RIP Nelson Mandela Page 2

Quote: Nogget @ 6th December 2013, 8:00 AM GMT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/05/nelson-mandela-terrorist_n_4394392.html

While he was revered by politicians today as a human rights icon, Mandela remained on the U.S. terrorism watch list until 2008, when then-President George W. Bush signed a bill removing Mandela from it.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also described Mandela's ANC as a "typical terrorist organization" in 1987

Mandela was a great man, but a complicated one. It's too easy to dismiss our governments as fools for branding him a terrorist, because the truth is terrorist acts did occur amongst people close to him, although Mandela denied being being involved in them.

I think it's worth remembering this when we are trying to bring peace to places like Afghanistan, where we may have to deal with people we don't really want to deal with.

They may have a future great leader of their own who we have already branded a terrorist.

View original

Yes - absolutely. The key word in the news is reconciliation. In conflict, it is easier to say than achieve. There was that very special strand to Mandela's character and ironically it developed as a consequence of incarceration. But I doubt he fundamentally changed as the anger only boiled over in regard to Sharpeville.

I am one of the tiny millions who were moved by the Mandela story in the 1980s. I do feel some sort of connection and shed a tear this morning as well as feeling a desire to listen to upbeat South African music. In 1982-83, I was studying British race relations with specific reference to the Brixton riots. In 1986, I went to Clapham Common for my very first outdoors gig which was organised by Jerry Dammers against apartheid.

The day Madiba was released was extraordinary. Oddly, there was a lot of anticipation about what he would look like as well as how he would leave the prison. I think we were surprised that he was elderly and yet we knew that he had been in prison for the whole of our lifetimes. It was - and is - easy to forget he was well into his 40s when he was taken to Robben Island and that must have been immensely difficult to manage.

Quote: Nogget @ 6th December 2013, 8:00 AM GMT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/05/nelson-mandela-terrorist_n_4394392.html

While he was revered by politicians today as a human rights icon, Mandela remained on the U.S. terrorism watch list until 2008, when then-President George W. Bush signed a bill removing Mandela from it.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also described Mandela's ANC as a "typical terrorist organization" in 1987

Mandela was a great man, but a complicated one. It's too easy to dismiss our governments as fools for branding him a terrorist, because the truth is terrorist acts did occur amongst people close to him, although Mandela denied being being involved in them.

I think it's worth remembering this when we are trying to bring peace to places like Afghanistan, where we may have to deal with people we don't really want to deal with.

They may have a future great leader of their own who we have already branded a terrorist.

View original

That's a very shrewd comment. Many 'terrorists' have been vindicated by the passage of time, and it is one of the reasons why the 'War on Terror' that closes off all communication with people who are using violence to promote an ideology is particularly foolish.

Incidentally, last year I got to see the Robben Island Bible at The British Museum and Mandela had highlighted a section from Julius Caesar:

Cowards die many times before their deaths
The valiant never taste of death but once

Quote: roscoff @ 6th December 2013, 8:25 AM GMT

Indeed a great man. Named after a block of flats in Peckham I believe.

View original

Del (to Rodney): "...you wanna think about that poor git (Albert) there.. Last time he had his leg over Nelson Mandela was in borstal!"

(from Three Men, A Woman And A Baby)

Quote: Gordon Bennett @ 6th December 2013, 9:11 AM GMT

Del (to Rodney): "...you wanna think about that poor git (Albert) there.. Last time he had his leg over Nelson Mandela

View original

Probably need a comma in there...

The guy I think blew up a pylon before going to prison for decades and at one point saying, violence wasnt the worst response to aparhteid.
Upon leaving jail he called for peace and disbanded the armed wing of the ANC as quickly as possible.
The Easter Bunny was a worse terrorist.

Actually I hate the Easter bunny so poor example.

Quote: sootyj @ 6th December 2013, 9:43 AM GMT

The guy I think blew up a pylon before going to prison for decades and at one point saying, violence wasnt the worst response to aparhteid.

View original

Even without thinking about what he denied doing, this is on record ( MK is Mandela's Spear of Nation):

Operating through a cell structure, the MK agreed to acts of sabotage to exert maximum pressure on the government with minimum casualties, bombing military installations, power plants, telephone lines and transport links at night, when civilians were not present. Mandela noted that should these tactics fail, MK would resort to "guerilla warfare and terrorism."[103] Soon after ANC leader Luthuli was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the MK publicly announced its existence with 57 bombings on Dingane's Day (16 December) 1961, followed by further attacks on New Year's Eve

But that followed the Sharpeville massacre of peaceful black protesters in 1960.

"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 Are At War). We did so not because we desired such a course, but solely because the government had left us with no other choice."

Quote: Harridan @ 6th December 2013, 8:34 AM GMT

That's a very shrewd comment. Many 'terrorists' have been vindicated by the passage of time,

View original

On the other hand there are rather more Robert Mugabes, and many greyer cases where the opinion of history remains very much divided.

But yes, it is necessary to hold your nose and do business with these people, and then to hope for the best.

I would say the ANC could say they were effectively under occupation, I think the PLO would say something similar.

There is a gulf of diference between hurting and terrorising people to make a point, and trying to get the boot taken off of your neck.

I imagine that most terrorists feel that they are in the boot-on-neck category.

There are so many things. Who is doing business with who? Where a Government has a reasonable human rights record, it may think about doing business with people labelled terrorists. Where it doesn't, it probably doesn't have the moral authority to choose. A comparatively decent Government might hope that any violent opposition is formalised for that in itself can control sporadic action. The latter is impossible to engage in dialogue for who is it? Then it hopes there is an unusually rounded character in the hierarchy rather than just a bunch of street fighters who are angry about oppression. Preferably right at the top.

Etc!

Quote: sootyj @ 6th December 2013, 12:22 PM GMT

I would say the ANC could say they were effectively under occupation, I think the PLO would say something similar.

View original

The provisional IRA would make the same claim, and so would the French Resistance, but that does not make for moral equivalence.

The moral justification for terrorism comes down to how intolerable your conditions, and whether there is any way rather than violence of addressing this that might be more fruitful.

Mandela renounced violence, whether that was a moral or a tactical decision, he was vindicated.

In prison, Mandela read a lot about Gandhi who had become the honorific Mahatma (high souled, venerable) in 1914 when he first employed non-violent disobedience as a lawyer. As it happens.......in South Africa!

He used to ring me from time to time for advice - always used to reverse the charges, the tight bastard!