[Archived] RIP Nelson Mandela

[Aberdeen Blue]

God bless you Madiba, a truly great man.

I am luck enought to travel on business to Cape Town 5 or 6 times a year and it is clear that there has been an air of concern for the future for the past 6 months or so; Madela was seen as the glue holdng the country together even in his poor state of health. General and Presidential elections are due next year so I expect the power struggles to develop quickly.

South Africa stands at a cross roads, I prey you continue the "Long Road" and choose the right path.

[rhodie]

For once Jim, I think Gordon has a point in questioning where South Africa is right now. There is absolutely no doubt that Mandela has been a towering presence both in South Africa and across the world. His ability to forgive his enemies helped to allow South Africa to make a peaceful transition from the apartheid regime to the democratic nation it is now. And there's no doubt that the black majority are no longer "oppressed". Oh, and how anyone can bring up the "terrorist" label for Mandela with the background of the Sharpeville massacre is beyond me.

However, there still appears to be a long way to go for the country to have true integration. I was in South Africa two years ago and, certainly in the Western Cape, if you were in a restaurant overwhelmingly the customers were white and the staff black. The proper decent housing was in the white areas and the townships are still for the most part shanty towns. I was only briefly in Johannesburg but things did appear to be a bit better there.

We also went out to a small town on the High Veldt in Orange Free State a couple of hours south of Johannesburg to see the place where my wife's father was born. It was probably the most depressing place I've ever been to. The small town centre was where the small poor white community lived. The blacks had an awful township with little or no facilities about a mile away. The supermarket we went in only had alcohol, snacks and toilet rolls in it and there was a fight there within a minute of our arrival.

What will be important now will be for the country to continue it's progress towards a more integrated society and build on the work Mandela did. There must be a fear that his departure will open up the wounds he was able to heal.

Mandela deserves praise for promoting peaceful reconciliation, that I will gladly hold my hands up and say well done too, but him and his party also were the creators of the necklace, his now ex wife Winnie was captured on television chuckling about how they were going to win the first elections with their matches and tyres, I might also add she was not referring to torturing the whites, she was talking about murdering fellow black South Africans that were thinking of voting against the ANC. Mandela was a martyr, he did not actually rule S.A he was a nothing more than a puppet, he was put into Jail after being found with enough explosives to blow up half a city and was responsible for the deaths of several as result of planting bombs in urban areas, much the same as the IRA have done on English soil. The crime in South Africa is rampant, the economy is being sucked dry as a result of corruption, by the Party that Mandela was a member of. Apartheid has been replaced by the most extreme form of corrupt capitalism where only a select few are growing incredibly wealthy. It can be a beautiful place to visit when you are only shown what they want you to see, Those shanty towns believe it or not are also inhabited by whites, an affirmative action policy is in place where whites are purposefully and legally denied getting jobs even if they are better qualified, I might also add that there is no welfare system either. I could go on for hours about the inequalities that are going on against both black and white in the country. This rainbow nation rubbish is nothing more than propaganda to draw the tourists in.

[thenodrog]

........ an affirmative action policy is in place where whites are purposefully and legally denied getting jobs even if they are better qualified, I

Indeed. Unsurprisingly no one ever hears about that form of racism.

[Amo]

Will it be open season on the whites in SA now?

[thenodrog]

Zimbabwe Mk 2? Who knows?

These African nations remind me very much of the old adage.... 'rags to riches and back again in three generations'.

[somersetrover]

Zimbabwe Mk 2? Who knows?

These African nations remind me very much of the old adage.... 'rags to riches and back again in three generations'.

Being a regular visitor to Zimbabwe I can tell you that quote certainly doesn't describe Zimbabwe, where they are no loner a colony, land reforms have been a huge success and they have just re-elected a President that will stand up for them to the worlds Imperialist's powers no matter what sanctions they throw at them.

The thing that has really annoyed me about Mandela's death is the fact that we have all the right wingers like Obama, Cameron, Blair, The Bush's, Hollande, Sarkozy, Merkel, Netanyahu and The Clinton's to name just a few coming out with these words that are words and nothing more about how inspirational Mandela was to them when in reality Mandela despised the politics that they stand for. Mandela's true friends who stood by him during his struggles were people like Fidel Castro, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe, General Abdel Nasser and Yassir Arafat and they backed it up through their actions and not just meaningless words.

[broadsword]

Good Lord, are you for real? Wow.

[T.J.Newton]

the African nations are the way they are because of uk, usa(and likely many other countries) governments medalling with them to keep them down, so they don't start to prosper and cause a threat in the same way as the Arab nations now are(in my admittedly un-educated opinion)

[adopted scouser]

they have just re-elected a President

Now THAT's funny

[Paul]

I'm in South Africa at the moment. A day listening to the media has been fascinating.

I don't have time to detail it but this clearly a great and free country. The issue is liberty must be freedom from racism, poverty and to have equal opportunity. At present it seems only apartheid has been defeated, the divide between wealthy, almost always white, and poor is huge. I've been surprised by the warmth of the South Africans especially the blacks.

I've seen things and learnt things I know to be wrong but progress is clearly being made. A great leader. It was never going to be solved in twenty years. SA has to solve its issues over generations.

[rhodie]

Being a regular visitor to Zimbabwe I can tell you that quote certainly doesn't describe Zimbabwe, where they are no loner a colony, land reforms have been a huge success and they have just re-elected a President that will stand up for them to the worlds Imperialist's powers no matter what sanctions they throw at them.

The thing that has really annoyed me about Mandela's death is the fact that we have all the right wingers like Obama, Cameron, Blair, The Bush's, Hollande, Sarkozy, Merkel, Netanyahu and The Clinton's to name just a few coming out with these words that are words and nothing more about how inspirational Mandela was to them when in reality Mandela despised the politics that they stand for. Mandela's true friends who stood by him during his struggles were people like Fidel Castro, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe, General Abdel Nasser and Yassir Arafat and they backed it up through their actions and not just meaningless words.

You truly are taking the Kean, or on crack, which one is it?

[thenodrog]

Mandela's true friends who stood by him during his struggles were people like Fidel Castro, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe, General Abdel Nasser and Yassir Arafat and they backed it up through their actions and not just meaningless words.

Ha! Another WUM fishing for a reaction.

they have just re-elected a President

Wrong....... the President has just re elected himself.

[cn174]

Whilst it is obviously very sad that he has died I'm not quite sure why every game this weekend will be having a minutes applause.

[thenodrog]

Every game in South Africa I trust?

[somersetrover]

Ha! Another WUM fishing for a reaction.

Wrong....... the President has just re elected himself.

Not fishing for a reaction at all of Cuba Mandela said 'Cuba shared the trenches with us' and his first trip outside of Africa after being released from prison was to Havana to thank Fidel and the Cuban people, whilst there he also insisted that Castro visit South Africa. Castro was also a guest of honour at Mandela's inauguration where Mandela said 'What Fidel has done for us is difficult to describe with words, first in the struggle against Apartheid he did not hesitate to give us all his help and now that we are free we have many Cuban doctors working here.' Mandela also described Cuba as his second home saying he always felt like he belonged there.

When talking during a trip when making a trip to Libya in 1990 his first trip outside of South Africa after his release to thank Gaddafi him and Libya for their help in the struggle against apartheid, Mandela said. "No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do. Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi. They are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past, Gaddafi helped us at a time when those who say we should not come to Libya were helping the enemy”. Like Castro, Gaddafi was also a guest of honour at his inauguration and Mandela visited Libya many times despite western imperialisms opposition.

Of Arafat Mandela said he was "An icon in the proper sense of the word and one of the outstanding freedom fighters of his generation." And again shortly after his release from prison Mandela visited Arafat in Gaza to express his support for the Palestinian cause. Under General Nasser, Egypt gave vocal and material support, to Africa's liberation movements fighting European imperialism. Mandela said that this support was crucial in helping to sustain the morale of such movements, including in South Africa. And Mugabe and Zimbabwe spoke out against the policies of apartheid in South Africa and frequently called for economic sanctions against the government and gave some military support to the ANC as well. Mugabe visited South Africa shortly after Mandela became president where Mandela said to Mugabe. 'This visit is of particular significance to us due to the role you played in ensuring the removal of racial domination in South Africa. This was often at a great cost to your country and your people, given the destabilisation campaign carried out by the apartheid regime against Zimbabwe and other neighbouring countries. So I don't think you can accuse me of being a 'WUM', whose just 'fishing for a reaction', I am just stating facts.

Re-elected himself I think not, he won over 61% of the vote which equate to just over 2.1 million votes, in elections that The African Union and its Observers called "free, honest and credible."

[Aberdeen Blue]

Yep, Zimbabwe just loves Uncle Bob.

[Aberdeen Blue]

I'm in South Africa at the moment. A day listening to the media has been fascinating.

I don't have time to detail it but this clearly a great and free country. The issue is liberty must be freedom from racism, poverty and to have equal opportunity. At present it seems only apartheid has been defeated, the divide between wealthy, almost always white, and poor is huge. I've been surprised by the warmth of the South Africans especially the blacks.

I've seen things and learnt things I know to be wrong but progress is clearly being made. A great leader. It was never going to be solved in twenty years. SA has to solve its issues over generations.

You are absolutely right Paul, South Africa is way ahead of most nations on the continent in many areas but still has many challenges to address.

My fear is that Madeba's legacy will be abandoned for short term political gain. I think Zuma is a totally corrupt keanhouse for a start!

South Africa is at a cross roads and the General and subsequent Presidential elections in April will determine the countries fate. One step towards prosperity, one step towards chaos........

[Baz]

The next step for democracy in SA is to vote for a non-ANC president.

[thenodrog]

.

Not fishing for a reaction at all of Cuba Mandela said 'Cuba shared the trenches with us' and his first trip outside of Africa after being released from prison was to Havana to thank Fidel and the Cuban people, whilst there he also insisted that Castro visit South Africa. Castro was also a guest of honour at Mandela's inauguration where Mandela said 'What Fidel has done for us is difficult to describe with words, first in the struggle against Apartheid he did not hesitate to give us all his help and now that we are free we have many Cuban doctors working here.' Mandela also described Cuba as his second home saying he always felt like he belonged there.

When talking during a trip when making a trip to Libya in 1990 his first trip outside of South Africa after his release to thank Gaddafi him and Libya for their help in the struggle against apartheid, Mandela said. "No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do. Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi. They are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past, Gaddafi helped us at a time when those who say we should not come to Libya were helping the enemy”. Like Castro, Gaddafi was also a guest of honour at his inauguration and Mandela visited Libya many times despite western imperialisms opposition.

Of Arafat Mandela said he was "An icon in the proper sense of the word and one of the outstanding freedom fighters of his generation." And again shortly after his release from prison Mandela visited Arafat in Gaza to express his support for the Palestinian cause. Under General Nasser, Egypt gave vocal and material support, to Africa's liberation movements fighting European imperialism. Mandela said that this support was crucial in helping to sustain the morale of such movements, including in South Africa. And Mugabe and Zimbabwe spoke out against the policies of apartheid in South Africa and frequently called for economic sanctions against the government and gave some military support to the ANC as well. Mugabe visited South Africa shortly after Mandela became president where Mandela said to Mugabe. 'This visit is of particular significance to us due to the role you played in ensuring the removal of racial domination in South Africa. This was often at a great cost to your country and your people, given the destabilisation campaign carried out by the apartheid regime against Zimbabwe and other neighbouring countries. So I don't think you can accuse me of being a 'WUM', whose just 'fishing for a reaction', I am just stating facts.

Re-elected himself I think not, he won over 61% of the vote which equate to just over 2.1 million votes, in elections that The African Union and its Observers called "free, honest and credible."

What a nest of vipers that was. Funny he didn't invite Pol Pot, Amin, Pinochet, Saddam and Bin Laden to his party too..... they'd have fit in to perfection.

[old darwen blue]

http://www.brfcs.com/mb/index.php/topic/29908-rant/?p=1467430

And?

[neekoy]

Mandela, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, MLK Jnr....put them all in the same boat, all inspired millions however I can't get past their dark sides and downright evil and or violent nature of their actions

The most inspiring person I have ever seen is the Chinese man that stood in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square...a man who had no weapons, no terrorist agenda and no violence

You know what they say, one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

[thenodrog]

Can't post links for some reason but how funny is that emerging story about the fake deaf and dumb interpreter who appeared at the side of the speakers simply waving his arms about at random! If he isn't a nutcase who actually thinks that what he is doing is meaningful just how tf does he manage to keep a straight face for so long? It's as funny as one of those emails that goes around highlighting hilarious but deadly working practices in the third world. Such a cock up that it makes me wonder if the Venkymob weren't involved in the organisation of the funeral.

[Guest Norbert]

It would be far, far worse if Venky's ran it.

That does remind me of the exploits of Karl Power, or that taxi driver, the BBC somehow thought was some sort of expert on computers.

[thenodrog]

He reckons he's schizophrenic now.

[Stuart]

He's said:

"Life is unfair. This illness is unfair. Anyone who doesn't understand this illness will think that I'm just making this up."

Quite.