Mandela reminds us that it's possible for a single man to create peace amidst a huge push for war. Forgiveness is the first step in changing a society, without it we are doomed to repeat the failures of our ancestors.
He continues to be an inspiration, particularly us Africans. Rest in peace Madiba.
"Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro... Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom, and justice. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious imperialist campaign designed to destroy the advances of the Cuban revolution. We too want to control our destiny... There can be no surrender. It is a case of freedom or death. The Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people."
Nelson Mandela, 1991
History is truly written by the victorious ones. I find it funny that people praise a communist guerrilla fighter, responsible for so much violence. That's like praising Che Guevara. Oh wait... And don't get me wrong - I hate the apartheid as much.
I really admire his ability to walk away from power. Instead of making himself indispensable and hanging on to power indefinitely, he understood the importance of grooming the next generation, walking away, and letting the others to continue the work.
> Forgiveness is the first step in changing a society
Yes, but sometimes it backfires. Sometimes a Nuremberg is necessary.
However, it has to be quick, but within limits of reason and fairness. It also has to be set in motion immediately after a change of hands. It should be more of a "fair compensation and equalization" than merely about retribution.
Although this will be a controversial comment, to see an example of where (Mujib ur Rahman's) "lets forgive, no harm, no foul" did not go down well is Bangladesh's war of independence.
The little that I know of the SA situation, Mandela chose right. But the right choice is not the same in every situation.
"I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power and be in these positions to block things that you and I need. Because this is the situation, you and I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation, and it doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't even call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence." - Malcolm X
No it's not possible. Nelson Mandela is a great and admirable man. But he did not work alone. The peace is the work of many men and women, and is still a work in progress.
Let's keep in mind that South Africa has been very far from a peaceful place over the last 20 years. Many thousands have been murdered, and many thousands more have left the country.
The US was actively opposing apartheid at the same time as the ANC was added to the watch list, during the Reagan administration. Reagan has a weird relationship with apartheid; he vetoed the comprehensive anti-apartheid act, but his veto was overridden by his own party in the Senate.
It's worth knowing that the ANC was implicated in violence in South Africa --- or, rather, splinter groups of the ANC.
Having Nelson Mandela implicated in "terrorism" is obviously stupid, as was having the entire ANC listed as a "terrorist organization", but it would be misleading to suggest that the US Government was supporting apartheid based on this fact; it was a complicated time period during which the government was to greater and lesser extents working to oppose apartheid.
He may well have been seen as a terrorist by Our Great Leaders, however, he could also count on a lot of support from people all around the world that wanted an end to Apartheid. This support was wide ranging - words, weapons, money and organisational support.
Currently we are in a struggle against totalitarianism, the privatised war machine and the outsourced surveillance state. This enemy has global reach and the only countries that are not aligned with it are places like Cuba. What countries do we have outside our borders to go to for practical help from the system of oppression we find ourselves in? What external support can we get?
Nelson Mandela came out of retirement to tell the likes of Bush and Blair exactly what he thought of them. This was not the plan, he wanted to enjoy time with his grand children rather than have to continue working. He was not best pleased with general stewardship of life on planet earth. I doubt that he had a complete grasp of how insidious the current situation is but I am sure he had the general idea. It is sad that he should be departing from the world when things are going 'Dark Ages' rather than 'Enlightenment'.
They never taught me in school the FBI and the NSA wiretapped and had excessive surveillance on Martin Luther King Jr. to 'neutralize' him as an effective civil rights leader.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
"Nelson Mandela gave a copy of this speech to François Pienaar, captain of the South African rugby team, before the start of the 1995 Rugby World Cup"
I have great respect for Mandela, but I have flagged this story because it's causing so much political flaming.
"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."
"The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting. Gossip about famous people, funny or cute pictures or videos, partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to be quieter."
(with reference to the comments here, not the story itself)
Does anyone have any materials about Nelson Mandela's life that's accessible to a youngster like me? I know he was hugely important for ending something called "apartheid" in South Africa which sounds pretty horrible, I just don't know what it is.
"Apartheid" (literally: "the state of being apart") was a forced doctrine of legal racial separation, nominally "equal" but in reality anything but, with the black majority being hugely opressed, lasting from 1948 to 1990 / 1994 (officially at the former date, popularly when universal national elections were held on the latter).
Mandela fought this system along with many others through the ANC, the African National Congress. Some of its actions were violent, and the organization and its members were labeled as terrorists, though Mandela later disavowed violence.
He was freed in 1990, elected president of South Africa in 1994, and served until 1999. A man who went from spending 28 years in jail to leading the peaceful transition of his nation. His is one of the greatest stories of the 2nd half of the 20th century.
Listening to Obama speakin right now. "I'm not a saint, unless you consider a saint to be a sinner who keeps on trying."
NB: Obama himself was hugely guided and influenced by Nelson Mandela.
Clint Eastwood's movie Invictus has Morgan Freeman giving an excellent performance as Mandela - the film is centered on the true story of how the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in South Africa but it does this in the context of the wider situation in the country at the time:
Looking through a list of Mandela's quotes [1], there is an uncanny parallel between his viewpoint and those of an entrepreneur. RIP Nelson.
“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
For those who weren't: this song protesting Mandela's incarceration got widespread airplay around the world. I'm not sure I can recall a similar case of popular music taking on a case of protesting for the freedom of a single individual, and suspect it played a large part in waking consciousness to the inequity of Apartheid and much of the pressure which was brought to bear in the late 1980s against South Africa.
RIP Madiba. As a South African this is a helluva sad day, but we knew it was coming. I think I was 10 when he was released, but I had never heard of him before, partly because of my age, partly because of the media gagging.
I remember all the adults being worried that retribution and revenge was coming. But it never did, all he ever did was preach reconciliation. My best memory of him must him presenting Francois Pienaar with the '95 rugby world cup trophy, it sounds lame but it was such a unifying moment for the country.
[1] - "South African police statistics indicate that, in the period 1976 to 1986, approximately 130 people were killed by what the source calls 'terrorists'. Of these, about thirty were members of various security forces and one hundred were civilians."
I hope he has been heartened to see the shift towards greater equality and justice in the world, to which he was a strong voice and since my childhood he's remained one of the most relevant world leaders.
"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die"
Mandela
I still remember sitting in front of the tv for hours, the day he was released. The long, extended coverage of his exit from prison, delayed as he spent his time saying goodbye to inmates and captors alike.
We felt that without violence there would be no way open to the [African] people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of [white supremacy]. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. 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. But the violence which we chose to adopt was not terrorism. We who formed [Umkhonto] were all members of the [African National Congress], and had behind us the [ANC] tradition of non-violence and negotiation as a means of solving political disputes. We believe that [South Africa] belongs to all the people who live in it, and not to one group..."[1]
A life well lived. Fought very hard but helped millions of people to get their basic human right.
For to be thought of to be lower because of your race just because of where you were accidentally born is perhaps the worst form of discrimination possible.
[+] [-] casca|12 years ago|reply
He continues to be an inspiration, particularly us Africans. Rest in peace Madiba.
[+] [-] mathieuh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] purringmeow|12 years ago|reply
Nelson Mandela, 1991
History is truly written by the victorious ones. I find it funny that people praise a communist guerrilla fighter, responsible for so much violence. That's like praising Che Guevara. Oh wait... And don't get me wrong - I hate the apartheid as much.
[+] [-] ww520|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] srean|12 years ago|reply
Yes, but sometimes it backfires. Sometimes a Nuremberg is necessary.
However, it has to be quick, but within limits of reason and fairness. It also has to be set in motion immediately after a change of hands. It should be more of a "fair compensation and equalization" than merely about retribution.
Although this will be a controversial comment, to see an example of where (Mujib ur Rahman's) "lets forgive, no harm, no foul" did not go down well is Bangladesh's war of independence.
The little that I know of the SA situation, Mandela chose right. But the right choice is not the same in every situation.
[+] [-] paternalist|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GnwbZHiU|12 years ago|reply
No it's not possible. Nelson Mandela is a great and admirable man. But he did not work alone. The peace is the work of many men and women, and is still a work in progress.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dpcheng2003|12 years ago|reply
Just some inspiration for everyone here. RIP Madiba.
[+] [-] lennel|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CmonDev|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a8da6b0c91d|12 years ago|reply
Let's keep in mind that South Africa has been very far from a peaceful place over the last 20 years. Many thousands have been murdered, and many thousands more have left the country.
[+] [-] kika|12 years ago|reply
It completely escapes me how sane people can so seriously worship cannibals like Mandela.
[+] [-] Ihmahr|12 years ago|reply
Do you know who the Nelson Mandelas of our time are? Do you support them?
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela_taken_off_US_ter...
[+] [-] tptacek|12 years ago|reply
It's worth knowing that the ANC was implicated in violence in South Africa --- or, rather, splinter groups of the ANC.
Having Nelson Mandela implicated in "terrorism" is obviously stupid, as was having the entire ANC listed as a "terrorist organization", but it would be misleading to suggest that the US Government was supporting apartheid based on this fact; it was a complicated time period during which the government was to greater and lesser extents working to oppose apartheid.
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|12 years ago|reply
Currently we are in a struggle against totalitarianism, the privatised war machine and the outsourced surveillance state. This enemy has global reach and the only countries that are not aligned with it are places like Cuba. What countries do we have outside our borders to go to for practical help from the system of oppression we find ourselves in? What external support can we get?
Nelson Mandela came out of retirement to tell the likes of Bush and Blair exactly what he thought of them. This was not the plan, he wanted to enjoy time with his grand children rather than have to continue working. He was not best pleased with general stewardship of life on planet earth. I doubt that he had a complete grasp of how insidious the current situation is but I am sure he had the general idea. It is sad that he should be departing from the world when things are going 'Dark Ages' rather than 'Enlightenment'.
[+] [-] aestra|12 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#FBI_sur...
[+] [-] mason240|12 years ago|reply
AM is an A. B is an A. Therefore B = AM.
[+] [-] arjn|12 years ago|reply
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Rest in Peace Nelson Mandela[+] [-] arethuza|12 years ago|reply
"Nelson Mandela gave a copy of this speech to François Pienaar, captain of the South African rugby team, before the start of the 1995 Rugby World Cup"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic
[+] [-] apsec112|12 years ago|reply
"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."
"The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting. Gossip about famous people, funny or cute pictures or videos, partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to be quieter."
(with reference to the comments here, not the story itself)
[+] [-] ASpring|12 years ago|reply
More world leaders should strive to follow in his footsteps.
[+] [-] fuddle|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] natural219|12 years ago|reply
Rest in peace.
[+] [-] dredmorbius|12 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_in_South_Africa
Mandela fought this system along with many others through the ANC, the African National Congress. Some of its actions were violent, and the organization and its members were labeled as terrorists, though Mandela later disavowed violence.
He was freed in 1990, elected president of South Africa in 1994, and served until 1999. A man who went from spending 28 years in jail to leading the peaceful transition of his nation. His is one of the greatest stories of the 2nd half of the 20th century.
Listening to Obama speakin right now. "I'm not a saint, unless you consider a saint to be a sinner who keeps on trying."
NB: Obama himself was hugely guided and influenced by Nelson Mandela.
[+] [-] roschdal|12 years ago|reply
Nelson Mandela's Life Story - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgQBoXsxr8w
Mandela release from prison speech - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpw8AU3wMsM
[+] [-] guyht|12 years ago|reply
1918 Born in the Eastern Cape
1943 Joined African National Congress
1956 Charged with high treason, but charges dropped after a four-year trial
1962 Arrested, convicted of incitement and leaving country without a passport, sentenced to five years in prison
1964 Charged with sabotage, sentenced to life
1990 Freed from prison
1993 Wins Nobel Peace Prize
1994 Elected first black president
1999 Steps down as leader
2001 Diagnosed with prostate cancer
2004 Retires from public life
2005 Announces his son has died of an HIV/Aids-related illness
[+] [-] Segmentation|12 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_in_South_Africa
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hi...
[+] [-] davidgerard|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|12 years ago|reply
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1057500/
[+] [-] nashequilibrium|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kohanz|12 years ago|reply
Looking through a list of Mandela's quotes [1], there is an uncanny parallel between his viewpoint and those of an entrepreneur. RIP Nelson.
“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
[1] http://newsone.com/1397375/nelson-mandela-quotes-93rd-birthd...
[+] [-] macspoofing|12 years ago|reply
Except the startup entrepreneur is talking about a photo-sharing app.
[+] [-] davidgerard|12 years ago|reply
http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=4520
[+] [-] dredmorbius|12 years ago|reply
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=AgcTvoWjZJU
For those who weren't: this song protesting Mandela's incarceration got widespread airplay around the world. I'm not sure I can recall a similar case of popular music taking on a case of protesting for the freedom of a single individual, and suspect it played a large part in waking consciousness to the inequity of Apartheid and much of the pressure which was brought to bear in the late 1980s against South Africa.
[+] [-] JonoW|12 years ago|reply
I remember all the adults being worried that retribution and revenge was coming. But it never did, all he ever did was preach reconciliation. My best memory of him must him presenting Francois Pienaar with the '95 rugby world cup trophy, it sounds lame but it was such a unifying moment for the country.
[+] [-] elwell|12 years ago|reply
[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkhonto_we_Sizwe
[1] - "South African police statistics indicate that, in the period 1976 to 1986, approximately 130 people were killed by what the source calls 'terrorists'. Of these, about thirty were members of various security forces and one hundred were civilians."
[+] [-] streptomycin|12 years ago|reply
FWIW, Mandela was in prison at the time. From the 60s to 1990.
[+] [-] marquis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wehadfun|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richardjordan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tomis02|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 001sky|12 years ago|reply
Interesting, and as always, relevant words.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/nelson-mandel...
[+] [-] middleclick|12 years ago|reply
For to be thought of to be lower because of your race just because of where you were accidentally born is perhaps the worst form of discrimination possible.
[+] [-] davidgerard|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kvnwng|12 years ago|reply