NELSON MANDELA

[guypjfreak]

just seen on the news that hes been brain dead for 10 days and that the family are arguing over his body .

his brother [ i hope ive got that right ] seems to want to start a Mandela theme park.....

kids bodys are being dug up.....

2 sisters have one brand of Mandela clothing while ....

some aunts have started anther line of clothes ...

theres even a wine you can buy.....

the mans a legend that HAS changed the world WHY WHY WHY cant he be given the peace he never really got when he was well and alive ..

the world and some people are vaulters ..

just my thoughts

cheers

[viberunner]

Look, I don't wan to start a shit-flinging contest but can you please put that "Mandela Peace" crap to bed?

Tutu was about the peace. Mandela was a warrior who was unafraid to use kidnap, torture, murder, landmines, and the bombing of commuters to get his goal. Not only was he willing to kill and to order killing, he was unafraid to target civilians. And racially so. The landmine campaign was ended, not because it was killing too many civilians, but because it was killing too many black civilians.

Don't get me wrong. I support his goal 100% and frankly I'm personally bloody enough to be casting no stones.

But Mandela? Peace? Have you even READ his autobiography? (That's a rimshot, perhaps 1% of people who own a copy have read it).

[eFestivals]

Last week Obama went to Robben Island to see where Mandela was imprisoned.

Meanwhile Obama has been responsible for imprisoning people for over a decade without trial, and extra-judicial killings in many countries around the world.

You couldn't make it up.

[eFestivals]

Look, I don't wan to start a shit-flinging contest but can you please put that "Mandela Peace" crap to bed?

Tutu was about the peace. Mandela was a warrior who was unafraid to use kidnap, torture, murder, landmines, and the bombing of commuters to get his goal. Not only was he willing to kill and to order killing, he was unafraid to target civilians. And racially so. The landmine campaign was ended, not because it was killing too many civilians, but because it was killing too many black civilians.

Don't get me wrong. I support his goal 100% and frankly I'm personally bloody enough to be casting no stones.

But Mandela? Peace? Have you even READ his autobiography? (That's a rimshot, perhaps 1% of people who own a copy have read it).

Yes, Peace.

How fucking stupid are you? Care to show me the many many examples from around the world where repressive regimes have voluntarily said "oh yes, let's give power to the people".

The ANC murdered* far fewer people than the oppressive regime they were fighting - and the ANC had indisputable moral right on their side with their aims. Mandela is 'guilty' merely of saying that he wouldn't give up that rightful fight for justice for all, and that he would use the means necessary to win it (no different to any 'official' army going to war).

The proof of the pudding came with Mandela's release and election. Someone who was not a man of peace would have sought revenge. Mandela sought only peace.

(* i'm not trying to claim that every action the ANC took was just and rightful, but there's no person or organisation anywhere that could make that claim. The ANC were by necessity an 'underground army', and history shows that an underground army has little choice but to act in ways that it would not chose to do in a free world, for its own self-preservation).

But hey, given your views on Mandela, I can only presume that you think in WW2 that there was nothing heroic about the French Resistance and that they were merely murdering scum.

Sometimes people have to take a stand for what is right, and sometimes that requires violence to start movement in an immovable object. I was propaganda-ed at for the first 35 years of my life about how the IRA were nothing other than murdering scum with no 'right' on their side .... and just as with Mandela, the lie has been proven. Just as with Mandela, when the (provisional) IRA started their campaign of violence in response to the violence being unjustly used against 'Republicans' (or more properly: Catholics), those Catholics were being denied equal democratic rights (only owners of property had the vote in NI in the '60s, and of course in the main those who owned property were the oppressors). It's only possible to change things thru democracy when there is democracy.

My own view is that you don't change anyone's mind by blowing their brains out - but sometimes it is necessary to blow their brains out all the same. Sometimes there is considered to be a greater good - which is the moral basis for any military action by both an army of the state or by 'a people's army'.

[eFestivals]

Ah look... Another rant from Neil in reply to a post which pretty much agreed with him... You need to learn to read Neil.

You can call Mandela many things but peaceful isn't one of them. And if you are Neil its you who is the idiot. But you don't seem to be doing that... and neither did the poster.. So why the rant ? You are in agreement. He was a killer.

Fighting Hitler was an act of peace. Mandela's fight for peace was no different you small minded moron. He fought for peace in a country of repression and violence and achieved peace.

Churchill was "a killer" too. Shall he be forever denigrated for that and his greater achievements dismissed because of it?

[Kowalski]

Meanwhile Obama has been responsible for imprisoning people for over a decade without trial, and extra-judicial killings in many countries around the world.

Edited July 5, 2013 by Kowalski

[viberunner]

Yes, Peace.

How fucking stupid are you? Care to show me the many many examples from around the world where repressive regimes have voluntarily said "oh yes, let's give power to the people".

The ANC murdered* far fewer people than the oppressive regime they were fighting - and the ANC had indisputable moral right on their side with their aims. Mandela is 'guilty' merely of saying that he wouldn't give up that rightful fight for justice for all, and that he would use the means necessary to win it (no different to any 'official' army going to war).

The proof of the pudding came with Mandela's release and election. Someone who was not a man of peace would have sought revenge. Mandela sought only peace.

(* i'm not trying to claim that every action the ANC took was just and rightful, but there's no person or organisation anywhere that could make that claim. The ANC were by necessity an 'underground army', and history shows that an underground army has little choice but to act in ways that it would not chose to do in a free world, for its own self-preservation).

But hey, given your views on Mandela, I can only presume that you think in WW2 that there was nothing heroic about the French Resistance and that they were merely murdering scum.

Sometimes people have to take a stand for what is right, and sometimes that requires violence to start movement in an immovable object. I was propaganda-ed at for the first 35 years of my life about how the IRA were nothing other than murdering scum with no 'right' on their side .... and just as with Mandela, the lie has been proven. Just as with Mandela, when the (provisional) IRA started their campaign of violence in response to the violence being unjustly used against 'Republicans' (or more properly: Catholics), those Catholics were being denied equal democratic rights (only owners of property had the vote in NI in the '60s, and of course in the main those who owned property were the oppressors). It's only possible to change things thru democracy when there is democracy.

My own view is that you don't change anyone's mind by blowing their brains out - but sometimes it is necessary to blow their brains out all the same. Sometimes there is considered to be a greater good - which is the moral basis for any military action by both an army of the state or by 'a people's army'.

Edited July 5, 2013 by viberunner

[eFestivals]

What, as senator of Chicago??

You clearly did.

Nope, that's your own doing.

I didn't say Obama was the one that locked them up in the first place. I merely said that he's been responsible for keeping them locked up, and that many (most?) have been locked up for decade - on his say so.

[eFestivals]

I would certainly not refer to Churchill as a peaceful person. That be completely moronic... The sort of comment a moron like you would make...

And yet he was not a war-monger. He was anti-war, because he'd seen (and helped cause, in Galipoli) the full horror of war for himself.

He was a man of peace, provoked into war - no different to Mandela.

[eFestivals]

I don't doubt the ANC were entirely justified in the armed struggle against the South African state, but were they justified in racially targeting innocent civilians?

What is "an innocent civilian"? Is someone who supports or chooses not to fight a racist regime innocent of that racism?

You don't know and I don't know how things might have panned out had they not taken those actions, but it's hard to make a wall fall down by just targeting a single brick.

You wax lyrical about the violence of the SA state against black people. Britain has been far worse against worldwide Muslims. The SA regime killed several thousand (making it, strangely enough, unexceptional in terms of African state violence). Britain killed several million - more than a million each on both Tory and Labour watches.

"several thousand" is a massive under-statement.

And the greater levels of violence carried out by others elsewhere is not a benchmark to be used for starting a 'fight for right'.

Thus surely support the 7/7 bombings and the murder of Lee Rigby? (Except that was a direct attack on a soldier, to be more ANC-like he would have to have been a non-soldier). But of course you don't. You do not argue the attack on Iraq fully justified the 7/7 bombings. Not that I've heard.

Feel free to prove me wrong.

I do not condone those acts of violence, but neither do I condemn them.

To believe that the UK has a right to remain a war-free zone when we take wars to foreign shores is pushing the bounds of reality much too far.

Just to be clear: I wish those acts of violence in the UK had not happened, no differently to how I wish the Iraq war hadn't happened.

Oh. As for the "proof of the pudding". The greatest amount of political violence in SA happened immediately after the announcement of the end of apartheid. The slaughter was several times the ENTIRE body count from the apartheid regime and it was almost entirely black-on-black. So yes, while the ANC were happy to sit fat and rich on top of the political pile do not deny they were willing to murder thousands of black people to get there - and vastly more than the whites ever did.

Huge power shifts never happen without violence. Just look at Egypt today.

But you're being mightily selective with your body counts. Do you really think that the National Party diligently recorded all the deaths of blacks caused by the apartheid system?

The deaths that you hold the ANC responsible for are the result of that apartheid system, because without there being that apartheid system the ANC would not have become what it did.

The ANC were FORCED into acting in a violent manner. Such things become ingrained and are not shed in an instant - no differently to how the SA police are still to properly reform themselves from their aparthied past, and are still murdering on that racist basis.

Edited July 5, 2013 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

Would love to see you back that shit up

Read a history book.

[viberunner]

(Churchill) was a man of peace, provoked into war - no different to Mandela.

[viberunner]

@eFestivals

Right. inside eFestivals you're not an innocent civilian if you don't fight the state. So none of the 7/7 victims were innocent civilians. Just, what was that phrase of yours? Just "bricks in a wall".

There is also no evidence Jean Charles de Menezes fought the British state, so he's not an innocent either. We have that cleared that up at least.

The "several thousand" is what the TRC reported. The entire apartheid death toll is around 20 thousand, but the vast majority of them happened after the 1994 declaration (and were black on black). If you have other figures go for it. Just saying "it's true and the SA regime hid the deaths" on the Internet does not make you more reliable than the TRC.

"Just to be clear: I wish those acts of violence in the UK had not happened, no differently to how I wish the Iraq war hadn't happened."

[viberunner]

You see... I have... And your painting of Churchill as anti war is nothing short of laughable...

[eFestivals]

You see... I have... And your painting of Churchill as anti war is nothing short of laughable...

PMSL.

Yeah, nothing of him causing masss deaths at Galipoli had any effect on him, did it?

So he didn't give up First Lord of Admiralty to go and do his penance in the trenches. And he loved those trenches so so much he was determined that there was another war so that others could go and have as much fun as he did.

Even for the most peaceful, war is sometimes a necessity. Against Hitler it was.

[eFestivals]

You wait till he reads Churchill's "poisoned gas" memo.

Or the fact he desperately wanted the Americans to use nuclear weapons on Russia after they had defeated the Nazis.

1. you fight a war to win it, no matter what your attitudes to peace.

2. he saw the USSR as little different to Hitler.

Or do you think that the peaceful see no evil in the world?

[viberunner]

The horrors of Gallipoli did not make him shy about wanting to drop chemical weapons on the Kurds, did not give him the slightest hint of concern about dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese civilians, and did not give him the slightest hint of concern about wanting to drop them on Russia in order to make Stalin "behave reasonably and decently".

[viberunner]

2. he saw the USSR as little different to Hitler.

[eFestivals]

The horrors of Gallipoli did not make him shy about wanting to drop chemical weapons on the Kurds, did not give him the slightest hint of concern about dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese civilians, and did not give him the slightest hint of concern about wanting to drop them on Russia in order to make Stalin "behave reasonably and decently".

Yup ... cos of reasons that are outside today's standard thinking. Racism, and no understanding of what nukes actually were.

Just as you've done with Mandela, you're considering things from imaginary perfect situations neither had at those times.

Back to Mandela... either he had to be subjugated by apartheid, or he fought it.

The point that matters most which is 100% absent from your thinking is this: being 'normal' was not an option.

[eFestivals]

Yes, but only in the respect they were a threat to his colonial views.

Which is a pretty shitty excuse/reason to want to use nuclear weapons on people, no?

In today's terms, certainly.

For the Victorian 'paternalistic' colonialist that Churchill was they made sense, and don't by-default conflict with him having a huge desire for a peaceful world. The SA National Party wanted a peaceful world too, while suppressing the non-whites.

'Peace' is something we have a singular understanding of, but how we each think peace might be achieved differs for all of us. I think that simple fact is passing you by.

[eFestivals]

Any quotes to back up the bullshit your are spouting ?

endless history books, Churchill's own writings. It's pretty endless.

For you to be calling me out as wrong, you'd have to have already read these things, which you clearly haven't.

Essentially, the idea you're putting forwards is the 'bad press' that Churchill got as a war-monger for having recognised the threat to the world that Nazi Germany posed, and the shite that came his way for warning of the threat for 5+ years prior to WW2 from the Nazi-loving Daily Mail, as well as others who were sick of war as a result of WW1.

Churchill was a very easy target for the press and others when he was calling for British re-arming in light of the Nazi threat, because of his own failings in WW1. Him calling for that re-arming had him labelled as a war-monger, while Mr "Peace In Our Time" was the hero of the hour.

[eFestivals]

Yeah your using the same lines as the IRA and their supporters do for why they blew up kids in Warrington etc...

like it not, that was a part of the process that led to a just settlement and peace in NI.

The P.IRA did not start the fight; Mandela did not start the fight; Churchill did not start the fight.

They each fought from the corner they were pinned into, and all won their fights for justice and peace.

If you wish to blame anyone for the actions these people were forced to take in the light of injustice and intransigence, it is those who ruled with injustice and intransigence.

[eFestivals]

And still nothing to back up what you said... Nothing...

I have read a lot about Churchill... A man who was prepared to do what needed to be done to defend the country. Justifiably as well. But to describe him as a peaceful man is laughable He spent his life in a battle of one form or another.

Stop getting your knowledge from people in pubs

so anyone who goes to war hates peace do they?

Stop getting your knowledge out of your own fouled nappies.

[sifi]

I cried when I read the Mandela book. The bit where he touched his wife's hand for the first time in twenty years had me blubbing like a girl.

[guypjfreak]

great discussion old sons lol .

and just so you know i dont think youll find a PEACEFUL leader anywhere on the planet except maybe the.....................no no you wont.

getting back on track i was trying to say let him die IN PEACE i think the argument about Churchill ,Stalin ,Polpot and the rest could be a whole other story .but as we on it stalin killed more people before the out break of ww2 than Hitler killed during the war and no one knows how many after the war .

as for good old Winston without him your d all be talking German lol

back to Mandella my point was like M Jackson wot ever the past let them die and be buried in peace or should i say peace and quite .

please crack on with your views tho there ....how to say it .....interesting to say the least .

had any one mentioned Polpot btw lol

Edited July 5, 2013 by guypjfreak