I have never liked Mandela's "Cosmic Vibes" and therefore classify him differently from Revolutionaries in other countries or even here at home. But the buzz now is, as the article states "Were it not for the use of Violence, the government would never have been reformed". It's only too bad Jesus Christ didn't get that word. There might be a whole lot fewer dead Jews in the world today. None of my Cosmic friends have anything good to say about Mandella. Before we get too ga-ga over him just remember that our government has Mandella on the terrorist watch list untill 2008, and that Mandella worked with the Chinese Maoist Communists, the hard core variety. Here is the LA Times article.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, is a giant in the world of liberation heroes, up there with Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, is a giant in the world of liberation heroes, up there with Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
But unlike Gandhi, who
said that nonviolence and truth were inseparable, and King, who famously
declared that violence was immoral, Mandela embraced armed struggle to
end the racist system of apartheid.
To many South Africans, particularly within the African National Congress, Mandela was a great man partly because of his willingness to use violence, not in spite of it. Many believe apartheid would have endured much longer if he hadn’t rebelled and overturned the ANC’s long-standing nonviolence policy. PHOTOS: Nelson Mandela through the years
As a young man, Mandela’s favorite sport wasn’t a team sport like soccer, with strict limits on contact. Boxing was what thrilled him. As a young politician, his rhetoric was angry, uncompromising and inspiring. His aim was to incite revolt. In the early 1950s, the ANC and the South African Indian Congress launched a nonviolent operation of strikes and protests called the Defiance Campaign against the unjust laws of apartheid. By 1953, Mandela had decided that it wasn’t working. He felt that the ANC’s leaders — old-fashioned, traditional figures such as the party’s president, Albert Luthuli — were out of touch with reality. In September of that year, he made a speech in the Johannesburg suburb of Sophiatown that was to be later famously known as the “No Easy Walk to Freedom” address.
FULL COVERAGE: Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela dies
In the speech, Mandela said the ANC had to come up with new plans for political struggle.
“You can see that there is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow again and again before we reach the mountaintops of our desires. “Dangers and difficulties have not deterred us in the past. They will not frighten us now. But we must be prepared for them like men in business who do not waste energy in vain talk and idle action.” In 1956, during a trial at which 156 ANC leaders and activists, including Mandela, were charged with treason, he told the court that he supported nonviolence as a principle — not true at the time; he supported it only as a tactic — because he knew he and others could be convicted if he said otherwise. The trial dragged on until 1961, but Mandela and the others were acquitted. The Sharpeville massacre in 1960, when South African police killed 69 protesters, was the last straw for Mandela and other proponents of armed struggle. Mandela carried the day at a series of all-night meetings with ANC leaders in mid-1961 to set up the ANC’s underground military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation.
PHOTOS: The world reacts to Nelson Mandela's death
Mandela’s opponents said that if the ANC embarked on violence, the regime would massacre more civilians. Moses Kotane, secretary-general of the South African Communist Party, argued that continued nonviolence could work if activists were more imaginative. Mandela met with Kotane for a full day to try to change his mind. He argued that South African activists had to consider an armed revolution because angry young men and women outside the ANC were ready to take up arms, and if the ANC did not lead them it would become irrelevant. Finally Mandela believed he had won Luthuli’s blessing to form Umkhonto we Sizwe and embark on violence. But the timing was terrible. In October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it was bestowing the previous year’s unawarded Peace Prize on Luthuli, an enormous symbolic victory for the ANC. Luthuli backtracked and again espoused nonviolent methods of resistance against apartheid.
To many South Africans, particularly within the African National Congress, Mandela was a great man partly because of his willingness to use violence, not in spite of it. Many believe apartheid would have endured much longer if he hadn’t rebelled and overturned the ANC’s long-standing nonviolence policy. PHOTOS: Nelson Mandela through the years
As a young man, Mandela’s favorite sport wasn’t a team sport like soccer, with strict limits on contact. Boxing was what thrilled him. As a young politician, his rhetoric was angry, uncompromising and inspiring. His aim was to incite revolt. In the early 1950s, the ANC and the South African Indian Congress launched a nonviolent operation of strikes and protests called the Defiance Campaign against the unjust laws of apartheid. By 1953, Mandela had decided that it wasn’t working. He felt that the ANC’s leaders — old-fashioned, traditional figures such as the party’s president, Albert Luthuli — were out of touch with reality. In September of that year, he made a speech in the Johannesburg suburb of Sophiatown that was to be later famously known as the “No Easy Walk to Freedom” address.
FULL COVERAGE: Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela dies
In the speech, Mandela said the ANC had to come up with new plans for political struggle.
“You can see that there is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow again and again before we reach the mountaintops of our desires. “Dangers and difficulties have not deterred us in the past. They will not frighten us now. But we must be prepared for them like men in business who do not waste energy in vain talk and idle action.” In 1956, during a trial at which 156 ANC leaders and activists, including Mandela, were charged with treason, he told the court that he supported nonviolence as a principle — not true at the time; he supported it only as a tactic — because he knew he and others could be convicted if he said otherwise. The trial dragged on until 1961, but Mandela and the others were acquitted. The Sharpeville massacre in 1960, when South African police killed 69 protesters, was the last straw for Mandela and other proponents of armed struggle. Mandela carried the day at a series of all-night meetings with ANC leaders in mid-1961 to set up the ANC’s underground military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation.
PHOTOS: The world reacts to Nelson Mandela's death
Mandela’s opponents said that if the ANC embarked on violence, the regime would massacre more civilians. Moses Kotane, secretary-general of the South African Communist Party, argued that continued nonviolence could work if activists were more imaginative. Mandela met with Kotane for a full day to try to change his mind. He argued that South African activists had to consider an armed revolution because angry young men and women outside the ANC were ready to take up arms, and if the ANC did not lead them it would become irrelevant. Finally Mandela believed he had won Luthuli’s blessing to form Umkhonto we Sizwe and embark on violence. But the timing was terrible. In October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it was bestowing the previous year’s unawarded Peace Prize on Luthuli, an enormous symbolic victory for the ANC. Luthuli backtracked and again espoused nonviolent methods of resistance against apartheid.
Moe Kelly was on at
nine and he was discussing the death of Nelson Mandella, which was announced
just before two our time yesterday afternoon.
I got on computer searching World Net Daily for dirt on Mandella because
I’ve heard some unsavory stuff about him and I was thinking here is one area
where me and the right might agree. But
oddly, aside from the usual paranoid articles they run, WND only had praise for Mandella. Even at Fox News they weren’t sure how to
react. They said he did a lot of good
things, all the while reminding us that he was a communist. And I mean he worked with the Chinese Maoist
communists- - the hard core stuff. And
at some point he said that terrorism was now necessary because we weren’t
getting our way through traditional means.
While I’d like to be in sympathy with that line of thinking, I want to
know “how far is far”? Because I’d heard
Mandella and his wife, Winny, were some of the lead people in the “Necklessing’
of people they didn’t like. They would
apparently tie a tire around their neck and kill their victim by setting it on
fire. I guess what bothers me about Mandella is that
everything sounds all too propagandistic.
I wonder if it’s how the right wing felt or feels about Obama. It’s like it assumes mythic perportions and
engages in sugary platitudes- - rather than describing either his mind set or
the specific things or incidents in his life.
I checked the Wickipedia but wasn’t sure I could trust that. Rush Limbaugh will put a screwey dimension on
literally anything. He said “When you
come down to it, Nelson Mendella much more resembled Clarence Thomas than he
does President Obama”. I was
flabbergasted. I wasn’t sure, aside from the sheer shock
value of the remark, just what interests that specific remark was meant to
“stroke”. Right wing terrorist
communists who are against affirmative action but still sabotage the
government. Nancy suggested I get more
exercise. That just might be a good
idea.
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