Mandela. Terrorist Or Freedom Fighter?

Pyro Tim":1iml2sh2 said:

I for one think that Mandela is a great man, who did amazing things for his country

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Really?

What exactly?

What do people really do except what others allow them to?

As a black man in his country, he wasn't allowed to vote, or even be a free citizen. He was the figurehead of the movement that forced that system to change. He didn't do it alone, but was instrumental in making that change happen. He then went on to be the first black president that pushed through more changes granting more people freedoms. It is true that the system there is still not perfect, and a lot still needs to happen, but without him, people like him, and the pressure from the outside world, the apartheid government would still exist.

What about all the largely black, largely nothing to do with the government victims, that his organisation murdered maimed in order to try and force co-operation? For the most part it was innocent blacks that got the butt end of the ANCs military struggle. How is that the act of a freedom fighter?

He was not instrumental in the fall of apartheid. That was inevitable, utterly unsustainable, and collapsed of its own inertia, in much the same way communism in the USSR did. The ANC and Mandela had nothing to do with that, but due to their position as the dominant political force - a dominance built on ciolence against their own people, with financial, political and ideological assistance from communist Russia, keen to exert influence in such a strategically located country - and too up the mantle by default, as 4 decades of violence from the ANC had effectively suppressed any other legitimate political rivalry.

So I ask you, when they weren't beating and killing blacks to get them to toe the line, exactly what did the ANC and Mandela do to bring about the fall of apartheid?

The Apartheid Government simply outgrew itself; no different to a generation who couldn't remember what it was like to not know anything other than a Tory Government voting the self-serving Toffs back in because it was all to easy to blame the Labour Government for a Worldwide banking disaster that was actually caused by the USA!

It was outside pressure from the rest of the world (well, that portion of it that chooses to ignore the fact they oppressed their own indigenous people's!) that tipped the balance; Mandela has never been anything more than a puppet figurehead; that's why they are so afraid to let him die...

...there's never been anyone to take his place.

Edit: I seem to have said more or less exactly the same as Chopper above, except with perhaps less eloquence...

...but I do well remember the awful photo's from the time of the people from the Townships who were 'necklaced' for not toeing the ANC line quickly enough!

It its strange to me how if you claim the violence you carried out was for political reasons then later all is forgiven. In the Northern Ireland Assembly, Martin McGuiness and Jerry Adams, convicted IRA bombers now hold high political office. Mandella is a figurehead who spent the majority of the struggles against Apartheid locked up for the violent acts he carried out. What precisely he did to get himself elected I'm still not clear but the regime did need toppled so he was as good a President to choose as any.
Hopefully the rainbow nation can hold together into the future without major strife if only so that the best looking flag and nicest sounding national anthem can be seen and heard at many future world events

From all the evidence I have seen he was a freedom fighter, I cannot see any reason to label him a terrorist.
As for wanting to keep him alive, there is a very big worry that South Africa will descend in to full on civil war when he dies. There are a lot of people who still hanker after the days of apartheid, young people who were just kids when Mandela was released from prison.
The hatred these mostly Afrikaans people feel toward their fellow countrymen is quite scary.

Hate they can do all they like but the black majority has the power now and would squash them like a tick !

Try not to squash ticks whilst they are still embedded. Lots of them about right now, so a timely warning to check each other over after you have been out riding.

Jesus was a terrorist. Just ask any Roman.

FMJ":r4njawcy said:

Jesus was a terrorist. Just ask any Roman.

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Actually it wasn't Jesus

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pUrsUORF4Y[/youtube]