Goodbye, Mandela

37 Comments

1. 

   seabe on December 5, 2013 at 8:25 pm

   “The release of Mandela…may one day be likened to the arrival of Lenin at the Finland Station in 1917.” -William F. Buckley

2. 

   Phil Perspective on December 5, 2013 at 8:39 pm

   It’s almost jarring to open up a British newspaper and see all the praise being lavished on Mandela. I seem to recall Margaret Thatcher calling the African National Congress a “typical terrorist organization” and refusing to join civilized nations in slapping a sanctions regime on the Apartheid government in South Africa.

   David Cameron thought no better of Mandela.  I’m curious to hear what he’s saying now.

   • 

     homeruk on December 6, 2013 at 2:10 am

     Not to be too picky, but The Independent newspaper only started in 1986 and was – as far as i remember – pretty much anti apartheid.  Don’t confuse Thatcher/Cameron’s stance with the British press which, by and large, were largely supportive of the anti-apartheid movement.  You should also be aware there was an incredibly strong anti-apartheid movement in the UK and in 1990 when Mandela was released, this was basically broadcast on all the 4 channels we had on our tvs at the time.  

3. 

   Phil Perspective on December 5, 2013 at 8:40 pm

   I remember when Dick Cheney voted against a House Resolution supporting the recognition of the African National Congress and the release from prison of Mandela.

   Don’t forget that the GOP-led Senate had to override Ray-gun’s veto.  One of the Senate GOPers voting to override Ray-gun’s veto: Yertle the Turtle.

4. 

   Geov Parrish on December 5, 2013 at 8:41 pm

   Agree with everything except this:

   Nelson Mandela was a giant of a man whose stature in history will be similar to George Washington’s.

   Er, no.

   Washington is a footnote in world history, largely forgotten outside the US; in that context, the intellectual authors of the US revolution rank higher, especially Jefferson and Franklin (who both spent significant time in Europe, where the real power was in their time). Washington was simply a good general, and those are a dime a dozen in world history. His mythology in the US (“I cannot tell a lie,” etc.) never went past our borders in any significant way. And aside from the hardships of the war, Washington, a wealthy white male landowner (and slaveholder), never faced the kind of personal risks or hardships that, when overcome, people can relate to or be inspired by.

   A better analogy is Martin Luther King, Jr. King, Mandela, and Gandhi were the three great moral icons of the world in the 20th century. They were all reviled by domestic opponents in their own time, they all inspired people around the world, and they did so not just by valuing life and championing the dignity and humanity of the oppressed, but also the digniry and humanity of their opponents. They each called on the best in all of us; that’s what made them transcendent international figures.

   Given that all three fought the institutions of Euro-American racism and colonialism, their emphasis on love and forgiveness also had the practical advantage of making it easier to forge alliances with sympathetic whites within the power structure. They inspired, but they also, in the end, all won great victories.

   Of the three, Mandela suffered the most personal hardship – much of his moral authority came from the decades he provided leadership to his movement from a jail cell – and only Mandela ever actually held public office.

   And only Mandela lived to die a natural death.

   • 

     Marie2 on December 5, 2013 at 9:49 pm

     Had any other freely chosen head of government or state refused to serve more than two four year terms in office?  Just long enough to oversee the initial organization of the executive branch and nominate judges.  Sorry, generals such as Washington aren’t a dime a dozen — he may have been unique.

     • 

       BooMan on December 5, 2013 at 10:05 pm

       The two verbal portraits of Washington that follow draw together several of the most widely noted qualities of Washington’s mind and character into pictures of the man himself as he acted on the stage of America’s destiny. These portraits are drawn by knowledgeable contemporaries. One is a public eulogy by a Massachusetts Federalist–Fisher Ames; the other a private letter by a Virginia Republican–Thomas Jefferson.

       Selections from Fisher Ames’ Eulogy of Washington, February 8, 1800[14]

       Commemorating Washington’s life, Fisher Ames spoke of Washington as one of “that small number” of men “who were no less distinguished for the elevation of their virtues than the luster of their talents. . . who were born, and who acted through life as if they were born, not for themselves, but for their country and the whole human race.”

       Echoing the young officers who served with Washington in his youth, Ames said that, even as a young man, Washington had “acquired a maturity of judgment, rare in age, unparalleled in youth. Perhaps no young man had so early laid up a life’s stock of materials for solid reflection, or settled so soon the principles and habits of his conduct. . . .”

       Speaking of Washington’s five year service (aged 21 to 26!) as commander of the army of Virginia, Ames says: “[A]t a time when youth is almost privileged to be rash, Virginia committed the safety of her frontier, and ultimately the safety of America, not merely to his valor, for that would be scarcely praise, but to his prudence. . . .”

       From his earliest days, then, “[t]he soul of Washington [was] exercised to danger; and on the first trial, as on every other, it appeared firm in adversity, cool in action, undaunted, self-possessed. . . .

       “We have seen him display as much valor as gives fame to heroes, and as consummate prudence as insures success to valor; fearless of dangers that were personal to him, hesitating and cautious when they affected his country; preferring fame before safety or repose, and duty before fame. . . . .”

       In the great crises of the American revolution and founding, “some man was wanting who possessed a commanding power over the popular passions, but over whom those passions had no power. That man was Washington. Consider, for a moment, what a reputation it was, in 1789; such as no man ever before possessed by so clear a title, and in so high a degree. His fame seemed in its purity to exceed even its brightness. Office took honor from his acceptance, but conferred none. Ambition stood awed and darkened by his shadow. . . .

       “This is not exaggeration; never was confidence in a man and a chief magistrate more widely diffused, or more solidly established. . . .

       “The best evidence of reputation is a man’s whole life. We have now, alas! all Washington’s before us. . . . When it is comprehended, it is no easy task to delineate its excellences in such a manner as to give to the portrait both interest and resemblance; for it requires thought and study to understand the true ground of the superiority of his character over many others, whom he resembled in the principles of action, and even in the manner of acting. But perhaps he excels all the great men that ever lived, in the steadiness of his adherence to his maxims of life, and in the uniformity of all his conduct to the same maxims. These maxims, though wise, were yet not so remarkable for their wisdom as for their authority over his life; for if there were any errors in his judgment, (and he discovered as few as any man,) we know of no blemishes in his virtue. He was the patriot without reproach; he loved his county well enough to hold his success in serving it an ample recompense. Thus far self-love and love of country coincided; but when his country needed sacrifices that no other man could or perhaps would be willing to make, he did not even hesitate. This was virtue in its most exalted character. . . .

       “His preeminence is not so much to be seen in the display of any one virtue as in the possession of them all, and in the practice of the most difficult. Hereafter, therefore, his character must be studied as a model, a precious one to a free republic.

       “His prudence was consummate, and seemed to take the direction of his powers and passions; for as a soldier, he was more solicitous to avoid mistakes that might be fatal, than to perform exploits that are brilliant; and as a statesman, to adhere to just principles, however old, than to pursue novelties; and therefore, in both characters, his qualities were singularly adapted to the interest, and were tried in the greatest perils, of the country. His habits of inquiry were so far remarkable, that he was never satisfied with investigating, nor desisted from it, so long as he had less than all the light that he could obtain upon a subject, and then he made his decision without bias.

       “This command over the partialities that so generally stop men short, or turn them aside in their pursuit of truth, is one of the chief causes of his unvaried course of right conduct in so many difficult scenes, where every human actor must be presumed to err. If he had strong passions, he had learned to subdue them, and to be moderate and mild. If he had weaknesses, he concealed them, which is rare, and excluded them from the government of his temper and conduct, which is still more rare. If he loved fame, he never made improper compliances for what is called popularity. The fame he enjoyed is of the kind that will last forever; yet it was rather the effect, than the motive, of his conduct. . . .

       “Such a citizen would do honor to any country. The constant veneration and affection of his county will show, that it was worthy of such a citizen. . . .”

       Thomas Jefferson remembered Washington fourteen years after his death, in a letter of January 2, 1814, to Dr. Walter Jones.[15]

       “. . . I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly; and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these.

       “His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though, not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no General ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstance, he was slow in re-adjustment. The consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally high toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man’s value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. . . .

       “On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit, of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example. . . .

       “These are my opinions of General Washington, which I would vouch at the judgment seat of God, having been formed on an acquaintance of thirty years. . . .

       “I felt on his death, with my countrymen, that `verily a great man hath fallen this day in Israel.'”

       link

       • 

         Marie2 on December 5, 2013 at 10:37 pm

         Wisdom is a much underrated quality.  Perhaps because it’s somewhat elusive and rare.  

         • 

           Geov Parrish on December 5, 2013 at 11:24 pm

           All this is well and good. And I didn’t write what I did to belittle GW or his contributions to US history. But… Boo’s original quote was about comparing Mandela with Washington as figures of comparable historical reputation. And that part simply isn’t true. In the US, Washington is iconic in a way that Mandela (or any other foreign figure, of any era) never could be. And in the rest of the world, Mandela is a far more widely revered figure. The question isn’t Washington – it’s his impact on the world, as perceived by the world.

           The reason I want to make that point so strongly is that while every country and nation has its creation myths, the US mythologizes its founders in ways most other countries do not – and that mythology is very much a part of American exceptionalism, the idea that we are a uniquely moral country and that since by definition we are a force for good, the usual rules don’t apply to us.

           The role of the US in the world is far more complicated than that (as is true of every country and its nationalists), but from history lessons to current events, we consistently hype America’s positive actions or attributes and ignore or deny the negatives. Putting Washington on a plane with Mandela in the eyes of the world simply isn’t true, and is very much part of that tendency. Just…don’t.

           Mandela was iconic because he represented liberation to the people of an entire continent after they had been overrun and exploited for hundreds of years by European colonists. Washington fought in one of those wars, too – on the other side.

           The ideals of that generation of founders wound up being applied far more widely than they ever envisioned, snd in ways that the US itself has rarely lived up to. Those ideals have been, and remain, a global inspiration. But Washington wasn’t one of the guys who thought up and articulated them. In terms of historical relevance outside the US, Washington isn’t even the most notable American of his generation. By contrast, while there have been plenty of inspirational African leaders over the past 50 years, none come close in world stature to Mandela.

           I really wound prefer to be celebrating Mandela’s legacies tonight, not trying to explain, yet again, that the world does not begin and end with the United States.

         • 

           hawesg on December 5, 2013 at 11:38 pm

           Washington is a global icon.  Ask Ho Chi Minh.  Hell, you could’ve asked Mandela.  Washington’s decision to repeatedly give up power, first in 1783, then in 1796, made him one of the most influential figures in world history over the past 250 years.

           We may mythologize him more, but Washington’s idea of republican rule and limits on the powers of the executive was a precedent shattering series of decision.

         • 

           BooMan on December 6, 2013 at 8:19 am

           I like Washington’s chances in the history books. I think people are gonna like him.  I think they’ll see him as a figure at least as important as Mandela.  

         • 

           Marie2 on December 6, 2013 at 12:39 am

           But… Boo’s original quote was about comparing Mandela with Washington as figures of comparable historical reputation. And that part simply isn’t true. In the US, Washington is iconic in a way that Mandela (or any other foreign figure, of any era) never could be.

           That is simply not true.  Bolivar, Gandhi, Ataturk, Mossedegh, …  An iconic figure for freedom in much of the world for young people (not the US) is Che — and he never even achieved personal political power in any country.  

           After a major break with a long existing political/social/economic power in any country, the leader in the overthrow of the old and the first new leader may become iconic.  It depends on how thoroughly the old order is vanquished and how wisely the new leader governs.  Given the economic constraints that Mandela was handed in the deal to end apartheid, his not insignificant contribution to world lessons in leadership was the truth and reconciliation commission and promulgating a good constitution were his major achievements.  (S. Africa hasn’t been as fortunate as the US was with the immediate successors of the first new leader.)

           That so few leaders of what become new countries achieve an “iconic” stature isn’t because Washington is undeserving of such a place in history or because he benefits from “American exceptionalism” mythology, it’s because so few new leaders are up to the task.              

         • 

           Marie2 on December 6, 2013 at 1:20 am

           Should also add that while not as bold as those who have the benefit of history as a guide would like to give Washington credit for, he did buck his tradition, class, and wife in granting freedom to his slaves in his will.  Whereas Martha had but one slave in her own right — the others were dower slaves that she didn’t own — that slave remained property in her will.  (Martha’s great granddaughter married Robert E. Lee.)

5. 

   cruzy on December 5, 2013 at 8:47 pm

   From Muhammed Ali:

   “…he was a man whose heart, soul and spirit could not be contained or restrained by racial and economic injustices, metal bars or the burden of hate and revenge. He taught us forgiveness on a grand scale. His was a spirit born free, destined to soar above the rainbows. Today his spirit is soaring through the heavens. He is now forever free.”

   http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rsv91j

6. 

   TarheelDem on December 5, 2013 at 8:57 pm

   shanikka at Daily Kos:

   Farewell Madiba, Who We Once Called Nelson Mandela

   I was asked to write an obituary about Madiba for the front page. In keeping with the rather clinical nature of obituaries for public consumption, I therefore wrote the diary as a chronicle of Madiba’s life rather than as the personal testament I might have otherwise authored.

   This does not mean, and should not be taken by anyone to mean, that my heart is not broken into a million pieces upon his death. Madiba and the struggle in South Africa were transformative for me, personally, at a very young age. Indeed, the first political action I ever undertook, as a young adult, was at Stanford University in connection with the struggle to end South African apartheid.

   Madiba has Gone Home to join the Ancestors. He is, as we speak, being embraced and welcomed Home by those whose lives were, like Madiba’s, dedicated to the liberation of the members of the African diaspora and, thus, humanity.

   Like me, Madiba was a lawyer. He was a political leader. He was a man who knew the value of non-violence and the place for counter-terrorism and armed self-defense against racial oppression. Yet he was also a soft-spoken man. A reflective man. An intellectual man. A spiritual and religious man. There are many words and phrases I could have used to describe his complexity as the extraordinary human being that he was.

   My ancestors were African, thus making me an African even though I have never seen the Motherland and cannot ever identify my ancestors stolen from our ancestral home in Africa for a complete sense of my true family since my past is opaque, like so many slave-descended Africans here in the United States, any further back than the 1880’s. Thus, the cause of Nelson Mandela in South Africa was the cause of my people here in the United States: the true equality of the Black race despite white supremacy. I may have no current need for the methods used by Madiba and the other members of the ANC, being in a different time and in a different place, but I understand those choices and why they were necessary at the time even if they are presumably not necessary today.

   All that being said, throughout his life Madiba carried with him a fire in the belly for justice for the liberation of his people that is truly reflected in only one word. A word that became the rallying cry for revolution in South Africa, that many worldwide learned and used in solidarity with that cause. So, in reflecting upon and grieving his passing, it is a word that I will whisper tonight, in his memory. I will shout it, between reflection, tears of sorrow at his passing, tears of thanks for his long struggle on behalf of the people with whom I share a race, and tears of joy that he is now, after much suffering and much victory, now at his much-deserved resting peace:

   Amandla!

   Amandla!

   AMANDLA NGAWETHU!!! (The Power to the People)

   Rest in Peace, Tata (“Father”) Madiba.

   And Johnny Clegg:

   Asimbonanga                             (We have not seen him)
   Asimbonang’ uMandela thina     (We have not seen Mandela)
   Laph’ekhona                              (In the place where he is)
   Laph’ehlikhona                          (In the place where he is kept)

   Oh the sea is cold and the sky is grey
   Look across the Island into the Bay
   We are all islands till comes the day
   We cross the burning water

   chorus

   A seagull wings across the sea
   Broken silence is what I dream
   Who has the words to close the distance
   Between you and me

   chorus

   Steve Biko…   Victoria Mxenge…    Neil Aggett…

   Laph’ekhona                        (In the place where he is)
   Laph’wafela khona              (In the place where he died)

   Hey wena                            (Hey you!)
   Hey wena                            (Hey you!)
   Hey wena                            (Hey you!)
   Hey wena nawe                  (Hey you and you as well)
   Sizofika nini la’ siyakhona    (When will we arrive at our destination)

   Hey wena                            (Hey you!)
   Hey wena                            (Hey you!)
   Hey wena                            (Hey you!)
   Hey wena nawe                  (Hey you and you as well)
   Sizofika nini la’ siyakhona    (When will we arrive at our destination)

   Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika

   Rest in peace, Madiba.

   Tomorrow is another day for us.

   Hanson Baliruno: Nelson Mandela (music)

   • 

     Geov Parrish on December 5, 2013 at 11:29 pm

     Thank you for this.

   • 

     rikyrah on December 5, 2013 at 11:40 pm

     this was beautiful

7. 

   Huynhkimnga on December 5, 2013 at 9:09 pm

   “Mandela was one of the great leaders and teachers of the twentieth century. He conceived a model for mortal enemies to overcome their hatred and find a way through compassion to rebuild a nation based on truth, justice and the power of forgiveness. His passing should reignite a worldwide effort for peace.” — Paul Simon on Nelson Mandela’s passing, December 5, 2013
   R.I.P Him …

8. 

   MNPundit on December 5, 2013 at 9:15 pm

   I question the efficacy of Truth and Reconciliation. It seems that very few parties seek either of those things.

   • 

     Marie2 on December 6, 2013 at 12:49 am

     Beats the alternative that was exhibited in Iran, Iraq, and many other countries.

   • 

     seabe on December 6, 2013 at 7:08 am

     I’d say it was infinitely successful and should be the future model for dealing with things like these. It’s how I wanted to deal with our torture and war crimes.

     If any other leader other than Mandela was there, it’s quite likely the transition would have been bloody and extremely violent.

      I guess the core lesson is: being right is not enough. You can have all the moral high ground and sympathy of the world and still fuck things up. You can have an opportunity to bridge gaps, get over your fears, avoid a future disaster and be inclusive, yet again choose to fuck things up (as evident in so many places with political turmoil.) Being right is not enough. Being morally outraged is not enough. There are people who are scared of you becoming an equal to them. You can choose to call them usurpers, colonizers, occupation, junta or tyrannical regimes. Or you can choose to understand their fears and reach out to them. And that’s exactly what Nelson Mandela did.

     • 

       Joelcr on December 6, 2013 at 8:48 am

       The “any leader but Mandela” trope has been stated a lot around the internet, and I’m not sure it’s true. I think Dave Weigel of all people gets the point across most clearly.

       • 

         MNPundit on December 6, 2013 at 5:24 pm

         While I am occasionally annoyed at Weigel’s righticisms, I appreciate the post for another reason. It reminds us Mandela was imprisoned for supporting the violent overthrow of his government. Reminding us that people are not just good or bad, and sometimes violence is a justified or necessary response but most off all helping us think about deciding when/if we’re at that point.

9. 

   shan on December 5, 2013 at 10:06 pm

   Mandella took his country back and brought freedom and liberty to South Africa.  But, unlike the teabaggers he also made sure there was justice for all.

10. 

    kuvasz on December 5, 2013 at 11:02 pm

    Thanks for remembering Steven Biko.

11. 

    hawesg on December 5, 2013 at 11:39 pm

    If you want a strong emetic, go to the Yahoo! comments sections for some truly vile representations of Mandela’s life.

12. 

    Stephen Stralka on December 5, 2013 at 11:59 pm

    Tempted as I am to join the defense of George Washington, I will content myself with posting this. Let’s see if I can get this embed thing working…

    • 

      Stephen Stralka on December 6, 2013 at 12:00 am

      Oops. Well, here’s what I was trying to post.

13. 

    lhclearance24 on December 6, 2013 at 4:25 am

    Right, Nelson Mandela is great leader indeed and his death brings sadness to the world.

14. 

    Compound F on December 6, 2013 at 4:29 am

    (the entire political psychoanalysis) and just focus on writing from your heart.  For reasons outside of my understanding, I feel you’d be good at simply writing from your heart.  There’s no value in political discussion at this time.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  It’s a staring contest for the moment.

    Here’s a real question:  What does booman believe about “growth?”  Econ and population-wise.  This is the question that separates the adults from children.  

15. 

    Steve LaBonne on December 6, 2013 at 9:07 am

    The Onion, of all places, had the perfect headline:
    “Nelson Mandela Becomes First Politician To Be Missed”

     

16. 

    GreenCaboose on December 6, 2013 at 9:08 am

    My wife grew up in Cape Town.  As soon as she could afford it she got a UK passport by way of her father and moved out.   After we married we visited her homeland in in 1990-1.

    We were staying with relatives – the in-laws of her favorite cousin – in Jo-burg when De Klerk announced the end of apartheid.   Her cousin and her husband were fine but his parents were the most extreme racists you can imagine.  The father had been a very successful owner of a construction firm and we were on a 2 acre estate, with heavy security, and full of black servants.  The mother did not appear to have done a lick of work since giving birth to the daughter, yet she spent the entire day bitching about Mandela (who had been released a year before) and the ungrateful blacks and how lazy they were.  The servants had to just listen to this.  They were omnipresent, just so that if she needed anything they’d be able to immediately respond.   Never a thank you – mostly just complaints.  They worked 6 days, 12-14 hours per day, lived in a special servants area.   Because of apartheid their families were not near, so they sent money home monthly and could visit their homes for two weeks per year.

    When we left we gave them each a large “tip” – without telling the owners of the house, because if we had they would have deducted the tip from their earnings.  There were no laws to protect the workers for such abuses.  I can’t remember now, it was like R50, each, which at the exchange rate at the time was something under $10.   We learned later it was worth more than they were paid in two weeks.

    So naturally they hated everything De Klerk was saying.  We only got half of it – in South Africa then everyone was expected to be bilingual so half his speech was in Afrikaans and half English, with no translation offered until later.  We kept our faces solemn by inside we were cheering wildly.

    In the 1994 election expatriates were allowed to vote at South African consulates – a choice made to help the white National Party (this would be revoked for the subsequent election).  We drove 50 miles in bad traffic to the consulate in San Francisco so my wife could vote for Mandela … obviously everyone knew the election would be a landslide so a single vote meant nothing, this was just her symbolic gesture of what she thought of the former government.

    • 

      cruzy on December 6, 2013 at 9:58 am

      I had a coworker from South Africa in the late 90’s, a white south african who moved with her husband to the US after the fall of apartheid. She told me that apartheid “wasn’t a big deal” and that she had black coworkers in SA, so that proved it wasn’t serious. but she didn’t have too many negative feelings for Mandela. She once told me that there were almost as many blacks as whites in South Africa, which stunned me a little – how could you be from a country with such serious racial issues and not have any idea what its basic composition was?

      Her husband, though, was hard core – called Mandela a terrorist, and refused to take out a new SA passport so he could visit relatives back home because it would have “the terrorist flag” on it. My mild objections to a couple of things he said resulted in the usual “arrogant american” type of comments.

      And then I also met many anti-apartheid Afrikaaners. The SF Bay area seemed to have many. For the longest time it felt like the white south africans I met came from two completely different universes. But looking at the US today, and our extreme divisions between left and right, I can see how that happens. People create their own world, and live in it, regardless of the weather.

      • 

        GreenCaboose on December 6, 2013 at 10:31 am

        The “almost as many blacks as whites” comment may have been a literal truth based on the apartheid definitions.

        You’ll recall that the Nats divided the country up into separate homelands – I can’t remember the exact number now, but it may have been 12 or 14 little reservations that they pretended were their own countries with their own governments.   The vast majority of the blacks were assigned to one of the homelands and could only work in South Africa as “visitors”.   So if you counted only people the government recognized as citizens of South Africa probably the whites were the majority.

        There was so much craziness about race recognition at the time as a result of this.  The Afrikaners, in particular, had a history of in-breeding with the blacks so many Afrikaners had some blank DNA in them.   Occasionally a couple designated “white” would have a child who looked “colored” (the legal term used for mixed race) because of recessive genes and the family would be forced to move out of their white neighborhood.

        But to believe that apartheid was no big deal is to believe that up is down and night is day.   It’s the kind of lie our wingnuts tell themselves about everything from evolution to tax rates to global warming.   The difference between black and white South Africa could not have been starker.  White South Africa was a typical first world country.   Black South Africa was amongst the poorest third world countries.  As but one example, in the Jo-burg area we drove on motorways (i.e. freeways) where the right of way was enormous – maybe a couple hundred yards – right down the middle of black settlement areas.   No paths were provided for crossing the two halves of the settlements for many, many miles so the blacks had to climb over tall fences and run across the freeways to get to friends/relatives on the other side.   No one seemed to see a problem with this.

17. 

    byzantium on December 6, 2013 at 10:17 am

    I’ll be darned. My first political protest was against Apartheid too. I was working in London, and saw the film “Cry Freedom” about the life of Stephen Biko.  After the film my buddy and I were met by organizers outside the theater, and encouraged to join a 24/7 vigil outside South Africa House. So, we headed down to South Africa House which was the huge South African embassy in London, and joined the protesters after the film.
     

18. 

    lamh31 on December 6, 2013 at 10:28 am

    Good morning.

    Was listening to my daily radio program this morning and Amd Andrew Young was on talking about Mandela.   It was a great chat.

    Afterward Tom posed a very thought provoking question.  Nelson Mandela spent all those years in prison and never once renounced his beliefs.  He said he was willing to die for his beliefs, even if he died in prison.

    So Tom asked the question, “What is something, cause or belief, that you would be willing to die for or endure 27 years of imprisonment for?”

    The common answer was of course “my children”, but IDK I see that as the easy answer.  But what of like me you have no children what then would I be willing to die for?

    I’m still sitting her boy 1st later and I really have no idea what my answer is?

    So I was wondering what’s yall answer? Let’s assume  dying for ur kids is a given.

    • 

      seabe on December 6, 2013 at 10:55 am

      Depends on what you mean by “beliefs.”

      He was still a great man, but he was largely compromised while in office, never following through his promises he made while in jail (nationalization of banks and  Reconstruction and Development Programme were both abandoned).

      In the end, he fell prey to same bullshit privatization that plagues the world over:

      “Indeed, the remarkable thing about the lead-up to the first post-Apartheid elections in 1994 was how the ANC under Nelson Mandela increasingly demonstrated to the old rulers of Apartheid that they had little to fear from an ANC-led government. The ANC unilaterally gave up its armed struggle, renounced its state-socialist policies and embraced the market economy. It also pledged not to interfere with the repressive machinery of the Apartheid state, a fact that has become all too apparent in recent weeks. Most importantly, it accepted a constitutional arrangement that institutionalised power-sharing and minority rights at every level of government, effectively abandoning its commitment to real black-majority rule. Post-Apartheid South Africa gained a black government, but the white-minority capitalist class, and its international backers, continued to exercise social power. The ANC effectively abandoned its base to get a piece of the action.”

      Link