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Comment by F_J_H | Hacker News Reader

I've been offline for a bit. Has anyone made the point that Edward Snowden is today's Nelson Mandela?

I'm recalling a conversation I had with someone born and raised in South Africa, who said Mandela was in jail for a reason as he was a terrorist who broke the law, (which of course has been much discussed recently). Someone else chimed in something like "it's different when you break laws to right an injustice..."

It's a complex issue, and I'd be surprised if someone hasn't already made the connection.

Edit: clarity

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Mandela was respected for what he did after being released from prison, rather than what he did before going to prison.

When oppressive and divisive regimes fall, it often happens violently and they end up being replaced by regimes that are just as bad if not worse (see: Tsarist Russia, White-majority Rhodesia, many other postcolonial states). That didn't happen in SA, and Mandela is credited with that.

If the world ends up looking way more dystopian scifi than it does at the moment, there's maybe a scenario where Snowden ends up being today's Nelson Mandela, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I thought there was this world-wide campaign to free Mandela while he was in prison as well. Surely it couldn't be informed by what he would do in the future.

There was. I remember signing a petition as a kid in a school in a country across the world from SA.

There was a huge campaign to free Mandela in the 1980s, including the memorable song "Free Nelson Mandela" by The Special AKA:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/09/jerry-dammers-f...

> Mandela was respected for what he did after being released from prison, rather than what he did before going to prison.

He can be respected for both. Many of us do respect him for the totality of what he was, not just what he was later in life.

Oh, that's totally true. I didn't mean to suggest that he isn't respected for his earlier actions (which, reading it back, I kinda did).

But I don't think he'd be thought about the same way if it wasn't for the second act. A lot of people are unfairly imprisoned by despotic governments. Not many become unifying figures in the way that Mandela did. So I don't think the comparison to Snowden is a good one.

> I've been offline for a bit. Has anyone made the point that Edward Snowden is today's Nelson Mandela?

Probably not, because it's a very poor comparison.

I should have been more clear on what someone may try to compare.

Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist by authorities in power at the time, and was accused of treason, as is Snowden I believe. History judges Mandela otherwise, and deems him a hero. Will the same be true for Snowden? I guess it really is the same old debate that has been going on - is Snowden a hero or a traitor guilty of treason, and how will the answer to that question differ, if at all, in 25 to 30 years? Nothing new here besides the context in which the question is posed, which may or may not be valid.

I did within an hour, indirectly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6857657

Yulia Tymoshenko is more directly comparable.

Eh? How so and how on earth?

Because she was a prisoner of all her wealth before becoming prime minister? \s

I would firstly say I don't think there are any good modern-day comparisons to Nelson Mandela, and I don't think this is a productive discussion.

However, at least Tymoshenko is a political leader who is imprisoned by her home state for her continuing expression of and leadership in opposition to unjust policy; Snowden is none of these things, and I cannot imagine him taking that role in the future.

Sorry, I missed the part in Mandela's biography where he avoided jail time by skipping the country, and then proceeded to go dark in order to continue avoiding jail time. Snowden is better compared to spies than to revolutionaries. At best, he's a Loki.

Fighters of injustice needn't submit to jail in my book. No drop in hero status for Snowden.

spacebe4time: You have been hellbanned for several months.

I've seen this before, on the same user. How, if he is hellbanned, do you see that he's trying to post? Is it unlocked on seasoned accounts similar to downmods?

I've seen this before too and have wondered the same thing.

turn 'showdead' on in your profile.

You should probably read his biography then because you miss the part that starts:

>"Traveling there in secret, Mandela ..." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela#Umkhonto_we_Sizw...

He was arrested after sneaking back into S. Africa, after sneaking out of S. Africa, when someone tipped off the government about his location (he went dark to avoid capture, he was in hiding when they arrested him). He attempted to evade the S. African government and clearly would have avoided arrest by fleeing the country if possible. Note that one of the things he was charged with was "leaving the country without permission".

And just for the record Loki was captured. The imprisonment of Loki is an extremely important aspect of the mythology of Loki which should not be ignored in attempting to find modern analogues.

>The narrative continues that Loki was bound with the entrails of his son Nari, and his son Narfi changed into a wolf. Skaði fastened a venomous snake over Loki's face, and from it poison dripped. Sigyn, Loki's wife, sat with him holding a basin beneath the dripping venom, yet when the basin became full, she carried the poison away; and during this time the poison dripped on to Loki, causing him to writhe with such violence that all of the earth shook from the force, resulting in what are now known as earthquakes. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki

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