Interesting that Adams and McGuinness were reconciled with Paisley....... and are now committed to a peaceful way forward. Paisley had said he would never sit at the same table as them.... and then because of mediation they found a way forward and much of the violence in N Ireland was stopped.
I am with W_Y and Bolton on this. Mandela was a terrorist and that is not an acceptable way to bring about change. He served his term in jail and came out as a charismatic leader and probable stopped SA becoming another Zimbabwe so he has done good and bad and whilst saddened by his death I am not dancing. It still sticks in my craw that Adams & McGuinness are actually MP's when they should be serving their jail terms and as for Cameron selling the Dalai Lama down the river..... There is far too much hypocricy in the world driven by political, economic and power agendas and it's not going to change anytime soon.
Even Ãlafur Ragnar GrÃmsson has made a tribute to Nelson Mandela and his humanitarian acts. To try and take glory from someone who did affect the lives of people in his own country to themselves I think our politicians are wrong. I do not see Mao Zedong and Nelson Mandela as similar.
She did say if it was very serious they would probably phone me straight away, so I am hopeful that the lack of communication is encouraging!
Ask China about Norway, the Nobel Peace Prize for Liu Xiaobo and the oil exploration around Jan Mayen.
Can someone explain to me how people remove a repressive, unelected government without elements of terrorism? That was a dilemma that Nelson Mandela faced, and, as he admitted, he couldn't find an answer. It is ridiculous to complain about someone like Mao, say, then argue that anyone who uses force to remove him is a terrorist. Von Stauffenberg clearly deserved everything he got for trying to kill Hitler, an elected head of state. The thing that distinguishes Mandela from many other revolutionaries is the way he reconciled South Africa. I always thought that it would turn into the sort of blood bath that occurred in Algeria. He prevented that. The problems in South Africa are minuscule compared to what they could have been. Please note I am not criticising the comments on the reactions in the UK to Mandela's death. I think that is an interesting phenomenon, in the same way that the public response to the death of Princess Di.
F w de Klerk and Mandela were both amazing men. They were/are both flawed. I was going to say that neither of them were Jesus Christ, but then I remembered that he went into a Synagogue and started smashing it up because he didn't agree with the religious/political hierarchy.
69 peaceful demonstrators were murdered at Sharpeville by the British backed SA Govt.. and later many more were "legally" killed... before Mandela and others took up arms... all parties have blood on their hands..
I agree, killing peaceful demonstrators is unacceptable and undemocratic. There are hundreds of examples we could cite that would be unacceptable to many of us, often perpetrated by governments that have been democratically elected.
This is the whole thing though Scully - they had no avenues whatsoever to overthrow one of the most nasty tyrannical regimes the world has seen. Really they ahd no choice but to attack the heart of the regime. Also you talk of revolutions but very few in history have passed off without bloodshed. Incidenatally - once again it says a lot about this board that there's a discussion of this type going on and there's not been a cross word said.
I thought the British government did not like South African government as the Afrikaans were the people who rebelled against British rule. Was it not British companies who supported South Africa? I know they could not have done this without government approval but in the eyes of the world the government was being against the South African nation, even if we knew they were playing games.
Trade and vested interests kept us much closer than the official position and we didn't really have an anti-apartheid position until much later.
I am a supporter of the Free Tibet movements... and the Dalai Lama has moved from seeking independence, a right that even the UK Govt supported, to recognizing Chinese claims and asking for federal autonomy. He has given up the very thing the Han Govt hate(d) him for BUT it has made no difference. The mineral wealth on the Tibetan plateau, one of the last unspoilt regions of the world, is massive.... I have met monks who have been cruelly tortured with implements worthy of the middle ages. I was also able to support a Tibetan refugee village when I worked in Bhutan.... as the Bhutan govt would give no resources unless they renounced their Tibetan nationality and became Bhutanese The Tibetan people have tried every way to protest. unfortunately as in Tiananmen squar,e peaceful protest has been met with literal annihilation
Great blog by Musa Okwonga about Mandela and who he was and what he stood for http://www.okwonga.com/?p=869
