That sums it up better than just about anything I've read today.Originally Posted by Tamara
That sums it up better than just about anything I've read today.
I think it's important to define terrorist, here.
To me, there's a big difference between someone who attacks civilian populations (true terrorism), and someone who attacks government installations/personnel to support the overthrow of a tyrannical government. While the later can be classified as "terrorism", well......so can the Free State Project....which it has been. So, throwing around the label "terrorist" in this case might be a little misleading, IMO, as most people are going to think Al-Qaeda.
The reason I say that is because my understanding is that the ANC didn't start indiscriminately targeting civilians until the 80's.....more than 20 years after Mandela was sent to prison.
So.........context is everything.
That goes both ways.
He was the leader of a Communist organization, which automatically made him a target for us. I think it goes without saying that much of the initial vilification is more related to that tidbit than any actual no-holds-barred terrorism. There's many examples of enemies of the US being artificially vilified to an extreme amount simply because they were Communist and didn't play into our foreign policy. Like I said above, sure, he can be classified as a terrorist.....but from what I know, he's in an entirely separate class of terrorism than bearded goat-fornicating type yelling "Allah Ackbar! Death to America!" He's more akin to the "terrorists" operating circa-1775 Colonial America, from what I can tell.
Last edited by TGS; 12-05-2013 at 10:37 PM.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
As for history and Mr. Mandela, yeah...history is complicated. It's written by the victors and their bad acts are often glossed over. Someone once said something to the effect that nice guys do not make history. On the rare occasions when they do, they often meet an unpleasant end.
Mr. Mandela wasn't jailed for political views, he was jailed for acts of violence. Terrorism. Terrorism which he never renounced, which was so problematic that even Amnesty International had a big debate about how they classified his imprisonment. Washington owned slaves like many others of his time and took up arms against the crown...but he and the other founders conducted themselves far better than other revolutionaries around their time. Many recoiled in horror at the blood soaked nightmare that was the French revolution.
Mandela's record is considerably more tarnished than Mr. Washington's. Considerably more tarnished than someone like Ghandi, who managed to accomplish quite a bit in India without blowing up any innocent people or giving birth to an organization that would be responsible for crimes every bit as heinous as anything they accused their oppressors of. Tam is dead on the money: Mandela has been turned into a Martin Luther King style figure as people gloss over what the man actually did, and what his organization has perpetrated in the name of "justice".
Mitt Romney posted on Facebook about Mandela's incredible commitment to peace. Maybe he was just ignorant of the truth because nobody covers the bloody truth in the western press. Or maybe speaking the truth about the dead would have resulted in a bunch of people angrily denouncing Mitt Romney as a racist. Neither is a particularly pleasant possibility to consider.
EDIT - history gets to be a bit like choosing between bad and worse. Who was worse, the Tzar or the Bolsheviks? Who was worse, Mao or Kai-Shek? Who was worse, the would-be dictators of Rome or the Senate? Sometimes in history there aren't any good guys. South Africa strikes me as one of those situations. Apartheid was horrible, but the ANC is just as brutal and horrible, including to blacks in South Africa who are from the wrong tribe. Our foreign policy is often based on the same sorts of reality. On the global stage there are frequently no good guys to deal with. Just look at Karzai in Afghanistan as an example.
Last edited by TCinVA; 12-05-2013 at 10:55 PM.
3/15/2016
Dude, I realize everybody else in his neighborhood was doing it, too, but let's not talk too lightly about owning other human beings as chattel property.
Looking back on the Founders, there's something more than a little messed up about the very guy who penned the Declaration of Independence having the bill of sale for a member of h. sapiens in his desk drawer.
/derail
Well thought and penned. We can read lots, research lots, but context is everything. Looking forward to hearing from the SA contingent.
Of course. But that's human nature. The founders, flawed as they were, managed to create something larger than themselves which carried within it the foundation for actually achieving something better than anyone in their time knew. A lot of blood was spilled in the effort to bring our reality up to the potential of our founding principles.
In the first half of the 20th century we were still lagging behind on that front, but the people seeking justice didn't wage a campaign of terror to try and move the ball forward. The organizations pushing for justice lost their way, but the worst we get is Al Sharpton whoring himself on TV...not flaming tire necklaces. That has a lot to do with the principles things were founded on and the character of the iconic leadership.
Mandela doesn't bat in that league. He wasn't noble himself and didn't create something of enduring nobility. He created something that's as bad as what he claimed to be fighting against...and that's being completely ignored in the coverage. He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
Last edited by TCinVA; 12-05-2013 at 11:08 PM.
3/15/2016
Some of you guys are also giving the soft serve treatment to Apartheid, which isn't fair either. Apartheid in SA was about as close to genocide of a majority as you can get without the actual mass murder... Meaning they took all the steps one would take if they wanted to eradicate a population (classification, identification, marking, segregation, forced relocation, suppression, etc.) without actually murdering millions directly. This is a pretty heinous thing that I think justified a bit of rebellion. He had already been in prison for a long time during the worst of the violence, which was doled out liberally by both sides, and emerged a hero and the first black African president of a country that had been ruled by minority elites and foreigners for 300 years.
No Mandela wasn't a saint, but he was incredibly important for South Africa and clearly a freedom fighter (with all the mixed emotions that that word conjures up.) Now since Mandela's retirement, I can't say the ANC has exactly been good for South Africa, but the country has it together enough to have pulled off hosting the World Cup a few years ago, which is no small feat.
I happen to be a white South African. One who is not in any way a fan of the ANC.That said all bullshit aside Madiba was a truely great man. Not some dude who did a pretty good job considerung but an exceptional human being. Heres why he left 27 years of prison without a hint of bitterness. He unified a nation in a position I think most of you will never understand. When Chris Hani was murdered i think we got closer to genocide and civil war than I even want to consider. The govt of the time would not gave been in a position to do a thing about it. It was Madiba who at that time took ownership of the country and steered us away from that. I will never support the ANC nor will I condone the armed struggle. But I think questioning whether Nelson Mandela was anything but a lifeline for this country shows a deep lack of understanding of exactly how things work in South Africa.RIP Madiba Hamba Gahle
Welcome to Africa, bring a hardhat.
Well said. What is important about Mandela is not where he started from but where he ended up.
To come out of prison and work for reconciliation instead of revenge, to subjugate the short term interests of your people to the long term interests of the nation - Mandela had a rare depth of character.
As a white South African I felt it necessary to comment. I have been reading pistol-forum for the past two years but only recently joined. My family has been in South Africa since 1715.
This an extremely complex and sensitive issue.
I partly agree with what Big T has said and Mandela must be commended for helping to steer South Africa ALONG with FW De Klerk the last white president in South Africa. Mandela helped to calm the fears of the whites in this country in 1994 and worked hard in uniting South Africa at the time. There was a documentary on state television here about a year ago in which Mandela says that the only reason the ANC did not try and overthrow the Apartheid government militarily is because they knew they would lose due to the white governments military power and capability. Mandela was the leader of the armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, which planted bombs in shopping malls and pubs killing innocent civilians.
Apartheid was introduced in South Africa to give preferential treatment to the poor white Afrikaners NOT to suppress the blacks. If you read up on the philosophy behind it, it will become clear. At the time Apartheid was introduced the government realised that being the minority the poor whites would battle to compete against the majority and therefore they developed the system of Apartheid. A number of the offshoots of it came at a later stage (like the forced removals etc) and were not part of the initial philosophy behind it. Bare in mind that the whites voted for a democratic country in the referendum in 1992 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_A...ferendum,_1992).
Apartheid was nowhere near a genocide and thats a rubbish accusation and is laughable. More blacks were killed by fellow blacks in the township violence between the IFP and ANC than by the Apartheid government.
However this is all history.
My biggest problem is the state of turmoil South Africa is in now. The animosity towards whites in this country is unbelievable, 20 years later its worse now than it was in 1994. South Africa was more united in 1994 than it is now.
The story of a unified South Africa is a farce. I have been told to go back to Europe and to get out of South Africa more than once. If there is any form of criticism directed at a person of colour the immediate response is an accusation of racism. In terms of careers as a white male the big corporations literally laugh at you if you apply for positions and most whites work in small consultancies or for themselves. Job adverts are blatantly racist, saying the job is reserved for blacks only. Companies require a certain percentage of black ownership to allow you to do business with any State institution etc. A certain number of black players in sports teams is required. The list is endless. These are all things the Apartheid government did that lead to a world wide out cry and sanctions against us.
The crime rate is beyond belief. I could list endless stories that have happened to me personally and to people I know. Do you know what its like to wake up at 3.30 am on a Friday night/Saturday morning with six guys trying to breakdown your back door? Or to hear how the neighbour on the farm your family used to own was shot cold blooded in the head while watering his garden at the age of 70 and nothing stolen? Or of the old people that are tortured in the most horrific ways on their farms? There are thousands upon thousands of crimes like these. Home invasions where people are murdered don't even make the newspaper in South Africa.
Why was nothing said by our most influential leader to stop the downward spiral of lawlessness and corruption that South Africa has turned into...
Last edited by Zeroptsdown; 12-06-2013 at 02:59 AM.
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