Mandela Dead

[doc.fixit]

respect!

[Chinahand]

I have heard him speak - during the election campaign for the 1st democratic elections in South Africa.

 

He was willing to stand and fight for a noble cause and to be magnanimous in achieving it.

 

A huge symbol of human dignity - he was willing to die to achieve equality and worked tirelessly to ensure peace once it was achieved.

 

A trully great human being.

[AcousticallyChallenged]

Mandela was an icon and showed that actually, humanity did have some good still left, even if it was only his own.

[Ruger]

I have heard him speak - during the election campaign for the 1st democratic elections in South Africa.

He was willing to stand and fight for a noble cause and to be magnanimous in achieving it.

A huge symbol of human dignity - he was willing to die to achieve equality and worked tirelessly to ensure peace once it was achieved.

A trully great human being.

So was Bin Laden then, if being a terrorist makes someone a "great human being".

[Whatsername]

 

I have heard him speak - during the election campaign for the 1st democratic elections in South Africa.

He was willing to stand and fight for a noble cause and to be magnanimous in achieving it.

A huge symbol of human dignity - he was willing to die to achieve equality and worked tirelessly to ensure peace once it was achieved.

A trully great human being.

So was Bin Laden then, if being a terrorist makes someone a "great human being".

Cock

[Ruger]

I beleived in his struggle for racial equality, but don't forget that he WAS openly prepared to get involved in some horrendous stuff. Civilian remains scattered across the streets sort of stuff...

[P.K.]

So was Bin Laden then, if being a terrorist makes someone a "great human being".

Tsk tsk. You're forgetting that history writes you up as "a freedom fighter" if you win and "a terrorist" if you lose. He won....

[Shake me up Judy]

Those who continue to argue that Mandela was a terrorist seem to forget that South Africa was at the time a terrorist State involved in all sorts of acts of terror against its own people. The apartheid regime murdered far more innocent people than the ANC and it was very far from a liberal democracy.

[Declan]

Ed Milliband on Radio 5 has described how a young student of his father's was murdered by a letter bomb sent by South African Secret Police.

[2bees]

On Facebook people are making huge statements of their feelings on this mans death, the news is full of 'chinas reaction to the death of Mandela' - what's that about? I don't care what china or any of the (self proclaimed) local celebs think, rip would suffice.

[Chinahand]

Ed Milliband on Radio 5 has described how a young student of his father's was murdered by a letter bomb sent by South African Secret Police.

I didn't hear the interview, but this must be Ruth First - she wasn't a young student - she was in her 50s when murdered by the Apartheid state.

 

Alan Wiede sums up the relationship between Ralph Miliband (Ed's dad) and Ms First pretty well in his book Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid:

 

Stalwart intellectuals like Tariq Ali and Ralph Miliband respected Ruth First. She had the honour of studying with Miliband ... one of the leading anti-Stalinist theoreticians of New Left politics. Ruth took Miliband's courses at the LSE, and they spent time in each other's homes engaged in conversations that were usually political. Miliband had great admiration for Ruth First:

 

She was the least "utopian" of the revolutionaries; but she was not in the least "disillusioned"; she never gave the slightest hint of doubt about the justice of her cause or the urgent need to strive for its advancement. She deplored the shortcomings, stupidities and crimes of her own side. But this never dimmed her sense that there was a struggle to be fought against the monstrous tyranny that is [apartheid] South Africa ... Beyond all disappointments and setbacks, it was [the] sense of reality of oppression which moved her.

 

I think you can say the same for Mandela.

 

Politicians when they get to a certain level become involved in decisions of war and peace.

 

Mandela was directly involved in the decisions to fight and form Umkhonto we Sizwe. For doing this Mandela was put on trial and he fully expected to be sentenced to death - after being found guilty he made a speech to the judges. In this he directly explains why he moved to violence:

 

"At the beginning of June 1961, after a long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I, and some colleagues, came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force.

 

This conclusion was not easily arrived at. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle, and to form Umkhonto we Sizwe. We did so not because we desired such a course, but solely because the government had left us with no other choice.

 

I find it strange when people try to blame Mandela for all the violence that occurred as the Apartheid state descended into hell with the state bombing, poisoning, assassinating at will and fomenting and arming vigilante groups who struggled with the ANC for control of the settlements and squatter camps.

 

Certainly, while Mandela was kept incommunicado on Robin Island, ignored and called a terrorist by a terrorist government, South Africa ripped itself apart with the most terrible violence involving car tyres, petrol, knives, bullets and bombs.

 

It was only once the Apartheid government opened a channel for political negotiation that this violence ended - Mandela had wanted that channel in 1961 and he forgave the 27 years of imprisonment and the huge terror the Apartheid state had fomented and so peacefully worked towards South Africa's transition to democracy.

 

Mandela saw the justice of his cause and if the only option was to fight or to submit to this cause's defeat then he would fight, but if offered peace and a path to justice he accepted it.

 

Mandela had the leadership and charisma to do that.

 

If people cannot understand that took a unique personality which the world should mourn I give up. He was a great man.

[woolley]

On Facebook people are making huge statements of their feelings on this mans death, the news is full of 'chinas reaction to the death of Mandela' - what's that about? I don't care what china or any of the (self proclaimed) local celebs think, rip would suffice.

Yes. We're never going to hear the last of it. Even Manx Radio saw the need to shunt the Manx News into a siding to accommodate the death of Mandela. Naturally, the BBC will talk of nothing else for a week. Is it some kind of inherited collective guilt speaking rather than respect? Like you say, RIP would suffice.

[mojomonkey]

 

On Facebook people are making huge statements of their feelings on this mans death, the news is full of 'chinas reaction to the death of Mandela' - what's that about? I don't care what china or any of the (self proclaimed) local celebs think, rip would suffice.

Yes. We're never going to hear the last of it. Even Manx Radio saw the need to shunt the Manx News into a siding to accommodate the death of Mandela. Naturally, the BBC will talk of nothing else for a week. Is it some kind of inherited collective guilt speaking rather than respect? Like you say, RIP would suffice.

 

I agree on the whole Facebook thing, it's like people have to compete to show the greatest level of mourning, it can all seem a bit manufactured and false to me. However, the death of an internationally known historic figure of huge significance is bound to be big news. It is hardly a surprise that Manx Radio ran it before reporting the exciting news of the MEA sending workers to help Scotland, Peter Karran whinging about something, etc.

[Donald Trumps]

I'm surprised the Wing Commander hasn't issued a personal statement

[woolley]

 

 

On Facebook people are making huge statements of their feelings on this mans death, the news is full of 'chinas reaction to the death of Mandela' - what's that about? I don't care what china or any of the (self proclaimed) local celebs think, rip would suffice.

Yes. We're never going to hear the last of it. Even Manx Radio saw the need to shunt the Manx News into a siding to accommodate the death of Mandela. Naturally, the BBC will talk of nothing else for a week. Is it some kind of inherited collective guilt speaking rather than respect? Like you say, RIP would suffice.

 

I agree on the whole Facebook thing, it's like people have to compete to show the greatest level of mourning, it can all seem a bit manufactured and false to me. However, the death of an internationally known historic figure of huge significance is bound to be big news. It is hardly a surprise that Manx Radio ran it before reporting the exciting news of the MEA sending workers to help Scotland, Peter Karran whinging about something, etc.

Yes. I do see what you mean, but they never seem to do it for anything else that happens off Island however momentous.