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The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

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Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#61

Post by puller »

wavefunction wrote: post #48
moolriaz wrote: post #40

Shocked by how misinformed people are about Mandela/Apartheid, or by the amount of trolling going on here. Thousands of white people have not died in SA thanks to Mandela. Mandela was not a 'terrorist'. Apartheid was BAD, and still affects the country significantly today. Here's some context for you. This all applied pre 1994/2: I am a non white South African. The only reason I got a good education was because with t…

Thanks for your take. The people calling Mandela a terrorist don't know what they're talking about.

To be fair, he did found the armed wing of the ANC, was offered a release from prison conditional on renouncing violence which he refused to do, and afterward his group went on to carry out a number of IRA-style bombings.

The apartheid regime might have justified extreme measures that killed civilians, but his hands are not as clean as you would imagine from the hagiography.

We don't glorify Gerry Adams in this way and give him Nobel prizes, although he did contribute a lot to the peace process in Ireland.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#62

Post by scarmig »

iends wrote: post #58
yequalsx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your contribution to the discussion. I too am shocked. That the United States actively supported the Apartheid regime is a great national shame. I'm friends with a woman who grew up in South Africa. She is white. The stories she tells about the attitudes and what happened there during the Apartheid regime are revolting. She thinks Mandela is a saint and is very grateful for his leadership. Mandela was n…

Mandela was more than happy to use violence against the government as a tool in his cause for equality (although later he seemed to regret the need for it). Using violence, he broke reasonable and justified laws. Laws such as planting bombs, destroying property, and physically harming others. Just because we can all agree that his cause was just, doesn't mean he should necessarily get a free pass from criticism or ju…

Weren't those laws only really enforced when non-white people broke them, though?

After all, the apartheid state was more than happy to bulldoze thousands of people's homes and not pay restitution; it was more than happy to shoot hundreds or thousands of peaceful protestors and not prosecute anyone for it; it was more than happy to take political prisoners, break their limbs, and throw them out of airplanes a hundred miles from the coast; it was more than happy to plant biological bombs of yellow fever and cholera in refugee camps to lower the number of undesirables.

If a law is observed more in the breach than in the general, is it really a law?

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#63

Post by rhizome »

iends wrote: post #58
yequalsx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your contribution to the discussion. I too am shocked. That the United States actively supported the Apartheid regime is a great national shame. I'm friends with a woman who grew up in South Africa. She is white. The stories she tells about the attitudes and what happened there during the Apartheid regime are revolting. She thinks Mandela is a saint and is very grateful for his leadership. Mandela was n…

Mandela was more than happy to use violence against the government as a tool in his cause for equality (although later he seemed to regret the need for it). Using violence, he broke reasonable and justified laws. Laws such as planting bombs, destroying property, and physically harming others. Just because we can all agree that his cause was just, doesn't mean he should necessarily get a free pass from criticism or ju…

That is a simplistic assessment.

"We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence."

Civil disobedience was outlawed and then the government used violence against peaceful demonstrators. Only after that did they fight fire with fire, and history tells us it's possible that that may be the only language that governments understand.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#64

Post by rhizome »

puller wrote: post #61
wavefunction wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your take. The people calling Mandela a terrorist don't know what they're talking about.

To be fair, he did found the armed wing of the ANC, was offered a release from prison conditional on renouncing violence which he refused to do, and afterward his group went on to carry out a number of IRA-style bombings. The apartheid regime might have justified extreme measures that killed civilians, but his hands are not as clean as you would imagine from the hagiography. We don't glorify Gerry Adams in this way a…

The hagiography is wrong. It's only in the last 20 years that people have tried to make him into a Ghandi.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#65

Post by ilitirit »

jd_free wrote: post #18

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history. Millions of people think he was put in jail for protesting apartheid or something else noble. He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. The "activism" he's credited with while in prison was mostly arranging more killings. Read about a practice his group created whi…

> Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history.

Ironic, considering that your post is basically revisionism at it's finest.

Four forms of violence were possible. There is sabotage, there is guerrilla warfare, there is terrorism, and there is open revolution. We chose to adopt the first. Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/23/nelsonmandela

Mandela was jailed for sabotage. MK was founded after the ANC's policy of "non-cooperation" was continually met with violent opposition from the SA government. Were they "terrorists"? No, the intent was not to spread terror or harm civilians. They only attacked government and military targets in ways which that would result in the least harm to civilians. This is exactly what he was sent to prison for - sabotage. There was zero evidence that he had a hand in any activities that led to civilian casualties (if there had been, he would have been hanged).

These "thousands of people" you claim that have been killed by MK (I'm not sure you can substantiate that) occurred while he has in prison. A large part of his sentence was carried out on Robben Island (Google it, it's literally an island) so he had little to no contact with the outside world, hence it would have been impossible for him to lead MK. He only found out about the group's activities when he was moved to a prison on the main land. And by then, his wife was running the show.

Yes, MK did bad things, especially under Winnie Mandela. But Nelson Mandela had no part in it. In fact, the differences in political ideology was a big factor in their eventual separation and divorce.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#66

Post by Crito »

iends wrote: post #58
yequalsx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your contribution to the discussion. I too am shocked. That the United States actively supported the Apartheid regime is a great national shame. I'm friends with a woman who grew up in South Africa. She is white. The stories she tells about the attitudes and what happened there during the Apartheid regime are revolting. She thinks Mandela is a saint and is very grateful for his leadership. Mandela was n…

Mandela was more than happy to use violence against the government as a tool in his cause for equality (although later he seemed to regret the need for it). Using violence, he broke reasonable and justified laws. Laws such as planting bombs, destroying property, and physically harming others. Just because we can all agree that his cause was just, doesn't mean he should necessarily get a free pass from criticism or ju…

I don't think there is much dispute over what Mandela did or did not do, but rather over what we call it and if we should approve of it.

Whether you call somebody a "freedom fighter" or a "terrorist" in response to these sort of actions is a matter of perspective. Movements don't get called "terrorists" by people who side with them.

We know this because, in other times in history against other wildly racist and tyrannical regimes, resistance movements have carried out similar violent attacks, but rarely do we hear those groups described as "terrorists". I have never heard somebody describe the French or Polish Resistance as terrorists; they receive the terminology "freedom fighters" because damn near everybody agrees that they were on the correct side of that fight.

So what is the deal with people who chose the "terrorist" terminology, rather than "freedom fighter", for the ANC and Mandela? Do they merely lack perspective, or are there actually still a significant number of people who side with the Apartheid government?

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#67

Post by newman314 »

mjb wrote: post #37
jd_free wrote: post #18

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history. Millions of people think he was put in jail for protesting apartheid or something else noble. He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. The "activism" he's credited with while in prison was mostly arranging more killings. Read about a practice his group created whi…

> He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. Mandela was extremely conflicted by the ANC's (and, more specifically, MK's) use of violence against the apartheid government. He saw it as a regrettable tool to be used to achieve better ends. It's clear from his later writings (his Time essay about Gandhi, for example) that he, at least, regretted needing t…

This is all well in good when you are having an armchair discussion. I suspect you would respond different if you were informed: "We regret this but we are going to have to kill you" (read in the voice of a Vogon)

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#68

Post by moolriaz »

puller wrote: post #61
wavefunction wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your take. The people calling Mandela a terrorist don't know what they're talking about.

To be fair, he did found the armed wing of the ANC, was offered a release from prison conditional on renouncing violence which he refused to do, and afterward his group went on to carry out a number of IRA-style bombings. The apartheid regime might have justified extreme measures that killed civilians, but his hands are not as clean as you would imagine from the hagiography. We don't glorify Gerry Adams in this way a…

Apartheid was a unique situation. Comparing it to Ireland is ridiculous, especially when you lack the perspective of what South Africa is actually like. Mandela averted a civil war - a real fear for many that were preparing to flee from the country. You make it seem like Mandela was ordering bombings from his cell.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#69

Post by moolriaz »

scarmig wrote: post #62
iends wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandela was more than happy to use violence against the government as a tool in his cause for equality (although later he seemed to regret the need for it). Using violence, he broke reasonable and justified laws. Laws such as planting bombs, destroying property, and physically harming others. Just because we can all agree that his cause was just, doesn't mean he should necessarily get a free pass from criticism or ju…

Weren't those laws only really enforced when non-white people broke them, though? After all, the apartheid state was more than happy to bulldoze thousands of people's homes and not pay restitution; it was more than happy to shoot hundreds or thousands of peaceful protestors and not prosecute anyone for it; it was more than happy to take political prisoners, break their limbs, and throw them out of airplanes a hundred…

"Weren't those laws only really enforced when coloured people broke them, though?"

What? 'Coloured' people also refers to a very specific subset of South Africans It doesn't mean what you think it does here.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#70

Post by scarmig »

moolriaz wrote: post #69
scarmig wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't those laws only really enforced when non-white people broke them, though? After all, the apartheid state was more than happy to bulldoze thousands of people's homes and not pay restitution; it was more than happy to shoot hundreds or thousands of peaceful protestors and not prosecute anyone for it; it was more than happy to take political prisoners, break their limbs, and throw them out of airplanes a hundred…

"Weren't those laws only really enforced when coloured people broke them, though?" What? 'Coloured' people also refers to a very specific subset of South Africans It doesn't mean what you think it does here.

You're right--I've revised to convey my meaning correctly. Thanks for the correction!
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