Nelson Mandela, dead at 95

[keen23]

Multiple reports have confirmed that Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa, has died at age 95.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013 ... dead-at-95 (not broken, new site)

[danvillebelle]

What a man, what a life, what a hero. RIP.

[ljohnson2006]

This is also in the Wide World Of Snark thread. RIP

[latraviata]

A hero!!

[DifferentGurl]

It's sad, but not surprising. He was getting old and had health problems earlier this year.

Question? In my old Christian textbook, it said he had ties to Communists. Is this true?

RIP. You have done your country good, Mandela.

[Sola]

I didn't think he'd see the year out. The world is a poorer place with his passing. May he RIP.

[Dysfundamental]

It's sad, but not surprising. He was getting old and had health problems earlier this year.

Question? In my old Christian textbook, it said he had ties to Communists. Is this true?

Sure. Every revolutionary movement in pretty much every nation on Earth has included Communists. The ANC (and its predecessor organization, which was founded in the early 20th century) was an umbrella organization that united people from different parts of the political spectrum, including South Africa's Communist political parties, who shared the goal of overturning apartheid. The Communist parties in South Africa were among the few political organizations not to declare themselves whites-only.

The idea that having "ties to Communists" is somehow A Bad Thing is just weird to me, but you certainly see a lot of it in fundieland.

Nelson Mandela's legacy will live on. I hope he had a peaceful passing.

[sparkles]

A tremendous loss for all.

[Burris]

Mandela wasn’t always non-violent. Part of the reason he was sent to prison, where he served 27 years, is because he had been involved to some extent in a bombing campaign aimed at undermining the (unfair, bullshit) ruling government.

It’s what he did when he got out of prison that really set him apart. He could have been angrier. He could have called for violence instead of reconciliation after the apartheid system began falling apart. He could have done so many things to make the world worse.

Instead, he attempted to restore peace and prosperity to what seemed like a hopelessly fractured region, with mixed results. But he’s the sort of man with the sort of legacy that just grows larger and larger, such that even in death the changes he began will continue to roll out like an expanding bubble.

He was rare, not merely for the work discussed above but because his life demonstrates how someone who may once have made society worse through violent actions can turn around, if he has enough time left to do it, and leave the world a better place than how he found it.

[latraviata]

Mandela wasn’t always non-violent. Part of the reason he was sent to prison, where he served 27 years, is because he had been involved to some extent in a bombing campaign aimed at undermining the (unfair, bullshit) ruling government.

It’s what he did when he got out of prison that really set him apart. He could have been angrier. He could have called for violence instead of reconciliation after the apartheid system began falling apart. He could have done so many things to make the world worse.

Instead, he attempted to restore peace and prosperity to what seemed like a hopelessly fractured region, with mixed results. But he’s the sort of man with the sort of legacy that just grows larger and larger, such that even in death the changes he began will continue to roll out like an expanding bubble.

He was rare, not merely for the work discussed above but because his life demonstrates how someone who may once have made society worse through violent actions can turn around, if he has enough time left to do it, and leave the world a better place than how he found it.

Well, here speaks the moral conscience of us all, shut up already! Are you god or what?

[JMarie]

Someone dies, someone who is internationally known and respected. What does Fox News show, hours after the passing? Karl Rove, complaining about Obamacare.

[Palimpsest]

Mandela wasn’t always non-violent. Part of the reason he was sent to prison, where he served 27 years, is because he had been involved to some extent in a bombing campaign aimed at undermining the (unfair, bullshit) ruling government.

It’s what he did when he got out of prison that really set him apart. He could have been angrier. He could have called for violence instead of reconciliation after the apartheid system began falling apart. He could have done so many things to make the world worse.

Instead, he attempted to restore peace and prosperity to what seemed like a hopelessly fractured region, with mixed results. But he’s the sort of man with the sort of legacy that just grows larger and larger, such that even in death the changes he began will continue to roll out like an expanding bubble.

He was rare, not merely for the work discussed above but because his life demonstrates how someone who may once have made society worse through violent actions can turn around, if he has enough time left to do it, and leave the world a better place than how he found it.

QFT. Burris that was an excellent take on Mandela, and a concise and accurate summation. Thank you.

[SPHASH]

Billy Graham is the same age as Nelson.

[FloraKitty35]

Someone dies, someone who is internationally known and respected. What does Fox News show, hours after the passing? Karl Rove, complaining about Obamacare.

Did you really expect anything less out of Fox Noise.

[Burris]

Well, here speaks the moral conscience of us all, shut up already! Are you god or what?

I get it: We obviously don't like each other, but what was the point of that comment?

First of all, I'm not even sure about my own moral conscience.

Secondly, how about just ignoring me? Or is that too hard for someone as educated and intelligent and beautiful and accomplished as yourself?

[ADoyle90815]

QFT. Burris that was an excellent take on Mandela, and a concise and accurate summation. Thank you.

Here is some of what Mandela said before he went to prison:

"During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realized. But, My Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

He decided in the end that reconciliation was the best thing in the end, and the world has been blessed to have him with us for so long. He also said that people aren't born hating others, and that it's easier to teach people to love one another.

[MysteryHaggis]

May he rest in peace, having improved the lives of so many.

In my last year of high school my advanced history course was on the history of SA, from the arrival of the Dutch to 1990. It's a minor thing but doing it really impressed the importance of Mandela and the scale of what he did.

For all the importance of Mandela's seemingly endless capacity to forgive, the most important thing imo is that he fought. Nonviolence is admirable but Mandela showed incredible fortitude in fighting those against him for so long. Brave, rare, irreplaceable. RIP Madiba.

[Dysfundamental]

I think Burris's points were well-taken. The complex lives of influential leaders are often simplified in public memory. That Mandela's political life embraced both violent and non-violent revolutionary acts, as well as the elder statesmanship and diplomacy of his later years, is an important part of his legacy.

[DifferentGurl]

Thank you all for explaining me a bit more about Mandela's violent and non-violent revolutionary acts. It seemed like the fundie textbook only remembered the violent and Commie stuff and ignored all the peaceful acts he had done which, in the end, outweighed the other bad stuff he had done in the past.

Once again, RIP Nelson Mandela.

[miffy]

I was actually working with a Coloured(different meaning in SA) South African colleague when his death was announced today. She wasn't sad at all, she had very mixed feelings about him. Very different to the reactions of people who have never set foot in SA or only for diplomatic visits.

[louisa05]

Thank you all for explaining me a bit more about Mandela's violent and non-violent revolutionary acts. It seemed like the fundie textbook only remembered the violent and Commie stuff and ignored all the peaceful acts he had done which, in the end, outweighed the other bad stuff he had done in the past.

Once again, RIP Nelson Mandela.

Was that an a Beka book?

The 1986 edition of World History asserted that Apartheid was good for South Africa, only objected to by some "human rights" (quotes theirs) activists, and dismantling it would result in violence. bloodshed, and all of Africa aligning with the USSR. Even worse, it called South Africa (circa 1986!) a "bastion of democracy at the tip of Africa".

I was given this book to teach out of in 1997. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that.

[Ariel]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/05/don-t-sanitize-nelson-mandela-he-s-honored-now-but-was-hated-then.html

From the Daily Beast. It's an interesting article on how American media sanitizes controversial figures and misuses the word 'freedom'.

[SPHASH]

One of my FB friends is complaining about Obama having the flag lowered for Mandela but not our fallen troops. Geesh!

[Marianne]

RIP Mandela. He had a full and good life. I was pleased to see that many of my students, even young, knew who he was and were sad for his death. There is always hope.

A little off topic, but whenever I hear about a topic related to Africa, it reminds me how I know so little about the continent. Apartheid and Mandela, history of decolonization, Monomotapa, slavery, the kingdom of Oyo, but that's all, and it makes me ashamed. I think it will be time to change that.

[ladyamylynn]

Perry Coghlan, Sr. has been posting some fairly disgusting anti-Mandela stuff all day.