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There goes one of the greats.

What ideals? He was a pathetic leader who had no problem selling people down the river when it suited him. If he inspires someone to do something great, then that is awesome, but he was a crock. A fifth of children in SA are orphans and anyone that inherits land is systematically robbed of it as political payola. Blacks and the poor were not saved by Mandela, they were sold out by Mandela. There are rich black faces, but little else has significantly changed for the better under or since him.

Sad plight of SA's orphans - Sowetan LIVE
 

Couldn't have said it better. They try to make this guy out like he was Gandhi. He was not.
 

Nelson Mandela - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mandela served 27 years in prison, initially on Robben Island, and later in Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. An international campaign lobbied for his release, which was granted in 1990 amid escalating civil strife. Mandela published his autobiography and opened negotiations with President F.W. de Klerk to abolish apartheid and establish multiracial elections in 1994, in which he led the ANC to victory. As South Africa's first black president Mandela formed a Government of National Unity in an attempt to defuse racial tension. He also promulgated a new constitution and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Continuing the former government's liberal economic policy, his administration introduced measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty, and expand healthcare services. Internationally, he acted as mediator between Libya and the United Kingdom in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, and oversaw military intervention in Lesotho. He declined to run for a second term, and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela subsequently became an elder statesman, focusing on charitable work in combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Although Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life, he became widely popular during the last two decades following his release. Despite a minority of critics who continued to denounce him as a communist and/or terrorist, he nevertheless gained international acclaim for his activism, having received more than 250 honours, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Soviet Order of Lenin and the Bharat Ratna. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba, or as Tata ("Father"); he is often described as "the father of the nation". Mandela died following a long illness on 5 December 2013, aged 95, at his home in Johannesburg.


The guy accomplished more good in his life and received more recognition for it, from his own people and from every corner of the globe, than you ever will. Perhaps a little evidence for your insults might be in order, rather than expecting folk to just take your word for it?

As it is, you simply come across as ignorant
 
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He's been dead to me since 2003, when he said, “if there is a country in the world that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.”
 
He came into SA he took the farm land away from the main farmers of the country which at the time were white.

the redistributed it to the local people thinking that they were just going to farm. they didn't. not only did they not have the capital but they didn't have the skill
or the equipment to do it. so the land just sat.

he created major food shortages for his country where it was producing more food than what it needed.
He might have done some good things here and there.

However there is more bad that came out of it than good. it has taken years for them to recover.
 

Those ideas were collapsing not long after he left the Presidency of S.A. and perhaps starting shortly before. Lots of problems down there, serious problems.
 

Surely you must have known this was going to be coming from the right.

I applaud your thoughts about Mandela, I applaud you.

Ignore the noise.
 
Oftencold said:
He's been dead to me since 2003, when he said, “if there is a country in the world that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.”
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is it not true though?our ideals of democracy have caused bloody revolutions, our military has caused the massacre of entire towns, we rise so high in the world at the expense of our fellow human beings. We are a nation of much good but not without our skeletons in the proverbial closet.

And to all who think he wasn't all that great, consider that the things he did he did for the good of south africa. Oh sure he had his skeletons too, we all do, but right next to the charities, he was probably one of the best influences on africa in decades.
 

While he flew around collecting all his prizes and awards for being the political Paris Hilton, his people starved and were destroyed by AIDS. As I posted in the other thread, 95% of what people are attributing to Mandela in their rush to praise the black guy was done by F.W de Klerk--the white guy you failed to mention shared his Nobel Prize who was the one who freed him from jail and oversaw the peaceful transition from Apartheid that everybody falsely claims Mandela did. I would rather come across as ignorant than a liar.
 

F. W. de Klerk was a member of the Apartheid government from 1969, and before him "F. W. de Klerk's father, Johannes "Jan" de Klerk, became secretary of the NP in the Transvaal province and later rose to the positions of cabinet minister and President of the Senate, becoming interim State President in 1975" (Wiki). Yes, his government eventually bowed to mounting international pressure in releasing Mandela after a mere 27-year imprisonment and, after several more years (and a 1992 referendum for whites only on whether to continue with negotiations to end Apartheid) finally permitted universal elections. So you praise the guy who supported the oppression for decades before slowly and reluctantly bowing to the tides of opinion, whilst attacking and viciously mocking "the black guy" who for even longer decades had led and suffered for the push for change. Your racism is showing, methinks.
 
He's been dead to me since 2003, when he said, “if there is a country in the world that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.”
Click to expand...

He was right about this statement on several counts. First he made this statement when bush was try to force his way in Iraq ...we now have the story on that disaster ...and we now know he was correct in speaking against the Iraq war.

But the worst part is ....400 years of slavery ...how could that statement be inaccurate?


After 27 years in prison ...for doing nothing Mandela owes not one white in Africa a dam thing. In fact my knock on Mandela was not forcing these ..."settlers"...from his home land...after he got out from under their torture. The white's in South Africa are not Africans ...they are colonizers ...and should have been forced out of the country.
Al Sharpton is more African than any white in that country will ever be.

I'm watching the news ..on the left and on the right ....and it's stunning how the American media (left and right) get together to only lionize blacks based on their propensity for suffering.

If you ask anybody what the response should against oppression ....force or violence must be one option!!!
Yet ...when it comes to blacks ....the trained American media quickly come together ...and ensures that message is never sent.
 
I cant believe some of the appalling cynicism on display here on this thread. One of the greatest figures of this or any other time has gone. In my 52 years if there was one person I'd have wanted to meet it would probably have been Mandela. I can understand now given the petty selfish comments here why he wasnt taken off the US State Department terrorism list until 2008 (in order to pander to such sentiments no doubt) . Whatever faults there are with South Africa today its still hugely better than the regime it replaced 20 years ago . What a shame some cannot set aside their party political and/or racist persuasions after his death and celebrate this mans achievements in life

Very sad
 
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All ideals collapse eventually. It's part of the cycle of human history. If we actually ever retained the values of social justice, we would have abandoned war a long time ago. But social freedoms are always dependent upon many other conditions being satisfied, which is why civilizations rise and fall all the time.

Mandela wasn't the first freedom fighter and he won't be the last. Whenever oppression becomes too great, someone always steps forward. No matter how much technology and violent ingenuity the State comes up with, it will always be vulnerable to the People simply because it needs the People to survive.

As for American conservatives, they'll always have a hate on for the guy because he won freedom for South Africa through social ideologies that ran contrary to U.S. propaganda at the time. Also, Mandela essentially gave the finger to Reagan and American crony capitalist interventionism, which is contrary to the conservative sieg heil to their anti-red tide dear leader.
 
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The hypocrisy of the American ...yes American ideology, shared by both the right and the left is staggering. They have both come together to vilify and denounce even the very idea ...of a black man fighting for his life, his country and his man-hood. The idea that Mandela was on some ...terrorist list because his people were oppressed in their own country ...is mind-boggling.

The narrative shared by both the left wing and right wing that black men can only be heroes through their suffering ....never through fighting back ....is all part of the age old American ideology that was well thought out during the slave era.

And its crafted out of fear , immorality and blatant dishonesty.

In other words, when I'm (Whites) stealing your resources and oppressing you ....any violent action from you must labeled "BAD" and for fighting back ..... you must be "EVIL".


The media can't stop reminding people that Mandela's greatness was only because he never attacked his oppressors when freed. It's a "feel-good" narrative for Americans ....an indoctrination to blacks that only through suffering at the hands of whites ....you can be a hero. Preserving white safety and dominance.

In my view....that was his short-coming!


And the very same people ....who denounce a black man for even raising his voice ....systematically advocate violence everywhere they go...and it's never when they are oppressed!!
 
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Um yeah... this has nothing to do with what I said. Next time don't use someone else's post to start an irrelevant tangent?

The only thing I have to say is that Mandiba was loved by more than just Americans.
 
A lightweight theoretician and propagandist, at best; one forever tarnished with all the odium of organised brutality. A forerunner, if you will, of that false messiah whose own wave of misplaced fervour took him all the way to the White House. At no time did he come to personify principles or espouse methodologies that were either revolutionary, or consistent with ideals codified in ages past.

As is so often the case, the glare of a man's reputation eclipses his achievements. Would that we could all boast a legacy beyond any semblance of biographical credibility. Alas, we must be judged on our merits.

A poor man's Dr King.
 
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