. :)

He may well have been seen as a terrorist by Our Great Leaders, however, he could also count on a lot of support from people all around the world that wanted an end to Apartheid. This support was wide ranging - words, weapons, money and organisational support.

Currently we are in a struggle against totalitarianism, the privatised war machine and the outsourced surveillance state. This enemy has global reach and the only countries that are not aligned with it are places like Cuba. What countries do we have outside our borders to go to for practical help from the system of oppression we find ourselves in? What external support can we get?

Nelson Mandela came out of retirement to tell the likes of Bush and Blair exactly what he thought of them. This was not the plan, he wanted to enjoy time with his grand children rather than have to continue working. He was not best pleased with general stewardship of life on planet earth. I doubt that he had a complete grasp of how insidious the current situation is but I am sure he had the general idea. It is sad that he should be departing from the world when things are going 'Dark Ages' rather than 'Enlightenment'.

That is such a blatantly illogical statement I'm shocked to see it on board where the userbase deals in applying logic for living.

AM is an A. B is an A. Therefore B = AM.

Are you new here?

They never taught me in school the FBI and the NSA wiretapped and had excessive surveillance on Martin Luther King Jr. to 'neutralize' him as an effective civil rights leader.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#FBI_sur...

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

                 - William Ernest Henley

Rest in Peace Nelson Mandela

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

"Nelson Mandela gave a copy of this speech to François Pienaar, captain of the South African rugby team, before the start of the 1995 Rugby World Cup"

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

I have great respect for Mandela, but I have flagged this story because it's causing so much political flaming.

"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."

"The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting. Gossip about famous people, funny or cute pictures or videos, partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to be quieter."

(with reference to the comments here, not the story itself)

He's one of the most important world figures of the second half of the 20th century. Pretty legitimate news topic given the other non-tech topics that get plugged into this feed nowadays.

True, but it's also true over half this thread is political flame-warring.

Can you explain why he was one of the most important world figures, not jus African? I am start to suspect there is some white guilt involved :(

if that's what you suspect then you're grossly ignorant of world affairs for the second half of the 20th century

You should probably flag the comments instead of the story, then. This is hardly gossip about someone famous, or shallowly interesting news.

Discord and disagreement are not of themselves bad things.

Mandela was one of the greatest humans of the 20th (and early 21st) century. His death is notable. He was hugely polarizing during his lifetime, condemned as a terrorist not only by the government he was fighting against, but by heads of state of the US and England, among others. He was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (not an infallible measure of greatness). More notably, on being elected president following release from prison after 27 years, he sought not revenge but reconciliation. South Africa continues to face tremendous problems, but thanks to him, his leadership, and his example it's doing far better than many who observed it during the 1970s and 1980s could have anticipated.

As for relevance and modern messages: today's Mandelas would all but certainly be making use of technology and hacker tools, directly or indirectly. This would expose them to the benefits (reach and soapboax) and disadvantages (surveillance, baiting and trolling, misrepresentation). There are lessons for those who are designing, building, and running systems, including HN itself to figure out how to promote the best features while minimizing the negatives.

And there's simply his example: working for conciliation, peace, and betterment, despite a complex past. As he said: "I am not a saint, unless by a saint you mean a sinner who keeps on trying".

"If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."

Mandela is hardly a flamewar topic outside the unreconstructed racists who left South Africa for places like Australia and New Zealand once they lost their hegemony at "home", and their fellow-travellers (such as Thatcher).

It says more about denizens of Hacker News that there are so many of apartheid's useful idiots here than it does about Mandela.

I agree with the idea in general that stories which generate flame wars should be kept off the site.

But this story is important and deserves to be at the top. The fault here lies not with the story, but with the commenters.

It's really interesting that Nelson Mandela is a flamewar topic here. Somehow, I'm not surprised.

Goodbye to a hero in forgiveness who demonstrated truly magnificent character during the post-apartheid transition in South Africa.

More world leaders should strive to follow in his footsteps.

We only took him off the terrorist list, nearly a sort of minor apartheid of its own, a few years ago.

Correct. I came here to remind people that as recently as FIVE years ago he was considered a terrorist in the United States of America.

http://blogs.dailynews.com/friendlyfire/2013/06/30/americas-...

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-04-30-watchli...

yeah but the US thinks almost anyone with dark skin or a different political opinion to them is a terrorist.

Not completely fair. Sinn Fein members are typically denied visas, and they're as pale as they come.

because typically they were coming here to raise money spent on placing bombs in parades of WWII veterans and in hospitals

sinn fein members possibly were at some point denied visas, but right now it is a legitimate political party and in the past it must not have been enforced because the bars of boston were their prime source of funding.

Notwithstanding the glib idiocy of maintaining an equivalence between a list of terrorist organizations and apartheid, I have to admit I was shocked by the fact that leaders of the ANC, esp. including Mandela, could not get a visa to the US until 2008, and that it took an Act of Congress. I would have assumed that it would have been an administrative decision of the State Department.

Depending on your age you may or may not be shocked to find out that women couldn't serve on juries until the 1970s.

Thats not a reasonable summary of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_v._Louisiana eg see http://www.mass.gov/courts/sjc/jury-system-e.html

I'm only made to feel better by knowledge that the last Swiss canton held out on women's suffrage until 1990.

I would recommend anyone interested in his life to read his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. http://www.amazon.ca/Long-Walk-Freedom-Autobiography-Mandela...

The thing that struck me about Nelson Mandela as he wanted to be seen in that book is that he tried very hard to see the good in people.

Perhaps it's to be expected that he's forgiving about former sworn enemies who ended up releasing him and stepping aside so he could dismantle the apartheid regime they'd spent upholding, and sidesteps any qualms he might have had about some of the region's truly obnoxious dictators who backed the ANC when they were outlaws. But he also takes the time to note when some of his less pleasant jailers displayed unexpected courtesy.

Some of the exchanges from his original trial are quite remarkable too, especially those involving the prosecutions "expert witness" on the subject of communism

Does anyone have any materials about Nelson Mandela's life that's accessible to a youngster like me? I know he was hugely important for ending something called "apartheid" in South Africa which sounds pretty horrible, I just don't know what it is.

Rest in peace.

Wikipedia...

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

Nelson Mandela's Life Story - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgQBoXsxr8w

Mandela release from prison speech - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpw8AU3wMsM

Quick summary from the BBC article

1918 Born in the Eastern Cape

1943 Joined African National Congress

1956 Charged with high treason, but charges dropped after a four-year trial

1962 Arrested, convicted of incitement and leaving country without a passport, sentenced to five years in prison

1964 Charged with sabotage, sentenced to life

1990 Freed from prison

1993 Wins Nobel Peace Prize

1994 Elected first black president

1999 Steps down as leader

2001 Diagnosed with prostate cancer

2004 Retires from public life

2005 Announces his son has died of an HIV/Aids-related illness

You're just trying to make people like me (46) feel old, aren't you ;-)

You are old ;-)

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

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

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hi...

The book a long walk to freedom, not the movie.

Along the same line I would like a good book recommendation on Mandela.

I read Long Walk to Freedom, his autobiography, in college and thought it was really good. The film adaptation was released just last week if you're interested in that (though it sounds mediocre). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Walk_to_Freedom

Meredith Martin's Mandela is supposed to be pretty good, too, if you want a non-auto-biography. Both epubs readily searchable on google and of course on amazon directly.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=apartheid

"Apartheid" (literally: "the state of being apart") was a forced doctrine of legal racial separation, nominally "equal" but in reality anything but, with the black majority being hugely opressed, lasting from 1948 to 1990 / 1994 (officially at the former date, popularly when universal national elections were held on the latter).

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

Mandela fought this system along with many others through the ANC, the African National Congress. Some of its actions were violent, and the organization and its members were labeled as terrorists, though Mandela later disavowed violence.

He was freed in 1990, elected president of South Africa in 1994, and served until 1999. A man who went from spending 28 years in jail to leading the peaceful transition of his nation. His is one of the greatest stories of the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Listening to Obama speakin right now. "I'm not a saint, unless you consider a saint to be a sinner who keeps on trying."

NB: Obama himself was hugely guided and influenced by Nelson Mandela.

I don't think Obama can even be mentioned in the same breath as Mandela, tbh.

Two people who have been heads of state of their respective countries are Obama and Mandela. Seems mentionable to me.

Superficially, yes. But Mandela is a statesman. Obama is a mere politician.

It would be like comparing, say, Bush Sr with Winston Churchill.

Yeah they can: They are both the first black elected leader of their respective countries.

Yeah they can: They are both the first black elected leader of their respective countries.

Not in terms of worthiness. If Obama was exactly the same in every way but was 100% white, he never would have even made congressman let alone either term of presidency. He was pushed through on racism (non-white people voting blindly for him because the other guy was white), political correctness, the power of persuasive marketing (of lies) and the attitude of affirmative action.

Obama is no leader or unifier. Every other word out of his mouth is a lie. Mandela is worthy of credit for the skills he possessed. Obama is a giant social and traditional media, speech writers and teleprompters induced fraud.

> Not in terms of worthiness. Obama ... was pushed through on racism ... non-white people voting blindly

Subjective opinion is subjective, bordering on offensive.

You're not clearly biased, no.

> leading the peaceful transition of his nation

This point deserves more expounding, which I'm not qualified to write. Apartheid was brutal, and the victims suddenly became the majority in a democracy. It's the sort of situation where you'd expect an eternal cycle of vengeance. But there wasn't one. There was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and probably other things, and then there was peace. There are few achievements in history to which this can be compared.

> "Apartheid" (literally: "the state of being apart") was a forced doctrine of legal racial separation, nominally "equal" but in reality anything but

I don't think apartheid ever pretended to be equal; that was the conceit of the US's similar but less extreme "Separate but Equal" policies.

I think "Segregation" is a better legitimate translation for Apartheid, but both terms are euphemistic.

> "Apartheid" (literally: "the state of being apart") was a forced doctrine of legal racial separation, nominally "equal"

I don't think it was even nominally equal until very late in the apartheid period (and that as an effort to mollify external criticism and reduce internal tension while maintaining effective white domination) when the Constitution of 1983 adopted the Tricameral Parliament which provided for representation (via separate legislative bodies that were responsible for each groups own affairs, and had to concur on common affairs -- with a council representing all three groups but with an overwhelming White majority empowered to resolve disagreements between the three chambers) for Coloureds and Indians, with both of those groups also having representation -- Blacks, of course, still didn't get anything in the South African government, because they were nominally citizens of the bantustans and not South Africa proper.

On equality, I'm not so sure of what I wrote above. I seem to recall having seen some early reporting (late 1950s / early 1960s) which suggested at least the pretense of equality. Could well be misremembering. TIME or National Geographic stick in my memory.

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s6ymm/ne...

Clint Eastwood's movie Invictus has Morgan Freeman giving an excellent performance as Mandela - the film is centered on the true story of how the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in South Africa but it does this in the context of the wider situation in the country at the time:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1057500/

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Looking through a list of Mandela's quotes [1], there is an uncanny parallel between his viewpoint and those of an entrepreneur. RIP Nelson.

“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”

“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”

[1] http://newsone.com/1397375/nelson-mandela-quotes-93rd-birthd...

>Looking through a list of Mandela's quotes [1], there is an uncanny parallel between his viewpoint and those of an entrepreneur

Except the startup entrepreneur is talking about a photo-sharing app.

Before you read other politicians' platitudes on his death, you should read Mandela's speech on his release from jail:

http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=4520

Those who were around in the 1980s might remember and appreciate The Specials AKA:

http://fixyt.com/watch?v=AgcTvoWjZJU

For those who weren't: this song protesting Mandela's incarceration got widespread airplay around the world. I'm not sure I can recall a similar case of popular music taking on a case of protesting for the freedom of a single individual, and suspect it played a large part in waking consciousness to the inequity of Apartheid and much of the pressure which was brought to bear in the late 1980s against South Africa.

Bob Dylan's "The Hurricane": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr8Wn1Mwwwk

Bob Dylan's song is about Rubin "Hurricane" Carter:

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

My read was that Dylan's song was of a similar nature, not on the same topic.

Same cause, different song: Johhny Clegg and Savuka Asimbonanga. Even if you didn't check the liner notes and couldn't understand Zulu (or, I guess, Clegg's rendition of Zulu, which was somewhat click-challenged) the song was heart-rending.

Another song for Mandela, though released in 1989 as a B-side single: Simple Minds - Mandela Day...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandela_Day_(song)

RIP Madiba. As a South African this is a helluva sad day, but we knew it was coming. I think I was 10 when he was released, but I had never heard of him before, partly because of my age, partly because of the media gagging.

I remember all the adults being worried that retribution and revenge was coming. But it never did, all he ever did was preach reconciliation. My best memory of him must him presenting Francois Pienaar with the '95 rugby world cup trophy, it sounds lame but it was such a unifying moment for the country.

After reading the Wikipedia article on Umkhonto we Sizwe[0], I found out he did a lot of wrong [1], but his peaceful efforts should be praised.

[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkhonto_we_Sizwe

[1] - "South African police statistics indicate that, in the period 1976 to 1986, approximately 130 people were killed by what the source calls 'terrorists'. Of these, about thirty were members of various security forces and one hundred were civilians."

in the period 1976 to 1986, approximately 130 people were killed by what the source calls 'terrorists'

FWIW, Mandela was in prison at the time. From the 60s to 1990.

I hope he has been heartened to see the shift towards greater equality and justice in the world, to which he was a strong voice and since my childhood he's remained one of the most relevant world leaders.

"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die" Mandela

I still remember sitting in front of the tv for hours, the day he was released. The long, extended coverage of his exit from prison, delayed as he spent his time saying goodbye to inmates and captors alike.

For those interested about the relation between Nelson Mandela and Glasgow, good reads. 1. http://www.scotsman.com/news/comment-glasgow-s-backing-of-ma... 2. http://news.stv.tv/scotland/30271-nelson-mandelas-memorable-...

We felt that without violence there would be no way open to the [African] people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of [white supremacy]. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence. But the violence which we chose to adopt was not terrorism. We who formed [Umkhonto] were all members of the [African National Congress], and had behind us the [ANC] tradition of non-violence and negotiation as a means of solving political disputes. We believe that [South Africa] belongs to all the people who live in it, and not to one group..."[1]

Interesting, and as always, relevant words.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/nelson-mandel...

A life well lived. Fought very hard but helped millions of people to get their basic human right.

For to be thought of to be lower because of your race just because of where you were accidentally born is perhaps the worst form of discrimination possible.

https://twitter.com/sarahlicity/status/408717299097403393/ph...

Are you positive of the accuracy of that? There's some dispute in the Twitter thread.

Here's to hoping that his death will at least galvanize a more unified approach to politics in SA to honor his memory.

Nelson Mandela was one of the few people to win both India's and Pakistan's highest civilian awards. A testament to his work on world peace.

Amandla!

   Awethu!

I'm a little sad to see that there's not a black bar across the top of HN due to this story.

Is it really sad when a person who has lived a long, full life dies of old age?

It is a great loss no matter how old Mandela was or how peacefully he died.

I think it's safe to say that both John McCarthy and Dennis Ritchie lived full, rich lives. They did much to change the world but Mandela is in the stratosphere when it comes to that. I say he deserves a black bar.

We moved back to SA a week after Mandela was released. My thoughts on SA as someone who saw this goal of transformation fail. Mandela was an incredible humanist, more so than people realise. his government was run on charm, persuasion and super bright people completely unqualified for their roles. The outcome of that was that technocrats (given the failings) and the movement of technocrats took over post (Mbeki). The vacuum (of burocratic skill and knowledge [i go uggh]) which was running a system that big could not (and never can) be built in a resistance movement. So arise the technocrats. Technocrats cannot understand/appease the person living in a shack not having any money or future 20 years post apartheid. So now the deal they negotiated in 90+ 96 + 99 (and yes it was a good deal in many ways (Chicago school) bad in so many as well) has only created a greater imbalance. Now we have entered the era of populists. figure that one out yourself.

Mandela's death will do more for SA and a fair bit of southern africa than most occurrences will, and era of memberance, reading reflection, humanism will come about. for a while. My greatest grievence with Mandela simply lies in that he did not break up the tri party alliance early (trade unions, communist party and the anc which is extremely right wing in contrast) allowing them to get 60%+ votes which effectively means it is a new dictatorship. (i am sorry if 80% of the votes are prone to gerrymandering + an extremely uneducated populace i won't call it a true democracy - then again first past the post - hah!).

a great human. the meaning and writing and so indefinitely misused from now.

He was a true communist and a good man. He lived up to his ideals.

I'm sad he is gone.

http://i.imgur.com/CwLZLY5.jpg / http://s1.lemde.fr/image/2013/12/05/644x322/3526517_6_2605_n...

Few men lead such a full, adventurous and meaningful life. An inspiration to all.

Inspired me to put a tire around someone's neck, fill it with gas and light it up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1SWKumsKNo

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”

Thank you Madiba. May your peace rest in all.

I wonder if political scientists on their polisci message boards have debates about programming languages and tech startups

A terrorist is a freedom fighter who isn't on your side.

Mandela has had such an impact on the world, this is sad.

Is Paul going to put the black bar up on Hacker News?

The Onion puts it nicely: http://www.theonion.com/articles/nelson-mandela-becomes-firs...

His lasting legacy is South Africa's constitution.

http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/a108-96.p...

The perfect farewell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAl5jucOgro

A sad day for the world. Many who did not live through the period 93-94 do not realise how on a Knife Edge South Africa was at the time, it could have gone either way. The country could have descended into civil war, but my personal opinion is it didn't, in large part due to Madiba. The iconic moment of him at the 97 world cup, his constant speeches on establishing restraint.

Very Sad News. Death of a truly great man.

  "It always seems impossible until it's done."

   - Nelson Mandela

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2002&dat=19981011&id=-...

did you actually read that article, i did?

yes

Rest in peace Mr. Mandela, most of us can't imagine devoting ourselves to a cause for 27 years, for others. Your startup was freedom for all, no technology can compare.

The ultimate hacker

Goodbye Bafana.

That just means 'boys'. I expect that you're looking for 'Madiba', his clan name.

I know nothing of Afrikaans, I was just quoting Goodbye Bafana (2007) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0438859 (worth watching if you haven't already).

You mean Xhosa, not Afrikaans.

That one.

Bafana actually refers to the South African soccer team (correctly “Bafana Bafana”), and does translate to "boys." Just an fyi.

I wish there was an easier and more sincere way to pay our gratitudes... RIP great man

Well, damn.

Truly his legacy will provide inspiration for generations.

RIP Madiba.

Great man

R.I.P

RIP. :(

R.I.P.

Sigh. Before anyone goes off harking how Mandela almost single-handedly brought down Apartheid, think of the following:

- SA has vast mineral resources...

- ...that the banksters wanted

- ...which SA didn't want to share (give away for almost nothing)

- CIA starts orchestrating a fall of apartheid. Their tool are the liberals: "Apartheid is terrible for the poor blacks"

- De Klerk gets told by Those In Charge to release Mandela, or else

- Mandela released, ANC take over with a majority of the vote

- ANC are corrupt like a motherfucker, privatize the government mines

- Mines are bought for cheap by foreign multinationals

- Mine workers still treated like shit, shot by police if they protest

- The situation has gotten so bad that the police mix statistics to make it look better than it is[1]

- How about the Free State spending 140 million rand on a site that costs a few thousands in reality? How's that for corruption. [2]

- Black people are showing up in interviews here and there saying that it was better during apartheid [3]

- CIA have gotten what they wanted, liberals have forgotten about SA

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsFOkUY_vkE

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKfemruhnC0

[3] Here is some "better during apartheid": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ_7JbTZXng http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NydY9WLbCwc

Other things I haven't mentioned: The jewish-led South African Communist Party working together with the ANC to promote violent uprising, Mandela approved Church Street bombing, killing civilians, Winnie Mandels pastime of burning non-ANC voters alive (necklacing). Etc.

However bad it was during Apartheid, it's even worse now.

An economic angle, summarised in: Lowenberg, Anton D. "Why South Africa’s Apartheid Economy Failed", 1997

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Contemporary-Econom...

TLDR:-

1. Decades of intensifying international isolation over RSA's political climate.

2. RSA's growing reliance on international short-term loans in 1980s, leading to balance of payments crisis.

3. Threat and introduction of economic sanctions by international community.

4. ... Leading to increasing economic costs to industry and individuals, which reduced internal support for Apartheid amongst South Africa's elite.

5. Coincidental fall of the Soviet Union, leading to the West's reduced support of RSA against revolutionary front-line states.

(Not to discount the struggle for equality amongst non-white South Africans, embodied by Mandela and others.)

EDIT: Clarity

I honor this man and his principles.. Rest in peace..

Well, lots of celebrities have died lately. Paul Walker and now Nelson Mandellion.

Remember it comes in 3's, it's not over yet.

Mandela isn't a 'celebrity': he's one of the few people in recent times who changed the world we live in for the better. His life's work allows millions of us to have hope.

I think it's more a commentary on the inane comments that are being made on the issue by people who seriously have no idea on who he was and what he did but want to jump on the bandwagon of his 'celebrity' status.

>I think it's more a commentary on the inane comments that are being made on the issue by people who seriously have no idea on who he was and what he did but want to jump on the bandwagon of his 'celebrity' status.

This was all I could think reading this thread.

Mandela, and his undertakings, probably never crossed the minds of 90% of the participants in this thread. I know very little about him myself, outside of his celebrity. But suddenly everyone has an opinion.

This is a bizarre comparison.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com