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Source: (consider it) Thread: Mandela's Vision and South Africa Today
stonespring
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As a product of the US public education system, I know little to nothing about South African history, society, or politics. That said, I thought we could discuss what South Africa is like today in terms of racial equality (in terms of what barriers exist to prosperity for both nonwhites and for poor whites), corruption and inclusiveness in politics, business and economic development, poverty and economic inequality, labor rights, ethnic tensions and immigration, gender equality, HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights and anti-LGBT violence, the natural environment, and relations with other African countries and the broader world (especially the West and China).

Given current events, this is not so much about what Mandela (God rest his soul) succeeded at or did not succeed in doing, but rather about where South Africa is now compared with how he and others dreamed it would be 2 decades after the end of Apartheid - and how South Africa might be brought to somewhere closer to that vision.

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Stetson
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quote:
HIV/AIDS
This would have to be the absolute worst part of the ANC's record, hands down. Google AIDS Denialism In South Africa for the details.

Fortunately, the government reversed policy after Mbeki and his denialist health-minister stepped down. But the harm done was horrendous.

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Stetson
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quote:
LGBT rights
One of the best aspects of the ANC's record, at least on paper. They were way ahead of many other countries(including former colonial power UK and most American states) in recognizing same-sex marriage.

On the ground, though, I think anti-gay violence is still a big problem in South Africa. I guess it is debatable how much direct influence the ANC has over that situation.

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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!

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Firenze

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A figure for the frequency of rape in SA varies: between one every 26 seconds and one every 36 seconds.

So way to go there.

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Wilfried
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quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
LGBT rights
One of the best aspects of the ANC's record, at least on paper. They were way ahead of many other countries(including former colonial power UK and most American states) in recognizing same-sex marriage.

On the ground, though, I think anti-gay violence is still a big problem in South Africa. I guess it is debatable how much direct influence the ANC has over that situation.

South Africa was the first country to enshrine rights for LGBT people in its new constitution. I do believe Mandela's expansive view of civil rights and human dignity helped to make that possible. The post-Apartheid regime could look so very different. Just look just to the north at Zimbabwe.

[ 06. December 2013, 17:33: Message edited by: Wilfried ]

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LeRoc

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I'm in South Africa relatively often, and in my experience criminality and violence are very big problems. Which are of course connected to other problems like unemployment, inequality etc.

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Desert Daughter
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From what I've seen and heard (but I am by no means an expert on the country) people still have clear racial divides in their heads. I've visited some townships on projects, and there was a lot of race-based violence between Zulu and Xhosa. People's entitlement to social help, school slots etc are still "ranked" according to their race: An ethnic African who has the misfortune of having a non-native last name gets off worse than someone with a pukka local last name. There are still quotas for "coloured" (yes, those terms are still alive and well!) and people of South Asian descent. Mixed couples still get odd stares and are rare.

Of course Mr Mandela was an exceptional man and is a tough act to follow, but what the ANC has made out of the country in the past decades is not exactly glorious. Some friends from Cape Town tell me many people just voted ANC out of loyalty to Mandela. Which contributed to complacency and inertia within that party. Maybe that will change now. The ANC does not have the monopoly on Mr Mandela's heritage.

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shamwari
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The post Mandela regime is as corrupt as any other African Govt

he has been betrayed

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Martin60
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No, we were always pygmies to such a giant.

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
The post Mandela regime is as corrupt as any other African Govt

he has been betrayed

Um, no, this is a an exaggeration. Oh, yes, corruption does exist and it is bad. But only a few countries in Africa are better and most are worse.

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rolyn
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
No, we were always pygmies to such a giant.

The only problem with giants is that they grow to such a size that their head is inclined to end up in the clouds .
No one wants to take away the accolade from such a courageous and humble visionary , but is elevating the late Mandela into a position of sainthood actually doing anything to solve SA's/Africa's problems on the ground ?

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the giant cheeseburger
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
The post Mandela regime is as corrupt as any other African Govt

he has been betrayed

Um, no, this is a an exaggeration. Oh, yes, corruption does exist and it is bad. But only a few countries in Africa are better and most are worse.
The problem with South Africa compared to most of the other more corrupt nations is that they don't have the excuse of having such a poorly-developed governmental structure that it can be ignored or easily overthrown. South Africa should be leading the way in Africa, not working on the same level as the banana republics.

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
The problem with South Africa compared to most of the other more corrupt nations is that they don't have the excuse of having such a poorly-developed governmental structure

Structures alone do not lead to less corruption - for that you need trust on a societal level. It's fairly obvious that if you atomise a society and play one group off against another for any length of time you will arrive at a situation where the locally optimal thing to do is only trust people you know personally.
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Beeswax Altar
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quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
No, we were always pygmies to such a giant.

The only problem with giants is that they grow to such a size that their head is inclined to end up in the clouds .
No one wants to take away the accolade from such a courageous and humble visionary , but is elevating the late Mandela into a position of sainthood actually doing anything to solve SA's/Africa's problems on the ground ?

Mandela wasn't much of a saint. What FW de Clerk did was necessary to ending apartheid. He should receive more credit than he receives. No, de Clerk isn't a saint either. Both men just made wise decisions where others usually make poor decisions.

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Eutychus
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I find myself somewhat in agreement with this line of thought.

The problem with making people like Mandela a case apart is that it sort of exonerates the rest of us from acting similarly, because we feel so incompetent by comparison with the portrait that is painted.

We may not spend so long in prison, reach such high positions of power, or be able to be an influence beyond our nation, but we are all similarly called to not harbour bitterness, strive for truth and reconciliation, and generally do stuff that will have an impact beyond our own immediate circle - and are capable, with God's help, of doing so, however fallible we might also be. There just won't be such a media-fest.

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Crœsos
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Bob Herbert has a column about some of the other dangers of elevating people like Mandela to sainthood.

quote:
I knew that the tributes would be pouring in immediately from around the world, and I also knew that most of them would try to do to Mandela what has been done to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: turn him into a lovable, platitudinous cardboard character whose commitment to peace and willingness to embrace enemies could make everybody feel good. This practice is a deliberate misreading of history guaranteed to miss the point of the man.

The primary significance of Mandela and King was not their willingness to lock arms or hold hands with their enemies. It was their unshakable resolve to do whatever was necessary to bring those enemies to their knees. Their goal was nothing short of freeing their people from the murderous yoke of racial oppression. They were not the sweet, empty, inoffensive personalities of ad agencies or greeting cards or public service messages. Mandela and King were firebrands, liberators, truth-tellers – above all they were warriors. That they weren’t haters doesn’t for a moment minimize the fierceness of their militancy.

<snip>

These were not warm and fuzzy individuals, fantasy figures for the personal edification of the clueless and the cynical. They were hard-core revolutionaries committed with every ounce of their being to the wholesale transformation of their societies. When giants like Mandela and King are stripped of their revolutionary essence and remade as sentimental stick figures to be gushed over by all and sundry, the atrocities that sparked their fury and led to their commitment can be overlooked, left safely behind, even imagined never to have occurred.

It’s a way for people to sidestep the everlasting shame of past atrocities and their own collusion in the widespread horrors of racism that are still with us.

Given how widespread such collusion was there's clearly a fairly strong motivation for some to concentrate on Mandela the non-bitter truth-and-reconciliation guy, not Mandela the revolutionary. That doesn't mean we have to ignore what they're doing.

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lilBuddha
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No, Mandela was not a saint, and no, he did not act alone. From de Clerk to the criminals* who stood in line for hours to vote, everyone who participates deserves credit.
However, merit is never equal. There are those who are a case apart. A foundation does not build a house, but it is that upon which the house may stand. But, I agree that this does not exonerate the rest of us. Nor does recognising such people make any of our own accomplishments smaller.
However, trying to diminish such people makes us smaller. It should serve to inspire. If that is what can be done in such time of great adversity, what excuse have we in such time of comfort?

*Seriously, crime** went to nothing during the vote. At the time of greatest opportunity, they chose to vote rather than take advantage.
**property crimes and such. There were several attempts to steal the election.

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Anglican't
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I've always seen Mandela as a rather ambiguous figure, whose political programme was hard-left (as seen I think in not only the ANC's own programme but with its flirtations with the South African Communist Party). He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.

Perhaps his greatest achievement was not only the bringing down of apartheid (which was perhaps unsustainable anyway) but in saving South Africa from the worst excesses of the ANC, some of whom are almost Mugabe-like. I'm surprised, for instance, that Winnie Mandela almost topped the ANC's candidates list a few years ago.

Will Mandela's moderating influence survive his death? I hope so.

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Stetson
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quote:
He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.


He also, oddly enough, defended right-wing third-world regimes, most notably Kenya and Indonesia, against criticism.

This seems like a partisan website, but I remember the controversy about Mandela backing Suharto. As with Castro, I think his attitude was basically "They supported us, we're not gonna stab them in the back with criticism".

And the funny thing is, I remember the right-wing tabloid apartheid apologists in the west, hyperventilating about how the ANC were a bunch of KGB agents who were gonna make South Africa into the next Cuba. In reality, though, they were high-fiving some of the west's favorite dictators as well.

I know lots of people(myself included) like to romanticize the Cold Was as a time when everything was easier to understand, there were only two sides and you knew how everyone lined up etc. The reality was a bit more complicated than that.

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shamwari
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Mandela, like many another famous leader, is an ambiguous figure.

His statesmenship and character in leading a people to freedom without rancour or retribution for his oppressors is beyond praise.

His personal and family life was utterly dysfunctional.

Was one the result of the other?

We shall never know. But sainthood requires consistency across the board. And it may be true of all of us that no man is a saint to his batman.

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JoannaP
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This article from the FT indicates some of the problems facing South Africa today.

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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin

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Cod
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I have spent time in South Africa, and was back there a year ago after an absence of a decade. These are my observations:

1. There are more rich black people.
2. There are more poor white people (albeit not that many)
3. There is more money knocking around the country generally.
4. The shantytowns haven't increased (although I didn't spend any time in JHB).
5. Relations between blacks and whites seems a lot friendlier, and is generally friendly.
6. Crime remains high, but is reducing slightly; it is localised
7. Segregation remains high; Cape Town can be divided into 4: white Afrikaaners in the north, white British around Table Mountain, coloureds south and east of the white British, and blacks further out.

So much for general observations. Now for some political/economic ones.

1. The ANC are playing a lot of dirty tricks on opposition parties. They have lost power in the Western Cape, not to the whites, but to a successor to a white party. It is interesting that non-whites will vote for this party
2. The government is increasingly corrupt, and people know this, and are beginning to turn to alternatives.
3. The government is attempting to clamp down on dissent by restricting the media. The media is responding by giving the Gvt two robust fingers in the finest traditions of the Cape.
4. The judiciary has to an extent been compromised, but remains robust.
5. The ANC will not live down Marikana.
6. Jacob Zuma, although incompetent, is held in esteem by a great many people.

I am cautiously optimistic about SA's chances. So much that given a decent job I would love to live there. Mrs Cod, understandably, isn't keen.

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I've always seen Mandela as a rather ambiguous figure, whose political programme was hard-left (as seen I think in not only the ANC's own programme but with its flirtations with the South African Communist Party). He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.

quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Mandela, like many another famous leader, is an ambiguous figure.

I think that what's often meant when someone like Mandela is called "ambiguous" is that he put a higher priority on freedom for South Africa's non-white population than he did on the Cold War jockeying for position among the Great Powers of the mid- to late-twentieth century. Exactly why this is "ambiguous" rather than an understandable corollary to who Mandela was and where he came from is understandable only if you put a greater weight on "the Free World" as a political alliance than you do on actual freedom within "the Free World".

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IconiumBound
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In reading a column by Trudy Rubin extolling Nelson Mandela I was struck by this line;
quote:
His name became synonymous with forgiveness, in this case of the new black power rulers towards fearful whites.
This was Mandela asking the whites to forgive him not the other way round. He did this in combination with his concern for reconciliation of the sides.

Has this strategy been forgotten and the emphasis shifting to asking for the oppressors to forgive the oppressed?

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
In reading a column by Trudy Rubin extolling Nelson Mandela I was struck by this line;
quote:
His name became synonymous with forgiveness, in this case of the new black power rulers towards fearful whites.
This was Mandela asking the whites to forgive him not the other way round.
Can you provide a link? Taken in isolation, that seems to be a backwards way of reading that sentence. When we read about "the forgiveness of X towards Y", we usually think it means X forgiving Y, not the other way around.

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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IconiumBound
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That's exactly why the statement caught my eye. Trudy Rubin is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She has the best insight from extensive travel in the middle east. She is now in Egypt talking to the many sides in that disrupted country.

I did try to find out if this statement was true and only found one rather oblique reference that referred to the time that the racist government fell to the vote of the black majority. If I get a better source I will post it.

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Anglican't
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Exactly why this is "ambiguous" rather than an understandable corollary to who Mandela was and where he came from is understandable only if you put a greater weight on "the Free World" as a political alliance than you do on actual freedom within "the Free World".

I don't believe that there is any contradiction in believing that i) Apartheid is a bad thing, ii) that a communist South Africa (or at least one in the Soviet sphere of influence) is a bad thing and iii) that freedom exists under neither system.

It seems to be that the key to dismantling Apartheid was to do it in a way that wouldn't have resulted in South Africa going the way of several other African countries. To date, this appears to have been achieved.

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Dave W.
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
In reading a column by Trudy Rubin extolling Nelson Mandela I was struck by this line;
quote:
His name became synonymous with forgiveness, in this case of the new black power rulers towards fearful whites.
This was Mandela asking the whites to forgive him not the other way round.
Can you provide a link? Taken in isolation, that seems to be a backwards way of reading that sentence. When we read about "the forgiveness of X towards Y", we usually think it means X forgiving Y, not the other way around.
Here's a link to the column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. I don't see any additional context to support the reading that Mandela was soliciting forgiveness rather than offering it.
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IconiumBound
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I have searched many sites looking for the source of this reading but failed to find any. There are a lot of interesting sites if you search "Mandela forgiveness".

Perhaps Trudy will respond to the email I sent her.

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Cod
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During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, people from all sides, including the ANC and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, asked for forgiveness for things done during the struggle. I would be surprised if Mandela himself did not do the same.

Perhaps one of Mandela's achievements was ensuring that SA whites were forgiven apartheid, so to speak. A better way of describing his view was that apartheid degraded everyone, black and white, and the system of apartheid should take the blame, not people - as long as they repented of it.

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
... Trudy Rubin is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She has the best insight from extensive travel in the middle east. She is now in Egypt talking to the many sides in that disrupted country.
...

So that makes her an expert on either Mandela or South Africa?!

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, people from all sides, including the ANC and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, asked for forgiveness for things done during the struggle. I would be surprised if Mandela himself did not do the same.

Perhaps one of Mandela's achievements was ensuring that SA whites were forgiven apartheid, so to speak. A better way of describing his view was that apartheid degraded everyone, black and white, and the system of apartheid should take the blame, not people - as long as they repented of it.

ISTM, much of the animosity of the Southern US towards the Northern US is not merely losing the war, but in the treatment of the South after.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.

Why would he reject their help when his cause needed it? Apparently these men offered Mandela far more than kind words, and he thanked them when the struggle was over. It would have been thoroughly ungracious of him not to do so.
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Anglican't
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.

Why would he reject their help when his cause needed it?
Because they're thoroughly nasty people?
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stonespring
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.

Why would he reject their help when his cause needed it?
Because they're thoroughly nasty people?
So the UK and US should have rejected Stalin's help in WWII?
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Anglican't
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quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.

Why would he reject their help when his cause needed it?
Because they're thoroughly nasty people?
So the UK and US should have rejected Stalin's help in WWII?
I thought about that comparison before posting my response. They're not quite the same, are they? The UK and USA became allies with the USSR because they both happened to be at war with a common enemy. Is there the same co-incidence here? I wouldn't have said so.
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stonespring
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.

Why would he reject their help when his cause needed it?
Because they're thoroughly nasty people?
So the UK and US should have rejected Stalin's help in WWII?
I thought about that comparison before posting my response. They're not quite the same, are they? The UK and USA became allies with the USSR because they both happened to be at war with a common enemy. Is there the same co-incidence here? I wouldn't have said so.
I think the ANC thought that it and various communist/socialist/Arab or African nationalist states were at war against colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacism. Whether or not these other countries actually fought those evils within their own borders was not relevant: they and the ANC shared a common enemy.

It sucks to be oppressed by an evil government and not have the legitimacy of sovereignty to justify one's being "at war" with the people enslaving/occupying/oppressing you, doesn't it? I am not giving free license to anyone with a grudge to start attacking and killing people - but the idea that only "real" wars between states justify allying with morally suspect supporters is a bit naive.

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stonespring
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This is a bit off-topic, but I like this defense of making heroes/saints out of imperfect people like Mandela.

http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/12/09/on-the-utility-of-whitewashed-prophets/

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.

Why would he reject their help when his cause needed it?
Because they're thoroughly nasty people?
So the UK and US should have rejected Stalin's help in WWII?
I thought about that comparison before posting my response. They're not quite the same, are they? The UK and USA became allies with the USSR because they both happened to be at war with a common enemy. Is there the same co-incidence here? I wouldn't have said so.
Actually, I would say the UK and USA made a decision more immoral and suspect. Allying with a government neither thought good or just simply as an expedient. Would the allies have lost if they had not included the USSR? Would the USSR have given up fighting, therefore draining German resources? no. The final outcome was decided when America entered the war. The only questions were how long and at what cost. The allies were content to throw eastern Europe on the bonfire after the war. No moral high-ground at all.

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Robert Armin

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Have the rest of you caught this musical tribute to Mandela?

And, to raise a tangent, what's wrong with Castro? Is there anything against him other than the "he's a democratically elected Communist leader and therefore MUST be wrong" argument?

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Actually, I would say the UK and USA made a decision more immoral and suspect. Allying with a government neither thought good or just simply as an expedient. Would the allies have lost if they had not included the USSR? Would the USSR have given up fighting, therefore draining German resources? no. The final outcome was decided when America entered the war. The only questions were how long and at what cost. The allies were content to throw eastern Europe on the bonfire after the war. No moral high-ground at all.

If you don't mind my saying, that's a seriously silly argument expressed with no sense of historical reality as it was at the time.

The USSR was brought into the war because Hitler attacked it. That was in June 1941. At that time the US was still at peace with both Germany and Japan. It was only brought into the war when Japan attacked it 6 months later.

When Germany attacked Russia, German fortunes were riding high. It looked impregnable. Until then the only countries still fighting it were the UK and the British dominions, but their position was weak. Even if that had not been so, from the fall of France a year earlier, there was no obvious physical front where they could effectively engage with the enemy. That was why there was so much fighting in North Africa.

Once Germany had attacked Russia, what are you suggesting the UK should have done? It was fighting not for the moral high-ground but survival. Its enemy had attacked someone else. Obviously, however unattractive that someone else was, it would have been stupid not to have tried to co-ordinate military activity with the Russians.

Even when the US entered the war, that didn't make the outcome inevitable. The Western Allies still had to get onto mainland Europe. The invasions of Italy and Normandy could easily have failed. It was not inevitable that the Russians would win at Stalingrad. If either the Germans had managed to defeat the Russians, or the Western Allies had not managed to invade mainland Europe, Hitler could probably have defeated the Western Allies in the first case, or held back the Russians in the second.

As for throwing Eastern Europe on the bonfire at the end of the war, I agree. It was tragic. The UK and France declared war in 1939 to protect Poland, and at the end of the war, Poland was left invaded, but by someone else.

But, taking off your high-minded hat for a moment, what alternative do you claim existed? The simple fact is that the Russians were in Eastern Europe and the Western Allies were not. Geographically, that is where Poland is, between Russia and Germany. That is why it got partitioned in the eighteenth century without anyone further west being able to do anything about it.

Or are you suggesting that on the 9th May 1945, with the war against Japan still running, the Western Allies should have declared war on Russia? Because that is the only other option. Where would the moral high ground have been then? Besides, whatever the result, the death toll would have been enormous. It's odds on which side would eventually have won, or for that matter how many years it would have taken, whether the Western Allies would have had the stomach for the fight, or to what sort of waste land it would have reduced the whole of Europe.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
He also, let's not forget, counted Fidel Castro and Colonel Gadaffi amongst his supporters.

Why would he reject their help when his cause needed it?
Because they're thoroughly nasty people?
There were probably leaders in the nice, cuddly, democratic West who nevertheless refused to offer the struggle any real help. Should Mandela have waited on them to give him the time of day?

Perhaps we should let 'nasty people' do some good things sometimes, and then thank them afterwards. The process might be redemptive.

[ 12. December 2013, 22:32: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

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Tommy1
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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
And, to raise a tangent, what's wrong with Castro? Is there anything against him other than the "he's a democratically elected Communist leader and therefore MUST be wrong" argument?

I have to say that even though I realise that this is a rather liberal forum I'm rather surprised at your question. Firstly Marxism is an explicitly anti-Christian ideology. Secondly Castro has never been democratically elected, Cuba is a dictatorship.
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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
It's odds on which side would eventually have won, or for that matter how many years it would have taken, whether the Western Allies would have had the stomach for the fight, or to what sort of waste land it would have reduced the whole of Europe.

It is not "odds on" but this is an argument for another thread. And I am not suggesting the allies should have invaded the USSR, but neither was it necessary to give the victims of the Nazis to be further abused by the Soviets.
And how many have died because of Cuba vs how many have died by regimes the west has supported? I am not stating Castro is a good man. I am stating the west has no moral high ground to condemn Mandela for his associations.
BTW, it was a Communist who suggested the Sundowner Clause which greatly facilitated the bargaining.

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Hallellou, hallellou

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stonespring
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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
what's wrong with Castro?

Just because there are some positive things about the Cuban regime (healthcare, education, etc) does not excuse its crushing of political opposition and bloody behavior towards the political/economic order that it replaced, however unjust that might have been. Cuba never had the size, military strength, or economic self-sufficiency to carry out some of the atrocities of the Leninist/Stalinist USSR or Maoist China, and who knows whether or not its government would have if it could have. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were not heroes - even if they were brave when they were guerrillas or has ideals that many considered heroic. Nelson Mandela much more easily fits the mold of a hero, in my opinion - even with his imperfections.
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M.
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TANGENT ALERT

Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Or are you suggesting that on the 9th May 1945, with the war against Japan still running, the Western Allies should have declared war on Russia?
My father told the story of how he (a sergeant) had a German general and a large number of men and tanks try to surrender to him. The general believed that the British and Americans would join with the Germans and all march on Russia together.

I've always thought that was an interesting sidelight, if completely barmy.

M.

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
... And I am not suggesting the allies should have invaded the USSR ...

Then what are you suggesting?
quote:
BTW, it was a Communist who suggested the Sundowner Clause which greatly facilitated the bargaining.
I've never heard that expression and googling it produces no result. What is it?

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Gamaliel
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Tommy1 - there are a lot of liberals here but that doesn't make it a 'liberal forum'. There are plenty of conservatives around too ... both politically and theologically.

We muddle along and that's one of the great things about these boards ... the diversity.

When I hear some posters complain that it's all way too liberal and other complain about conservative attitudes being expressed then I reckon things are pretty ok ...

Generally speaking, though, there is a liberal hegemony here but I suspect there are good reasons for that ...

[Big Grin]

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Praise the Lord for He is kind.

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pydseybare
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Political science is an amazing topic - one person's religio-political hero figure is another person's dictatorial maniacal womanising bastard. And that is just thinking about the Old Testament.

I think the tragic part of the history of South Africa since the release of Mandela is how easily one ruling elite was replaced by another and how the poorest then are very largely the poorest today.

By sanctifying Mandela they (the political and powerful elite) have silenced his radical message as being something which had 'succeeded' at a point backwards in time - rather than something which needs to be fought for on a daily basis.

But then it appears that this always happens (see MLK, Gandhi and so on) - the memory is commemorated even whilst the message is forgotten.

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"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."

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Tommy1
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Tommy1 - there are a lot of liberals here but that doesn't make it a 'liberal forum'. There are plenty of conservatives around too ... both politically and theologically.

Perhaps I should have said predominantly liberal forum, and I don't mean that as a complaint. If I had a problem posting here I wouldn't.
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