Nelson Mandela RIP

[eighthobstruction]

I find superlatives of this kind most unhelpful, but of course many get caught up in the maelstrom of emotion that follows the death of a high profile campaigner for social justice. Of course such hyperbole ("greatest man of my lifetime") are nourished by the mainstream media so as to become unquestionable perceived wisdom. Let us please not forget that there have been many unswervingly principled individuals of the last century who, having found themselves and their people living under an oppressive regime committed themselves to campaign tirelessly for social justice, and (at great risk to themselves and their family) advocate civil disobedience, and were subsequently incarcerated for their unshakable convictions. And here's the important bit ... for many such people the dice fell very differently than they did for Mandela, they perished in labour camps, or were simply executed or never heard from again. There was no happy ending. Can we really say that these individuals, whose causes and plights didn't benefit from the media spotlight, were any less courageous, self-sacrificing or principled than Mandela?

Nelson Mandela a great man? Undoubtedly. But the "greatest man of our lifetime" ... a bit of a slight to all the forgotten Mandelas elsewhere.

....I'm sure many understand that (almost all understand that)....and see NM as a symbol for all those people, that is why he is important, he does have that duality that you think of him and you immediately think of them.....

[Beef Oven!]

I find superlatives of this kind most unhelpful, but of course many get caught up in the maelstrom of emotion..............

Nelson Mandela a great man? Undoubtedly. But the "greatest man of our lifetime" ... a bit of a slight to all the forgotten Mandelas elsewhere.

It's a white thing, a white liberal thing. They'll get over it.

[aeolium]

RIP

[Stephen Whitaker]

You were making a point about Winston Churchill? It didn't read like that.

Africa is a continent too and was without nation states, just as Europe was once. 'Black South Africa' is as wrong as 'White Europe', therefore.

OK let me try to have it read like that......

If Britain had been subjected to foreign invasion and control in the way that Mandela's homeland was, then Churchill would have been labelled a 'terrorist' by the invaders.

"We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender"

History is written by the winning side but in this case I think Mandela did take his share of responsibility for all the things that were done in the campaign to end apartheid.

[gurnemanz]

I was watching quite a good programme about submarines during the Cold War on BBC when a sub-title came up directing us to a BBC1 newsflash. I duly switched over with some apprehension, knowing it must be something momentous. I will admit a small tear came to my eye. Earlier in the day I had been reading in the paper some remarks made by his daughter: Even on his deathbed he is teaching us lessons - lessons in patience, in love, lessons of tolerance.

[Beef Oven!]

OK let me try to have it read like that......

If Britain had been subjected to foreign invasion and control in the way that Mandela's homeland was, then Churchill would have been labelled a 'terrorist' by the invaders.

"We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender"

History is written by the winning side but in this case I think Mandela did take his share of responsibility for all the things that were done in the campaign to end apartheid.

I can still see the top of your head, keep digging

[Stillhomewardbound]

Last night I had to 'unfriend' a FB 'friend' because he chose to label NM as an 'unrepentant terrorist'. The thing is, this friend who I first met at primary school, has spent large portions of the last few years in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the Territorial Army reserve. He has been an active part of an international movement to bring democracy and liberty to dark corners of the world that have never experienced such a sunrise. This, most reluctantly, they have had to do with tanks and guns and aircraft bombers. It's a labour that has never been entered into lightly, but as we know, there are those times when we can only meet force with force. That's one of the things that makes the United Kingdom a great nation. Its sense of fairness, its sense of justice, its basic sense of humanity and its readiness to take up arms against a sea of oppressors.

Well, I'd have to suggest that Nelson Mandela fought very much the same war. He reluctantly took up arms against his own nation, a land of some 39 million souls where just 4 million (exclusively white) had the right to vote. A land where people, non-whites only, were exploited, abused, and told just where they would live (often out in the scrubland of the townships). Was terrorism ever justifiable in this struggle? Personally, I despise the notion of it myself, but sometimes our moralism is born out of convenience. When the CIA trained Bin Laden to launch attacks against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 80s, the free world was, apparently, enabling a freedom fighter, and yet we hardly see it that way now, do we?

Were the Roundheads not terrorists? Were those who fought against the British in 18th Century America not terrorists? Or, for that matter, those that fought to ensure that I was born a free Irish man, unlike my forebears, who for 300 years were subject to the governance of an alien power? Whether we find it acceptable or not, our nations, having emerged, principally, out of the dynastic families of some four hundred years, would never have been born but for the spark of dissension and armed rebellion.

[Beef Oven!]

Last night I had to 'unfriend' a FB 'friend' because he chose to label NM as an 'unrepentant terrorist'. The thing is, this friend who I first met at primary school

Please tell us this is a joke

[MrGongGong]

an international movement to bring democracy and liberty to dark corners of the world that have never experienced such a sunrise. This, most reluctantly, they have had to do with tanks and guns and aircraft bombers. It's a labour that has never been entered into lightly, but as we know, there are those times when we can only meet force with force. That's one of the things that makes the United Kingdom a great nation. Its sense of fairness, its sense of justice, its basic sense of humanity and its readiness to take up arms against a sea of oppressors.

Blimey
I have heard wars of dubious legality described in many ways but this ?

[vinteuil]

He was clearly a great man.

I do not like all the gushing.


.. the backers and producers of the Mandela film which première'd last night - must be very happy.

[MrGongGong]

i've deleted what I put here
and will start a thread in the basement ............. RIP

[cloughie]

He was clearly a great man.

I do not like all the gushing.

Well put vints - the World is a better place because of what he did. He merits air time to remind us of this but I think the 10 O'clock news last night showed the usual over-the-top BBC coverage. Whatever happened to letting us know about other news in particular the severe weather conditions on the East coast - if NM had not died when he did the news would have been 50% on the gales and floods.

[gamba]

A strange mixed-up country. I remember being ' looked after ' by a very beautiful young woman whilst still in my 20's. Taken home on several occasions to meet the father, mother's place was traditionally it seems, in the kitchen & was rarely seen. We drove around Cape Town in the latest American convertibles. I later queried this behavior with an elderly, retired
psychologist friend who lived in what was once S.Rhodesia & supplied me with gramophone records

Their names indicated they were Afrikaans "So," said she, " What does the father do " I mentioned that he had a very good, well-paid position as Transport Manager with a well-known international organisation " But he won't get any further than that," said she, " not until there is some British blood in the family, which is what YOU ! are going to provide !! Otherwise as an Afrikaaner he 'll never be acceptable as a director & occupy a seat in the boardroom." Seemed very unfair to me as he was such a likeable person.

I left for Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia two days later. After, what I suppose, could be called a ' near miss.'

[Stillhomewardbound]

I remember watching a documentary profile of a noted South African making a return journey to his homeland. This was the late Sir Nigel Hawthorne. During the film he pointed to this house where he had played and that beach where he swam but his most eager visit was to meet his former nanny. Effectively, his real mother figure. Now, if he'd been a Ralph Richardson or a Michael Redgrave he'd have been calling on some elderly, frail lady in a bungalow in Westcliff-on-Sea, or the like. However, his nanny was a 'coloured' and as such he had to visit her in a virtual shack in a distant township. She was fit enough to rear the child of a South Africa white couple, but not fit enough to live amongst the whites.

[ahinton]

I don't care for the "gushing" either, but not only has there been relatively little of it in the extensive coverage that I have seen and heard but also such as there has been in no wise undermines the sheer immensity of his achievements.

Most people capable of half of what he has done would likely appear to play the part of the big international leader; not so Mandela, at least in his demeanour, for he figured out early on how to be powerful and compelling without being self-aggrandising. When first his government came to power in the 1990s, a landslide victory was anticipated, but the sheer gradient on which it occurred was unprecedented and made possible because so my white South Africans voted for him - something that would have been unimaginable just a few years earlier.

Yes, problems in SA today are far from resolved and, although there mercifully seems not to have been a slow slide back into the institutionalised racism of the apartheid years since he left office, it remains sadly true that the majority of SA's extremely poor people are not white.

I think that perhaps the most notable - and the most rare, noble and welcome - aspect of his legacy is in his determination from the outset that reconciliation and restraint rather than rancour and retribution in the face of past enemies must prevail at all times - a message from which many other world leaders would do well to learn and which, if indeed learned, would undoubtedly push warring onto the back burner for the benefit of everyone other than those who appear to glorify such activity...

The descriptor "a giant in a world of pygmies" that I have read elsewhere today seems to sum him up finely - and it's difficult to "gush" in a mere seven words...