RIP Nelson Mandela :(

[grangers14]

Sad news for an amazing man.
May you rest in peace. God bless.
Jo

[snoopysue]

Heard the news this morning - not really surprising, 95 is a good age, especially after all that time in prison.
Good that it sounds as though his family were with him, and that he died at home, rather than in hospital.

I heard that the international community that was working for release of all the political prisoners, decided to focus on one man rather than them all, in the hope of creating a more powerful message - it certainly seemed to have worked!

[dudleytaylor]

He was a good man . RIP

[peterd]

he unite south africa when he became there leader post prison, but dont forget he was the leader of the armed side of the ANC pre prison and they were classed as a terroist organisation

http://thebackbencher.co.uk/3-things-yo ... n-mandela/


one of the greatess leaders black south africa had but never live to see the end of apartheid and would of beat mandela in any elections was Steve Biko this is the guy who deserves the praise as a Statesman not mandela

just my opinion folks

[Rob]

That's put the cat among the pidgeons!!! Peterd being political and controversial!!

[peterd]

:shock: That's put the cat among the pidgeons!!! Peterd being political and controversial!!

Just the the way i see it

[snoopysue]

There are some situations when, although I'd never countenance violence, I can understand the terrorists! And let's face it they're only terrorists because they're in opposition to the established regime!

[peterd]

There are some situations when, although I'd never countenance violence, I can understand the terrorists! And let's face it they're only terrorists because they're in opposition to the established regime!

So the kenyan mall bomber are an opposition in somalia ?
IRA / shin fen are in opposition ?
Taliban ?

sorry but as i said he help unite South africa post prision, but the same guy was putting kalashnikov assault weapons in 12, 13, 14 year old hand to kill.

[snoopysue]

There are some situations when, although I'd never countenance violence, I can understand the terrorists! And let's face it they're only terrorists because they're in opposition to the established regime!

So the kenyan mall bomber are an opposition in somalia ?
IRA / shin fen are in opposition ?
Taliban ?

sorry but as i said he help unite South africa post prision, but the same guy was putting kalashnikov assault weapons in 12, 13, 14 year old hand to kill.

You're taking what I said as a blanket statement and it's not!!

[AndrewA]

Yes Mandela is to some a terrorist and always will be.

HOWEVER. He changed.

When he went into prison he was an angry aggressive young man, but then to use a clichéd but true phrase, he found God and became a Christian.

In my church we have a lay preacher who was Mandela's prison chaplin for 8 years while he was on Robben Island.

We all know this fact, but on Sunday he gave a 15 minute talk about Mandela and their time together on Robben Isalnd and it was very moving to hear a first hand account from someone who had the privilege to call Nelson Mandella his friend.

In short, Mandela learned to forgive and learned about reconciliation and its these things which shaped Mandela and saw an amazing man leave prison to re-unite a broken country.

[peterd]

And i pointed fact out he united the country post prision which could of easiely been a boold bath but he not the saint the hysteria trying to create

[SRD]

I'm not sure that it's quite that simple. Is being a 'terrorist' always a bad thing? Were the French Resistance terrorists? If Germany had invaded Britain and set up a government would it be wrong for British people to take up arms against that government in an effort to restore our previous constitutional monarchy under a democratically elected government? Were the likes of Boadicea, Hereward the Wake, Robin Hood etc. terrorists? Surely Alfred the Great was a terrorist in the eyes of those Scandinavians who had settled the southern half of Britain and come to live here, to farm, trade and live (relatively for the times) peacable lives with their neighbours.

The situation in most of Africa (and large parts of the rest of the world come to that) was that invading armies (in the name of trade), generally supported financially and militarily by foreign, mainly European, powers had set up and supported undemocratic, minority, elite governments in order to transfer the wealth of those nations into our own coffers. Large amounts of that wealth actually went to fund the many small, and a few major, wars that raged across Europe.

We (the Europeans, Russians & Americans) continued to financially support those regimes, who were responsible for atrocities committed against the people they were supposing to be governing, once they had supposedly cast off 'direct rule'. How long should those down-trodden people have suffered without resort to arms?

Ok, it might be argued that what replaced those elite regimes haven't shown themselves to be above reproach, but Mandela has been a beacon and an example of how it should be done. Not only is there his personal presence but his policies have been so enlightening. Little has been made of his insistence of only serving one term to encourage other leaders to follow in his footsteps and not to cling on to power through increasingly draconian methods. And his reconciliation scheme has been an example to communities the world over on how to lay the past to rest.

I'm happy his suffering is over but I mourn the passing of one whose influence we mustn't allow to fade.

[peterd]

If a bomb was to go for a ligitimate target ie goverment military istallation, a general, a head of state then any thing around them you could say is collartal damage but when a bomb or indiscrimate shooting happen without a specific target like a shopping center then it caused to terrorise the general population this is not justify in any manner as children dont understand and cannot influnce whats happening

[SRD]

But its Ok is it for 'legitimate' governments to bomb indiscriminately, as we did to places like Dresden even though that action might have been considered retaliation for bombing atrocities visited on us?

And if the legitimate forces of law and order are indiscriminately shooting civilians, as happened frequently in South Africa and in many other places before and since, are the people not allowed to take up arms to defend themselves and overthrow those oppressors in an effort to get a fairer form of government?

Are all such people to be labelled 'terrorist' just because they don't represent an existing government?

As we see in places like Afghanistan, the attacks that the 'terrorists' make on legitimate targets like barracks are invariably repulsed with far heavier casualties on the attackers side. These may be successful by making headlines and attracting new volunteers but are not very efficient militarily, whereas those operations that might be considered less legitimate, e.g. IEDs targeted at military vehicles, although that seems to me to be as legitimate as using an unmanned drone to take out vehicles supposedly carrying terrorists, do more military damage, and the operations they carry out amongst the civilian population have most influence on the long term outcome of a conflict. Thinking of Afghanistan, it wasn't so long ago that the West sponsored and armed brave men who were prepared to put their lives on the line to attack their government and that governments supporting Russian allies, those same men, the Mujahadin, a few years later, now armed and paid for by Arab money, are busy killing Western soldiers supporting a different government. Freedom fighters turned terrorists?

This doesn't mean that there is no such thing as a terrorist, and the example you give may well be an example of terrorism. But by your argument it might be argued that the Tory party at the Brighton hotel was a 'legitimate' target for the IRA and therefore wasn't a 'terrorist' attack.

Don't get me wrong, I'm opposed to all forms of physical violence, and a fair amount of emotional violence too, but there has to be a time when, despite many efforts of peaceful protest, it is acceptable for the oppressed to take up arms against the oppressor, whether that oppressor is considered 'legitimate' or not.

What I'm saying is that the label 'terrorist' can be used to cover a wide variety of circumstances and depends very much on the aspect from which one views the conflict. I see no reason why Mandela shouldn't be considered as much a saviour of his nation as Churchill is to us or De Gaulle is to the French, although it might be argued that Mandela did a slightly better job of the peace than Churchill or De Gaulle did.

[snoopysue]

I agree with SRD, and am against violence. I do however believe that people have a right to protect themselves with reasonable force (and the question then is, what is reasonable force?).
Whether "terrorism" is a legitimate act or not, is decided after the fact by the winners!
WW2 is a good example - Hitler would probably have thought of resistance fighters, and secret opperatives as terrorists, but not to us - they were brave people doing a difficult but necessary job. It's really a question of politics, and who ends up on the winning side!