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RIP Mr. Mandela.

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  • RIP Mr. Mandela.

    BBC News - South Africa's Nelson Mandela dies

  • #2
    rip

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    • #3
      Rest in Blessed Peace
      sigpic

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      • #4
        RIP. My step-dad was a member of one of the Jewish groups that fought for Mandela's release, and on his will he has pictures of himself and other members of the group meeting Mandela. Truly a great man, and a loss to the entire world.

        Even more of a shame that he lived long enough to see what South Africa has turned into today.....
        Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

        Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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        • #5
          Rest Well, Mr President. God Bless.

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          • #6
            The world has lost a true delegate of peace, RIP.
            "Draft beer, not people."

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            • #7
              RIP...a true legend.

              Cheers!...on the rocks!!

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              • #8
                A mighty tree has fallen.
                In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                Leibniz

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                • #9
                  One of the bigwigs of the 21st century, with a legacy that children the world over will continue to study centuries from now. Rest in Peace.
                  Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                  -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

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                  • #10
                    A truly great man. He had his failings but he always kept his eyes on the prize.

                    He could have been president for life but chose instead to step away after one term to allow democracy to grow. He refused to allow the ANC and South Africa go the way of so many liberation movements after gaining power....just look to Zimbabwe and Mogabe.

                    His embrace of the Springboks did as much to units South Africans as anything else he did in his life.

                    RIP, sir.


                    Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. UThixo ke woxolo makabe nani nonke. Amen.
                    “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                    Mark Twain

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                    • #11
                      he liberated not just blacks, but all South Africans.

                      RIP.
                      There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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                      • #12
                        RIP.

                        As expected, the death of Mandela has sparked a wave of hagiography painting him as some sort of god on earth and an undercurrent of nastiness from those keen to remind us of ever failing, real or imagined. Mandela was not perfect. He did questionable things. He didn't achieve everything it was hoped he might as President. His nation has not prospered as it was hoped it would.

                        While all of this detail is important in assessing the man in total, one towering achievement alone (and there were others) puts it all in the shade.

                        People who manage to attain power after a long fight (especially against a ruthless enemy) have two paths they can take. They can indulge their vengeance and simply replace one oppression with another. The other path, perhaps the harder path & the one less taken, is to forgive your enemies & try to build a new, better, freer society. Mandela walked the harder path. He took a nation that had been plunged into bloody chaos by a dying regime and he healed it. In a situation where the nation might so easily have tipped into even worse communal violence or even civil war he forged some sense of a nation. Nobody should ever underestimate the herculean nature of that achievement.

                        He showed himself to be a better man than his enemies in every respect. A truly great man.
                        sigpic

                        Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                          People who manage to attain power after a long fight (especially against a ruthless enemy) have two paths they can take. They can indulge their vengeance and simply replace one oppression with another. The other path, perhaps the harder path & the one less taken, is to forgive your enemies & try to build a new, better, freer society. Mandela walked the harder path. He took a nation that had been plunged into bloody chaos by a dying regime and he healed it. In a situation where the nation might so easily have tipped into even worse communal violence or even civil war he forged some sense of a nation. Nobody should ever underestimate the herculean nature of that achievement.

                          He showed himself to be a better man than his enemies in every respect. A truly great man.
                          he had very good reasons.

                          From an interview in 2007, after such barbarous torment, how do you keep hatred in check ?
                          Hating clouds the mind. It gets in the way of strategy. Leaders cannot afford to hate.

                          He explained of his past that forswearing violence "was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon."

                          In '63, when he was under trial for sabotage & conspiracy to overthrow the state -a capital crime, he decided to turn his defence testimony into a moral drama hoping to be vindicated in the court of world opinion. His speech (shades of 'i have a dream') ended up getting his death sentence commuted to life as a result of pressure from liberals at home & abroad. That speech at the Rivonia trial saved his life.

                          Prison taught him to be a master negotiator. He began negotiations with the govt in secret as he knew his comrades would resist. When they found out, he said the govt was morally & politically defeated with just an army and an ungovernable country. His strategy was to give the white rulers every chance to retreat in an orderly way.

                          India offered him the country's highest civilian award in '90, first foreigner to receive it, three years before he got his Nobel and has declared 5 days of state mourning, flags at half mast.

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                          • #14
                            Mandela gave oppressed people worldwide the courage to never give up. RIP

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                            • #15
                              If I may add some food for thought:

                              Mandela was indeed a great man and his ability to forgive and to step away from power at the right time is quite admirable and worthy of recognition. I wonder if this was not a correctly calculated move after watching the failure of opposite strategies like those of Mugabe… no less admirable… but certainly understandable.

                              Which leads to the next question.

                              Apart from “being free”, did Nelson Mandela’s removal of white rule bring a better standard of living to black South Africans… or did it simply appease the politically-correct notions that one race should not rule another while destroying the trickle down economic and security benefits from successful white rule?

                              White South Africans I have met in the past say it did not. They say it took a country that was great for whites and better than other places for blacks and turned it into a place that has grown increasingly miserable for everyone. I have not spoken to any black South Africans about this.

                              Official South African statistics on the internet seem to show an increase in lifestyle… and these statistics are championed by those of like ideological mind. Many independent aid and government organizations dispute these numbers (eg. Interpol believes the crime statistics are a fraction of reality).

                              In the end, had Nelson Mandela’s struggle been against far more brutal and oppressive black leaders, such as what rules a number of African (and other) countries now, he would have been no more than a footnote in history and his death would have gone mostly unnoticed… lacking the glowing support of international politicians, entertainment personalities, and media outlets clamoring to show their open-mindedness and lack of bigotry.

                              This leads to the conclusion that his excessive fame, admiration, and financial success is less for being a champion of freedom (of which there are many) and more for being a champion of fell good politics…of which the end result may well have benefited nobody, white or black.

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