tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post3536204795043446589..comments2024-01-05T06:18:18.086-05:00Comments on CommentaramaPolitics: Mandela: A RetrospectiveAndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-34268538779213677812014-01-02T12:26:15.150-05:002014-01-02T12:26:15.150-05:00T-Rav - Very true
Unless I am mistaken wasn't...T-Rav - Very true<br /><br />Unless I am mistaken wasn't "necklacing" was targeted against blacks in South Africa as much as whites. The ANC was at odds with the Zulus (I forget what their faction is called) and some of the tribal infighting was rather bitter. I think I read somewhere that one of the points to Apartheid was to segregate these tribes as much as they were to segregate whites.<br /><br />Not that nay of this was right.Individualisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11005025873042230314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-46911075047351989832013-12-28T11:25:59.495-05:002013-12-28T11:25:59.495-05:00"Heck, until recently I didn't know why h..."Heck, until recently I didn't know why he was in prison in the first place."<br /><br />And boy, oh boy does it show. Next time around at least check the Wikipedia entry on necklacing before posting.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-6423411767994363472013-12-17T23:18:46.029-05:002013-12-17T23:18:46.029-05:00Thanks Jed! Nothing authoritative here, just my ow...Thanks Jed! Nothing authoritative here, just my own somewhat rambling thoughts on Mandela and what he means.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-12940747272554059092013-12-17T22:55:09.680-05:002013-12-17T22:55:09.680-05:00T-Rav - nice assessment. I was out virtually all d...T-Rav - nice assessment. I was out virtually all day and just got to read it.Tennessee Jedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10604275115906776992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-39993794965216590722013-12-17T20:00:42.922-05:002013-12-17T20:00:42.922-05:00Sorry, was traveling.
Bev, it's often very h...Sorry, was traveling. <br /><br />Bev, it's often very hard to convince people to give up power, so de Klerk definitely deserves more credit than he gets. Especially given that the Dutch Afrikaaners he was a member of were <i>really</i> wedded to the apartheid system for a long time. <br /><br />Mandela's whole arc reminds me of a quote I read once from Abe Lincoln (might have mentioned it before): "Anyone can show character under suffering. If you want to test the true nature of a man, give him power." I think the final verdict on Mandela is that he passed that test. Might not have aced it, but definitely passed it.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-49341219450344135242013-12-17T12:19:22.043-05:002013-12-17T12:19:22.043-05:00As to the competing Saint v. Sinner perceptions of...As to the competing Saint v. Sinner perceptions of Nelson Mandela. He was not perfect. And in today's world of instant widespread and available information, it is much easier to see how both sides can parse out the "facts" to create their own "biography" of someone who was a great and influential man. He surrounded himself with unsavory organizations and government leaders much like many political prisoners who eventually become the leaders, But he left an overarching perception that he was wise in choosing reconciliation rather than retaliation (mostly). <br /><br />What I find interesting is how little credit Frederik Willem de Klerk gets for freeing Mandela and brokering the end of apartheid in South Africa. I can be harder to convince leaders to give up power than it can be to convince people to take power.BevfromNYChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14953050916932306270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-65592074090791445362013-12-17T11:50:16.508-05:002013-12-17T11:50:16.508-05:00Critch,
The SADF was overwhelmingly white (in no...Critch, <br /><br />The SADF was overwhelmingly white (in no small part due to mandatory conscription for white males) during the four decades it existed.<br /><br />http://www.historytoday.com/gary-baines/south-africa%E2%80%99s-forgotten-war<br /><br />http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/4094/1/Kenneth_W_Grundy_-_The_use_of_Blacks_in_the_South_African_armed_forces.pdfAnthonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16124128949343301445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-57129214798493950492013-12-17T11:11:24.737-05:002013-12-17T11:11:24.737-05:00Patriot, that's very true. Winnie Mandela was ...Patriot, that's very true. Winnie Mandela was a real piece of work from what all the evidence suggests, though I understand that their estrangement was for some personal reasons as well.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-43514744721200514202013-12-17T11:07:48.681-05:002013-12-17T11:07:48.681-05:00Critch, I don't have any particular informatio...Critch, I don't have any particular information about the SA army to verify what you're saying. I do know that despite its oppressive apartheid measures, the country saw a significant influx of blacks from elsewhere in Africa during the '70s and '80s, largely because their homelands were such economic basketcases by that time. <br /><br />I don't really have an answer for you on Mandela's ideology. Like you suggest, it did shift around quite a bit, and there weren't many (if any) moments when he carefully toed the party line on anything. And that has a lot to do with why South Africa hasn't turned out worse.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-46825586951548081312013-12-17T10:28:38.731-05:002013-12-17T10:28:38.731-05:00He always struck me a as a very compliated man, wh...He always struck me a as a very compliated man, who may not have had any hard fast ideaologies until he went to prison. I'm not sure why he was the symbol for the ANC and the anti-Apratheid groups, he didn't seem to be particularly notable. I give him a lot of credit for holidng SA together, I know it took some licks, but he tried. <br /><br />it was so fashionalble to be anti apartheid that many westerners did not stop to notice that 90% of the SA Army was black, they could have overthrown the whites anyime they wanted to,,,why didn't they? I tell you why, they looked around and they saw what black people were doing to other black people on that continent and decided life was fairly good and safe. Pefect? No. But people will often trade security for freedom. I'm friends with 2 SA ex-pats, both white who left because they see their native country going down the tubes in the near future. Both served in the SA Army and fought in Angola, both will tell you they trusted their black counterparts implicitly, its the black civilians they didn't trust. Critchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07106908233705403513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-87789517512223020012013-12-17T06:26:05.907-05:002013-12-17T06:26:05.907-05:00Also.....Winnie Mandela, his wife at the time (now...Also.....Winnie Mandela, his wife at the time (now ex), was a great believer in using the gasoline filled tires around the necks of her 'opponents.' If I remember, he distanced himself from her once he was freed, and ultimately renounced and rejected her after a time.<br /><br />What a beauty.Patriothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01533169053860540075noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-13351922267017325612013-12-17T04:11:33.567-05:002013-12-17T04:11:33.567-05:00Mandela was jailed in 1962. Necklacing didn't...Mandela was jailed in 1962. Necklacing didn't pop up until the mid-80s and the overwhelming majority of its targets were not 'white captives' as you allege, but blacks. It was usually carried out in black townships by mobs on people they suspected of being collaborators or common criminals. Out of curiosity, where are you getting your information to the contrary from?<br /><br />Also, its worth keeping in mind that Nelson Mandela started off as a believer in non-violence. After the demolition of Sofiatown, the Sharpeville massacre and the banning of black anti-apartheid organizations (including but not limited to the ANC) Mandela became convinced the only way to overthrow the government was through violence. He was very vocal about that belief and was initially out of step with the ANC, but he and subsequent events brought them around.<br /><br />Its also worth noting that in the time Mandela was walking around free, the ANC's military wing was focused on sabotage (blowing up power substations, burning crops) though roughly two decades after Mandela's jailing, tactically it morphed into a more traditional terror organization (targeting people not infrastructure and not just employees of the government, but civilians). But don't take my word about Mandela's crimes, below is a rather thorough account of the trial.<br /><br />http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mandela/mandelaaccount.html<br /><br />If you weren't able to find specific evidence of Mandela advocating non-violence, you didn't look very hard. Before the razing of Sofiatown (prosperous non-white township rezoned for whites only who inhabitants were driven out at gunpoint by the police) Mandela had been a peaceful protest leader for years (nods towards The Defiance Campaign) and the ANC had been like the NAACP, a legal organization that favored petitions and non-compliance rather than violence. <br /><br />Pacifism is fine and good in the right circumstances, but against the wrong people it does no good Gandhi was a great man dedicated to his ideals and was certainly the right man at the right time in the right place, but he thought the ideal strategy for Jews being sent to death camps was non-violence resistance...<br /><br />I don't see a deep need to compare different historical figures, but I will note that Mandela is no Washington. The government oppression that kicked off the American revolution was orders of magnitude below what black South Africans faced. As a point of comparison, the infamous in US history Boston Massacre killed 5, the apparently less infamous in US history Sharpesville Massacre killed 69.<br /><br />Mandela was no saint (it would have saved a lot of lives if he had been more active about AIDS while in power) but he was the right man in the right place at the right time.Anthonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16124128949343301445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-84661758146368204092013-12-17T01:55:00.655-05:002013-12-17T01:55:00.655-05:00Andrew, that's true, but I'm not just talk...Andrew, that's true, but I'm not just talking about what he may have been involved with in the '50s. It's also a matter of how he governed and the legacy he left as a post-apartheid president. <br /><br />I noticed an article while writing this, saying that as it happened, South Africa pretty much went on with its life when he died, and that was the way he would have wanted it. That in itself amounts to a pretty big plus.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6251675227852122352.post-86559661675858423842013-12-17T00:58:25.724-05:002013-12-17T00:58:25.724-05:00T-Rav, It is precisely because these things were i...T-Rav, It is precisely because these things were in his past 30 years before when he took over, that his positives are so amazing to people.AndrewPricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.com