 | This is an archive of past discussions about Nelson Mandela. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
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Have you all forgotten (Thatcher) that it was the British who invented Apartheid? Mahatma Ghandi was in South Africa before the turn of the 19th century, and had to carry a passbook because he was Asian. That was one of his motivations for the "Big Walk". South Africa was under British rule then... it was also the British who invented concentration camps, rounding up all the Boer women and children during the Anglo Boer War, and storing them in barbed wire encampments, run by tyrants, putting ground-glass into their porridge to kill them off. So much for the Queen awarding Mandela high honours for undoing what her predecessors started.
And whilst were on interesting facts, do all you Mandela-adulators believe that "the end justifies the means", i.e. that horrific terrorism is justified if the enemy is "bad"? If so, you better forgive that other man who believes the same: Ossama Bin Laden.
Apartheid was formally instituted as a system by the Afrikaner-dominated National Party in 1948, and while the British certainly administered the country in a racist fashion, I would not argue that they were the ones who began the whole trend.
As for the "terrorism" part, yes Mandela's organization used violence in persuit of its goals of racial equality and freedom for South Africa. The American founding fathers also used violence. Are we to condemn them as "terrorists"?
I'm writing a newspaper article. I come from England and think that it was pretty disgraceful. Margeret Thatcher is an arrogant old hag who didn't care about anything but her opinion. Calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist was completely unjustified when she was ignorin the suffering and exploitation in South Africa. England done nothing so why be sensitive abut it?
do you think you could make this page a little more boring?
its not enough that you degraded the greatest leader of the
late 20th century to some kinda cereal box description of
a prize package. i think you need to make it even more bland
and meaningless. you use too many adjectives. try to
take out the picture, and remove references to
any 'power words', you should called the MK the 'defense wing'
and say he was jailed on charges of 'messing about'.
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2003/10/07: Removed those "far left" references again for the same reasons as before. The opinion may have some validity, but please contextualise before adding this opinion, by quoting from speeches, defining this 'far left' etc.
2003/9/19: "Questioning George Bush's motives is hardly racist." Maybe not, but his defense of the terrorist who slaughtered 271 innocent Scots in a plane explosion over the small village of Lockerbie is. How can he feel sorry for this madman who, despite the protests of nearly all Scots (not that England gives a damn), will be released after only twenty year? And he has the gaul to visit the survivors and families of the victims in order to make them think the same way? Disgraceful.
FYI: England was sorely hurt - it gave a big damn and still does. From the newspapers, tv, radio stations, people on the street disussions in bars. Such anti England comments are completely unwarrented.
2004.04.29 USA/UK supporting apartheit was also pretty ******/discraceful & killed loads. Who was the bigger terrorist?
2003/4/29: Removed the bit about Mandela being exploited by the 'far left'. I don't like removing text, but that just seems wrong and I don't see a way to correct it. Feel free to add it in again if you can back it up. In SA, the 'far left' would be the PAC and Azapo, neither of who've had much time for Mandela, and can hardly be said to be manipulating him. Mbeki's presidency is one that focuses less on reconciliation, and more on development for Africans, which could argubly be termed more left. Or are you counting the TAC as far left, and claiming Mandela's stand on Aids as evidence!?!?
So unless you can back up who this far left is, and how they're manipulating Mandela, I think it should be removed.
2003/5/1: Removed reference to Mandela as a racist!? Questioning George Bush's motives is hardly racist. Calling the comment confusing is POV, and analysis belongs in the Iraq war article, not here, so I've removed it. The whole reference to the speech is not contextualised in the article, getting as much attention as his entire presidency, but that can change over time as the article develops
2003/07/23: I've removed the latter part of the reference discussed in the entry above. I agree that the discussion of Mandela's controversial speech lacks context. If someone else wants to include an expanded discussion of his position on the war on Iraq, I suggest perusing the following articles:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2710181.stm http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,885964,00.html
- This speech, which contained several factual innaccuracies, was quite controversial even among many of his supporters.
What are the "factual inaccuracies"? Without explaining them, I don't think we can include those words and still claim to be NPOV, so I'm removing them. -- Sam
Took out this phrase, which seems to be false: "In 1966 he briefly converted to Islam and changed his name to Mohammad Mandela." Fuzheado 04:29, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)