Nelson Mandela celebrated his 90th birthday last Friday. To mark the occasion, we celebrated the South African leader's life and legacy with two people who have known him and his country well -- Time Magazine's Rick Stengel who helped Mandela with his autobiography and Chief Justice Margaret Marshall of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court who originally hails from South Africa. We also looked back to some of our interviews with prominent South African leaders including Mandela himself.
Heroification because he dedicated his life (that's right... his life) to overthrowing an evil oppressive whites-only system of institutionalized hatred. The same people who think Mandela is not a hero, would probably not hesitate to declare as heroes those who were in the WTC when the planes hit. There's no thought involved... it's just feeling. And if one "feels" that black people are below white people, then the rest of the disjointed argument continues from that and nothing else.
signofthebeast666 1 year ago
why the heroification? this coming from an individual who was imprisoned for violence? an individual that mistakened peace for passivity- not strategic nonviolence.
let us heroify those who won his release through strategic nonviolence. let us heroify cesar chavez, mothers of the plaza de mayo argentina, the serbia youth OTPOR, gandhi, etc
mandela was far from a hero. this is to destort history and the broad based methodologies/psychology that broke the apartheid.
unitedaid 3 years ago
why the Mandela hate?
Are you even South African?
suren1946 3 years ago
what legacy? in 20 years from the only prosperous african country the most violent society on earth (save for the obamatons in north america)...bullshit. you get mandele or obama, you get zimbabwe, it's just the natural order of things, nothing else. or else is the media smokescreen.
Mazurka1001 3 years ago
Mandela is defo a CIA man. He is a hypocrite and a buffoon. It just suits the west to make a hero out of him. I would not shake his hand if he held it out to me. Basically he is loving all the power influence and wealth that fate has handed him on a plate. Lucky but mediocrity personified. He lacks courage when it comes to Mugabe infact it appears he wets his pants when talking on the subject.
humayunka 3 years ago
My apologies for the multiple posts, blame the inadequate 500 character count. The above is from an early interview (1961) with Mandela.
When I first heard these words, it dawned on me just how different things might have been in South Africa today, had the National Party engaged in peaceful negotiations with the ANC back then.
dTLTb 3 years ago
I think the time has come for us to consider, in the light of our experiences in this stay-at-home, whether the methods we have applied so far are adequate.
dTLTb 3 years ago
There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence against a government whose reply is only savage attacks on an unarmed defenseless people.
dTLTb 3 years ago
There are many people who feel that the reaction of the government to our stay-at-home, ordering the general mobilisation, arming the white community, arresting 10000s of Africans, a show of force throughout the country, notwithstanding our clear declaration that this campaign is being run on peaceful and non-violent lines, closed the chapter as far as out methods of political struggle are concerned.
dTLTb 3 years ago
Bombings, beatings and murders of racists and traitors were necessary to purge South Africa of the vastly greater evil of Apartheid. besides, far greater atrocities were perpetrated by the Apartheid State than by its opponents.
Hottides 3 years ago