Mandela.

[awa355]

Guess what the first 30 minutes of the News at 6 will be about tonight, :rolleyes::rolleyes:

[Crasherfromwayback]

Guess what the first 30 minutes of the News at 6 will be about tonight, :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Well he's one human that's certainly earnt it mate.

[Banditbandit]

Not unexpected .. and yes, he's earned the tributes ...

[awa355]

Just hope the country doesn't turn to custard after this.

[MD]

Just hope the country doesn't turn to custard after this.

The good news is it wont get any worse. The bad news is ,that's because they can't slip any lower than rock bottom with the worse rape and murder rate in the world.

[oldrider]

Just hope the country doesn't turn to custard after this.

Is that a serious comment or are you taking the piss? :confused:

[geoffc]

Loved by millions, a god like figure to the coloured, respected at least by the white South Africans. Many will be genuinely and justifiably worried for the future South Africa. Where they go from here, we can only hope for the best.

[Maha]

Guess what the first 30 minutes of the News at 6 will be about tonight, :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Chris Cairns?

[Scuba_Steve]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/q71/s720x720/1453284_742543659107843_1084323362_n.jpg

[EJK]

Guess what the first 30 minutes of the News at 6 will be about tonight, :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Better than seeing stuffs about Paul Wanker from a million 12-years-old-Internet-activists.

[awa355]

Is that a serious comment or are you taking the piss? :confused:

No, not taking the piss, The country has gone backwards in some ways since Mandela pulled out of politics. I dont want to see some radicals use the mans death as a excuse to cause mayhem for their own purposes.

[Brett]

Well he's one human that's certainly earnt it mate.

Yes he did...plus all the rest.

[Brett]

No, not taking the piss, The country has gone backwards in some ways since Mandela pulled out of politics. I dont want to see some radicals use the mans death as a excuse to cause mayhem for their own purposes.

This is a justified and fair comment.

[frogfeaturesFZR]

No, not taking the piss, The country has gone backwards in some ways since Mandela pulled out of politics. I dont want to see some radicals use the mans death as a excuse to cause mayhem for their own purposes.

That is a sensible well thought out statement.
And yet you posted it here ?

Now that WAS taking the piss !

[mashman]

No, not taking the piss, The country has gone backwards in some ways since Mandela pulled out of politics. I dont want to see some radicals use the mans death as a excuse to cause mayhem for their own purposes.

The U.S. are quite busy at the moment... and for that reason, there's always hope ;). R.I.P. Nelson... great example of why not to tell the truth.

[SMOKEU]

RIP Madiba.

[oldrider]

Nelson Mandela was a very nice honest caring almost perfect person, unfortunately, like all humans, he grew old and died.

The world will miss Nelson Mandela. R.I.P.

South Africa? ... I remain hopeful and optimistic! :niceone:

[SPman]

All the gratuitous platitudes by arseholes around the world make one want to chuck!

However....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37037.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37033.htm

and......



By Musa Okwonga

December 07, 2013 "Information Clearing House (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/) -
Dear revisionists, Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel.
Over the next few days you will try so, so hard to make him something he was not, and you will fail. You will try to smooth him, to sandblast him, to take away his Malcolm X. You will try to hide his anger from view. Right now, you are anxiously pacing the corridors of your condos and country estates, looking for the right words, the right tributes, the right-wing tributes. You will say that Mandela was not about race. You will say that Mandela was not about politics. You will say that Mandela was about nothing but one love, you will try to reduce him to a lilting reggae tune. “Let’s get together, and feel alright.” Yes, you will do that.
You will make out that apartheid was just some sort of evil mystical space disease that suddenly fell from the heavens and settled on all of us, had us all, black or white, in its thrall, until Mandela appeared from the ether to redeem us. You will try to make Mandela a Magic Negro and you will fail. You will say that Mandela stood above all for forgiveness whilst scuttling swiftly over the details of the perversity that he had the grace to forgive.

You will try to make out that apartheid was some horrid spontaneous historical aberration, and not the logical culmination of centuries of imperial arrogance. Yes, you will try that too. You will imply or audaciously state that its evils ended the day Mandela stepped out of jail. You will fold your hands and say the blacks have no-one to blame now but themselves.

Well, try hard as you like, and you’ll fail. Because Mandela was about politics and he was about race and he was about freedom and he was even about force, and he did what he felt he had to do and given the current economic inequality in South Africa he might even have died thinking he didn’t do nearly enough of it. And perhaps the greatest tragedy of Mandela’s life isn’t that he spent almost thirty years jailed by well-heeled racists who tried to shatter millions of spirits through breaking his soul, but that there weren’t or aren’t nearly enough people like him.

Because that’s South Africa now, a country long ago plunged headfirst so deep into the sewage of racial hatred that, for all Mandela’s efforts, it is still retching by the side of the swamp. Just imagine if Cape Town were London. Imagine seeing two million white people living in shacks and mud huts along the M25 as you make your way into the city, where most of the biggest houses and biggest jobs are occupied by a small, affluent to wealthy group of black people. There are no words for the resentment that would still simmer there.

Nelson Mandela was not a god, floating elegantly above us and saving us. He was utterly, thoroughly human, and he did all he did in spite of people like you. There is no need to name you because you know who you are, we know who you are, and you know we know that too. You didn’t break him in life, and you won’t shape him in death. You will try, wherever you are, and you will fail.

[MisterD]

Some Class A spin and revisionism in that quote too.

Apartheid was a *Boer* policy, you know, that group of settlers who were at one time the brave freedom-fighting Davids pitted against the Goliath of the British Empire? It was a unique reaction by a unique group of people in unique circumstances, namely that black immigration into the prosperous South Africa was changing the balance of power radically. It was an historical aberration.

Thanks for posting it though, because when I expressed the view that Mandela wasn't some kind of perfect saintly individual, but a real person, a natural leader with massive charisma, and the strategic brilliance to use both violence and then peace and reconcilliation to acheive his aims, I was being "racist".

[SPman]

Some Class A spin and revisionism in that quote too.

Apartheid was a *Boer* policy, you know, that group of settlers who were at one time the brave freedom-fighting Davids pitted against the Goliath of the British Empire? It was a unique reaction by a unique group of people in unique circumstances, namely that black immigration into the prosperous South Africa was changing the balance of power radically. It was an historical aberration. - quite true - in some ways a bit like Fiji vs the dominant imported Indian population....

Thanks for posting it though, because when I expressed the view that Mandela wasn't some kind of perfect saintly individual, but a real person, a natural leader with massive charisma, and the strategic brilliance to use both violence and then peace and reconcilliation to acheive his aims, I was being "racist".

How in (insert deity/belief of choice) could stating the truth be deemed "racist"! He had massive charisma. He had a rage, that he channeled first through violence, then through peace and reconciliation, which made the transition a lot more manageable. Unfortunately........

Mandela spent most his adult life treated as a “terrorist”. There was a price to be paid for his long walk to freedom, and the end of South Africa’s system of racial apartheid. Mandela was rehabilitated into an “elder statesman” in return for South Africa being rapidly transformed into an outpost of neoliberalism, prioritising the kind of economic apartheid most of us in the west are getting a strong dose of now.

In my view, Mandela suffered a double tragedy in his post-prison years.
First, he was reinvented as a bloodless icon, one that other leaders could appropriate to legitimise their own claims, as the figureheads of the “democratic west”, to integrity and moral superiority. After finally being allowed to join the western “club”, he could be regularly paraded as proof of the club’s democratic credentials and its ethical sensibility.


Second, and even more tragically, this very status as icon became a trap in which he was forced to act the “responsible” elder statesman, careful in what he said and which causes he was seen to espouse. He was forced to become a kind of Princess Diana, someone we could be allowed to love because he rarely said anything too threatening to the interests of the corporate elite who run the planet.

It is an indication of what Mandela was up against that the man who fought so hard and long against a brutal apartheid regime was so completely defeated when he took power in South Africa. That was because he was no longer struggling against a rogue regime but against the existing order, a global corporate system of power that he had no hope of challenging alone.

[Crasherfromwayback]

Thanks for posting it though, because when I expressed the view that Mandela wasn't some kind of perfect saintly individual, but a real person, a natural leader with massive charisma, and the strategic brilliance to use both violence and then peace and reconcilliation to acheive his aims, I was being "racist".

Only by people that obviously are none too bright.

[MisterD]

Only by people that obviously are none too bright.

Labour voters. :laugh:

[Banditbandit]

Thanks for posting it though, because when I expressed the view that Mandela wasn't some kind of perfect saintly individual, but a real person, a natural leader with massive charisma, and the strategic brilliance to use both violence and then peace and reconcilliation to acheive his aims, I was being "racist".


Don't take it too personally - a good tag to label someone when you don't like what they are saying ... its a technique steeped in De Nile ...

[oldrider]

I don't see the point in spending untold money on rushing "dignitaries" (cough cough) over there to appease and impress the doubtful living! :oi-grr:

We (as a nation) can say nice things and send nice messages just as sincerely from here at a fraction of the cost. :mellow:

[wharekura]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11169985

[roogazza]

Ho nee Howareya thinks we should pay for him for a holiday, F..k Off.

Minto, professional protester, wish I had got him in my PR24 sights 1981 ??? F..K wit.

ps on second thought we should pay for Honee, then get someone to push him out of the plane over Africa, without a shute !

[sgtp]

aint this Mandela chap the guy that helped spread the practice of necklacing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing)?

what a fine chap he is, eh?:brick:

[oldrider]

aint this Mandela chap the guy that helped spread the practice of necklacing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing)?

what a fine chap he is, eh?:brick:

True!

However, Mandela the man put aside the necklace temptations when he was bestowed with the power to use it to the full and offered unconditional power instead!

Took a strong and good man at heart to do that and to control those who would do otherwise in their hour of vengeance! :2guns:

One might well wonder what lays ahead for South Africa without the physical presence of Mandela? :shifty: I guess we must but :wait: and see! :corn:

[Banditbandit]

aint this Mandela chap the guy that helped spread the practice of necklacing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing)?

what a fine chap he is, eh?:brick:

Mandela was in jail from 1962 - necklassing was first seen in 1985 ... you can draw your own dots ...

Mandela certainly supported and encouraged the armed struggle .. but necklassing? There's no evidence of that ..

Winnie Mandela certainly seemed to condone the practice ... but Nelson distanced himself from her while still in jail ...

[The Reibz]

Nelson Mandela BPNZ undercover agent!

http://memecrunch.com/meme/1EJPD/yooo/image.png

[SMOKEU]

One might well wonder what lays ahead for South Africa without the physical presence of Mandela? :shifty: I guess we must but :wait: and see! :corn:

It's only going to get worse, like it has been for many years. The country is fucked.

[Akzle]

Labour voters. :laugh:

fixed that for you.

[jonbuoy]

I wonder if Osama had been jailed for 20 years and then found "peace" and forgiven the US would he be thought of in the same way?

[wharekura]

I wonder if Osama had been jailed for 20 years and then found "peace" and forgiven the US would he be thought of in the same way?
please educate the stupid (me) and let me know how Osama relates to Mandela?

[jonbuoy]

please educate the stupid (me) and let me know how Osama relates to Mandela?

Both started terrorist organisations that carried out attacks aimed at civilians to highlight their cause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkhonto_we_Sizwe

[Grizzo]

RIP Nissan Man Dealer.

[lakedaemonian]

The deification, idolatry, and sycophancy surrounding Nelson Mandela is nearly enough to result in a fatal case of type 2 diabetes.

I have great respect for Mandela opposing apartheid, standing up for his principals, his resiliency in prison, and well as his gestures to unify a divided nation.

But he's far from deserving many of the ridiculously patronising commentary raising him to the levels of a Greek God.

He was busted……so much so(leading an acknowledged terrorist organisation conducting sabotage including against innocent victims) Amnesty International didn't stand up for him.

While I reckon he was a decent kind of chap who was compelled to do naughty things he certainly failed in who he chose to surround himself with:

Winnie Mandela got let off by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with what were effectively VERY serious war crimes

Mandela's widow was the first lady in Mozambique, during a time of horrific genocide committed by her husband.

Mandela surrounded himself with the people who have since gone on to plunder the nation as the new ruling class.

Also, Mandela being credited with preventing civil war in South Africa is more than just a bit rich.

If Mandela and the ANC made ANY significant movements in the direction of his mate Mugabe in Zimbabwe the South African Defense Force would have been MORE than capable of total war backed by nuclear weapons and a collapsed Soviet Union.

What no one seems to ever mention is that in both Zimbabwe and South Africa you have about the only two voluntary(but albeit under HUGE international pressure) peaceful transitions of power.

No one seems to mention that in every other transition of power in Africa it all too often leads to power consolidation and genocide.

And genocide occurred not long after Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe when he annihilated the Matabele people with the help of North Korea.

Few people seem to understand that the battle for Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was not a two way battle between white and black, it was a three way battle for power amongst the Soviet Union, China, and a dangerously naive west.

China/ZANLA won in Zimbabwe, ZIPRA/Soviet Union lost when Mugabe consolidated power and slaughtered the opposition, and the west lost and didn't have a clue.

One wrong system was replaced with another wrong system, and the majority of people have seen a horrific decline in quality of life and standard of living in the last 30+ years with Mugabe still in power.

In South Africa, with white South Africans looking north to Zimbabwe and clearly holding the reigns of the highly capable and nuclear armed South African Defense Force left Mandela's hands tied. One wrong move and it could have resulted in an epic slaughter and capital flight that would have destroyed the bottom end of the African continent.

No one seems to mention why Raul Castro is in South Africa…………he represents the 300,000 combat troops that his brother Fidel Castro sent to South West Africa/Angola to fight in direct conflict with South Africa as a proxy of the Soviet Union at the sharp end of a multi billion dollar military investment to seize a strategic location in the last hot battle of the global cold war.

Was Mandela a good guy?

I think so……I would hope I'd have the intestinal fortitude to do some of what he did.

Was Mandela a good leader?

Leader of what? Of a guerrilla movement, he served as inspiration. As leader of a country I don't think he achieved very much at all.

Maybe he should have taken some top tips from Lee Quan Yew in Singapore to shape the nation.

The way I see it, Mandela deserves to be remembered, but the patronising bullshit needs to go……at the moment, 20+ years on from independence South Africa is a mess….unemployment had tripled, violence is far worse than during the height of the insurgency, economic inequality has never been worse, corruption is insane, and that's with a complete reversal of full economic embargo during apartheid compared with massive trade and aid since.

What I see is one minority group in power exchanged for another minority group in power….and the average person possessing an even lower quality of life and standard of living.

Mandela sounds like he was a great guy(one to one and one to many people skills seemed truly awesome), and even a great leader of a guerilla/freedom fighter movement….but as a leader of a nation I reckon he was poo……and that is reflected in the metrics.

[oldrider]

What I see is one minority group in power exchanged for another minority group in power….and the average person possessing an even lower quality of life and standard of living.


Applies to every country in the world! .... Example = New Zealand and the only "choice we make" is the expulsion of the old as opposed to the establishment of the new!

[Mo NZ]

I think that there is going to be violent unrest and a whole bunch of trouble for the current government to come.
The booing when the S.A. President spoke was signalling to the world that all is not well.
I think the whole region will disintegrate into massive political unrest and infighting. With large numbers of people being killed.
Sadly I don't think it will be tool long before foreign troops are there in a peacekeeping role.
There are already French troops in the North.

[SMOKEU]

There are already French troops in the North.

Fortunately SA doesn't have the same proportion of ragheads as North African countries, and the Christian/athiest blacks are much more peaceful than the terrorists. I don't think SA will see anywhere near the same problems as the terrorist infested hell holes in North Africa, unless more of them move down, in which case it will be well and truly fucked.

[Banditbandit]

The risk I see is that Jacob Zuma becomes another Mugabe ... there's already indications that he could go that way ...

[oldrider]

The risk I see is that Jacob Zuma becomes another Mugabe ... there's already indications that he could go that way ...

Now Hone Harawira is over there picking up a few pointers for his own ambitious future plan for this, our own, Aotearoa! :soon:

[SPman]

The risk I see is that Jacob Zuma becomes another Mugabe ... there's already indications that he could go that way ...

People stay in power too long, it always goes to their over inflated sense of their own self importance! Most good leaders know when to bow out - little men, don't!

and the rats Mandela had to swallow.........

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/292-151/20898-focus-how-big-money-washington-and-the-imf-trumped-mandela

[_Shrek_]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/q71/s720x720/1453284_742543659107843_1084323362_n.jpg

hey SS, this is Morgan Freeman not Nelson Mandela..

[EJK]

I think that's the joke.

[Indiana_Jones]

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Err+body+s+dying.+RIP+Paul+Walker+Brian+and+Morgan +Freeman+Just+kidding_bb4df8_4917896.jpg

-Indy