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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

#141

Post by pyre »

Crito wrote: post #66
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…

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 tyran…

I think it's just an attitude of people that see all of the praise for a public figure as ignoring the possibly not so 'saintly' things that they have done[1]. I would be willing to bet the a majority of people only know all of positive things about Mandela, and few of the negative/questionable things.

I'm not in the camp of calling him a terrorist, but I do get a bit annoyed (sometimes) when the hero-worship seems to present a skewed perspective on reality. For example, I'm annoyed that many US politicians will dote over how awesome Mandela was in expressing their sympathies over his passing, but there is no talk of how we sided against him.

[1] For example, Mother Theresa explicitly withheld pain-killers from the people that she treated because she felt that the pain brought them closer to God. It's unquestionable (to me at least) that treating those people (even with this attitude) was a good thing because they would get no care otherwise. On the other hand, I don't put her up on a pedestal as a perfect human being like others do.

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

#142

Post by Brakenshire »

leoc wrote: post #138
puller wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 analogy between Adams and the IRA and Mandela and the ANC is seriously inapt. To begin with, the IRA's objective was not civil rights for Northern Ireland's Catholic/Nationalist minority. The Provisional Sinn Féin/Provisional IRA hydra always made it absolutely clear that their goal was the establishment of "a thirty-two county socialist republic". That means that they were seeking to impose, by force, a single a…

It's also worth saying that the IRA deliberately targeted civilians, which as far as I know was not the case with Mandela.

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

#143

Post by JPKab »

moolriaz wrote: post #130
JPKab wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I disagree with much of what you say, (Mandela was no terrorist) but your first paragraph starts out by pointing out someone citing anecdotal evidence, and then ends with you citing your own anecdotal evidence of racial violence in the UK vs. SA. As if your experience walking around in London vs. whatever part of SA (as you know a huge country) you live in is solid data. I have white friends from college who…

The person who sang that song was convicted of a hate crime, and is now facing criminal charges, so I don't see this as a legitimate reason to run away. I would like to see some evidence for a mass exodus from South Africa, specifically would be interested to see if large amounts of money have been taken out of the country to fuel this. I don't think any data exists for this. I was pointing out that what was said was…

The "person" who sang that song was doing so in a huge group of people, and I seriously doubt most of them were prosecuted.

BEE, like any other race-based affirmative action program, is obtuse and unjust. The much more just (and effective) tool for achieving the outcome desired by race-based affirmative action is income-based affirmative action, where income is derived from the person's familial income while growing up. This would effectively cover every person of color in SA anyway, but wouldn't persist for those raised without disadvantages in the new post-apartheid gov't. (in other words its a sliding scale)

Here in the US, race-based affirmative action punishes Asians more than any others. Studies show that they effectively have 50 points plus removed from their SAT scores for college admissions. (There is no allowance made for the fact that they may speak English as a second language and have grown up a laborer's child in a poor urban neighborhood)

On the other hand, a black American whose parents are professionals making 6 figures will be treated as if he has the disadvantages of an inner city child or a boy raised by sharecroppers. The net effect is 200 + points added to SAT score (for a male, the effect is dampened for a female). Make it based on income, and the inner-city child gets the advantage he/she needs, and doesn't have his/her spot taken by the child of professionals who went to private schools.

FYI: I witnessed this scenario first hand in high school. A classmate whose father forced him to work on their fishing boat (his family was dirt poor, and his illiterate father cared nothing for education) had higher SAT scores and grades than our mutual friend (mother a lawyer, father an accountant). Fisherman's son was refused admission to the same schools that professional's son was accepted into. Fisherman came from a poor white family AND he suffered from bouts of severe rheumatoid arthritis. The son of professionals from a privileged background got a welcome mat rolled out for him. If this was an income based system it wouldn't have happened that way.

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

#144

Post by rayiner »

JPKab wrote: post #122
rayiner wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That the United States actively supported the Apartheid regime is a great national shame. The real shame is that The Afrikaner nationlist party that instituted apartheid ran on the platform in 1948, the same year that the Dixiecrats in America ran on a segregationist platform. Apartheid started to crumble in 1990, less than 30 years after George Wallace, as Governor of Alabama, declared "segregation now, segregatio…

I don't know why so many Americans think Ronald Reagan was so great. The more I learn about his policies, the more I think he was the lackwit actor playing politician that his critics say he was. His trickle-down economics BS is, as far as I'm concerned, nothing but a golden shower.

I don't think Reagan supported segregation. I do think he was willing to support segregation in South Africa to achieve American geopolitical goals. Many people would argue that this is proper and the American President has no obligation to anyone but Americans.

My point was more that we consider segregation to be long-past history, while we consider Reagan to be a President of the modern era. In fact, Reagan was eight years older than George Wallace, and was in his 50's by the time of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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

#145

Post by toyg »

001sky wrote: post #114
moolriaz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is at best anecdotal evidence for a mass exodus of the 'best and brightest' fleeing SA. The only time I have been mugged, attacked, or stalked was during my time as a student in the UK (have had all three happen). Ironically I suffered a serious racist attack in the UK, where someone tried to stab me because I wasn't the right colour. The only time I have serious feared for my life. I have never had any such pro…

No offense, but you seem quite ignorant of the "non-anecdotal" data. Almost to the point of unbeleivably so. (1) Lack of Personal Security. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_security_industry_in_S... The private security industry in South Africa is the largest in the world,[2] with nearly 9,000 registered companies and 400,000 registered active private security guards, more than the South African police and army…

To be fair, this data is old. I personally know quite a few SA expats who've gone back in the last few years, pushed by UK recession and a realisation that things are not that bad back home after all. Mbeki is gone, Zuma should go next year, the sort of feared Mugabe-like regime hasn't materialised.

Yes, there has been a (white) exodus in the late 90s, but it looks like the correction might have been a one-off.

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

#146

Post by anigbrowl »

iends wrote: post #94
dannypgh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think apartheid is a good example of why the moral thing to do sometimes is to harm others and/or destroy property. It's not hard to argue at all. Preventing the suffering of the many by harming a relatively small number of people (or destroying practically any amount of property, really) is a clear win from a utilitarian perspective.

I understand your perspective and realize it's an easy argument to make. I see the same arguments about America's use of the atomic bomb in WW2. There is not much more to say on this topic with two opposing viewpoints :)

I see the same arguments about America's use of the atomic bomb in WW2.

A false analogy, since the US was in a position of overwhelming strategic superiority when it dropped A=bombs on Japan. It could easily have set up a naval blockade and waited the Japanese out, or continued it's highly effective conventional bombing campaign, or demonstrated the devastating power of the A-bomb in a thinly populated area - by dropping it on Mt. Fuji, for example, which would certainly have garnered a similar level of attention within Japan.

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

#147

Post by mason240 »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #119
pessimizer wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandela was a terrorist. You're just having cognitive dissonance because you agree with him (as all right-thinking people should have.) To the extent that "terrorist" has any meaning, it is when a less powerful actor attempts to advance an agenda through creating an unmanageable situation for a more powerful institution by causing an increased sense of risk within individuals who are part of the support structure of…

You are confusing things. Mandela was not a terrorist because he won, proper term is freedom fighter. History is always written by victorious.

No it not. History is written by historians, who are constantly reevaluating primary documentation and the conclusions that were drawn from them by previous generations of historians.

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

#148

Post by mason240 »

nashequilibrium wrote: post #77
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…

The problem is that in the age of TL;DR, nobody here is going to take the time to read "A Long Walk to Freedom". So they will listen to snippets of info, mostly taken out of context. Yes Mandela did create the "spear of the nation" but most people do not understand the background of this or the reason, instead they resort to reading a few snippets and posting here. You get two types of people here, one group is liber…

Your second paragraph is by far the most vitriolic thing I've read in a long time.

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

#149

Post by markdown »

nbm wrote: post #95
iends wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? When I visited South Africa, a few white people used it to refer to the non-whites. I do not know if they were just trying to be descriptive or discriminatory. Perhaps it didn't mean what I thought it meant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured is fairly accurate. "Coloured" refers to (and is used self-descriptively by) a subset of people of mixed race of generally one or more of usually British and Dutch ancestry on the "White" side, and generally one or more of various Bantu groups (mostly Xhosa, Zulu, some Ndebele, &c.) or Khoisan ancestry, and sometimes also of Malaysian or other South-East Asian ancestry (from ex-D…

A more descriptive, if not less offensive, term would be half-caste. Half-caste means the same thing everywhere in the world.

I am one.

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

#150

Post by smsm42 »

coldtea wrote: post #121
iends wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your perspective and realize it's an easy argument to make. I see the same arguments about America's use of the atomic bomb in WW2. There is not much more to say on this topic with two opposing viewpoints :)

> I see the same arguments about America's use of the atomic bomb in WW2. Only that use was totally unjustified, as Japan was surrendering anyway, a military defeat was already 100% feasible, and the bomb was used needlessy to send a message to the USSR.

Read your history. Japan wasn't "surrendering anyway" at the time - not even after the destruction of Tokyo (which btw resulted in more casualties than the nuclear attack). In fact, six Japan's largest cities were destroyed and they weren't "surrendering anyway". They rejected the Potsdam declaration as late as end of July. Even after Hiroshima they were only ready to surrender if the whole power structure and the government were preserved and granted the authority to deal with the aftermath of the war (that's like Hitler demanding Nazi party would stay in power and be responsible for investigating Nazi war crimes). In fact, the Japanese military was completely convinced they can and should go on with the war even after Hiroshima.
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