While I don't have great knowledge of the actual history (what an ethnocentric wench I am!), I do acknowledge him as a great fighter and conquerer of discrimination.

The deeds he's done, the people's he's helped...I mean, he's amazing. Many people do put him along with such greats as MLK.

I feel like he is someone we should learn from while he's still here. How often can you be educated by a historical figure...who stands right before you?

He is well respected by myself. Glad to know he's around to celebrate his 90th b-day, considering he spent 27yrs incarcerated.

I think he's fantastic. His story is remarkable and inspiring. I don't picture him as a freedom fighter per se, but definitely a figure worth looking up to and appreciating.

Hey Beline! I am an Afrikaner too! That said I could probably contribute to this with my first hand experience of SA, but I will not.

Well Sydney, he wrote a biography called ‘A long walk to freedom’ or I can just quickly give you the background on his life. He joined the ANC as a young man and they asked God to bless their political party, then they went and planted bombs (with God’s blessing of course) and killed a couple of ‘soft targets’. He was jailed because he was a murd3rer and not because the government wanted to shut him up for speaking out about racial equality. He served 27 years for his crimes and was then released and became our first black president.

Now for some reason everybody is praising him for his ‘forgiving spirit’? Why should he forgive people because he was jailed? I don’t get it. And has anybody ever said something about the forgiving spirits of his victim’s families? Of course not.

As for comparing him to Martin Luther King: MLK was a gentle soul who didn’t believe in violence. Where’s the comparison?

Hey, Tanya! And ‘no comment on the issue right now’ is our current president’s line. You have to get your own one. But seriously: I don’t blame you for not wanting to speak out. You obviously know when to keep your mouth shut. I’m still battling with that one. Ten out of ten for your social IQ, my girl.
Lovies!

Ps. I have a PM laying in my 'outbox' for you for ages now. DOn't know why it's stuck there.

The fact that nobody has responded after my last post just goes to show that Nelson Mandela is nothing but a ‘Paris Hilton’. Nobody knows why he is famous but because the media tells us he is special everybody agrees. What is it that this great man has actually done for people? Uh.. Don’t know - but the media says he’s great. Who is it that he has actually helped? Donno, but the media says he’s great. And what can we learn from him? Ahh, I guess it’s how to kill innocent people, play the victim and walk out a hero?

And Sydney, I respectfully disagree with you claiming that he is a ‘great fighter and conqueror of discrimination’. If you kill innocent people to make a statement it puts you in the same class as Osama Bin Laden. Nothing gets solved that way. It just added to the racial problems he ‘tried to conquer’. It was a hate crime. Nothing more.

Is this Wikipedia entry wrong?

Nelson Mandela
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (IPA: [xolíɬaɬa mandéːla]; born 18 July 1918) is a former President of South Africa, the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. He spent 27 years in prison, much of it on Robben Island, on convictions for crimes that included sabotage committed while he spearheaded the struggle against apartheid.

Among opponents of apartheid in South Africa and internationally, he became a symbol of freedom and equality, while the apartheid government and nations sympathetic to it condemned him and the ANC as communists and terrorists.

Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, his switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even by former opponents.

Mandela has received more than one hundred awards over four decades, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela.

Mandela has frequently credited Mahatma Gandhi for being a major source of inspiration in his life, both for the philosophy of non-violence and for facing adversity with dignity.

Beline- thanks for giving some info on the subject. Honestly, I don't know much.

Upon researching, it seems I cannot find anything about the bombings (except a website that seems to be dedicated to destroying Mandela's image?. I am most certainly not saying they didn't happen...I just find it interesting that people don't talk about it.

Do you think it's this "covering up" (for lack of a better term) that has people making this comparison?

*I'm finding he bombed churches and things like that? Were these churches and other venues visited by white people? People that encouraged the apartheid? Maybe to Mandela, they were not innocent. :: shrugs :: Just trying to find out why this would be something so...not talked about?

No Chriss, the entry is not wrong, but it is incomplete. ‘Crimes that included sabotage’? No mention of the bombs, the people he scarred, mutilated, killed, or the children he left orphaned. If you tell a story – tell the WHOLE story. And in all honesty; I don’t think that he felt inspired by Mahatma Gandhi when he ordered those bombs to be planted. I almost lost my own mother with the infamous Church street bomb. It was very, very close.

I live in a country where skin color is still a very big issue. We can do without people contributing to racism. He made a banana republic out of South Africa by putting a bunch of criminals in parliament. (Yes, he did.) If you want to know what a criminal knows about running a country, just look at what happened to our currency in the past 14 years. Take a look at our crime rate – it’s the highest in the world. Look at what happened at a HIV/Aids convention: our minister of health pitched up with some beetroot and garlic claiming that this is the cure for Aids! Our next president – Jacob Zuma - raped a girl that that he knew was HIV positive (he was a spokesperson for an HIV/Aids awareness movement) but he took a shower afterwards so he’s okay..?

The point that I’m trying to make is; if you want to praise Mandela, praise him for starting the Nelson Mandela’s Children Fund. But tell the whole story. He orphaned children. Maybe he is trying to make up for it, who knows? Our educational system has gone down the drain so these children doesn’t have much of a future here, but at least some Aids orphans are benefitting from the fund.
But Sydney, I don’t blame you for not knowing about the bombings as even in our country it never gets mentioned. I tried to get some info on exactly how many people died at his hands and I’ve been unable to get some figures.

Wow, they make the fundies we have in the U.S.look like geniuses. So what do the people think when things like this happen? (Esp. about the beet and garlic cure!)

That is really interesting to get this different perspective! I looked s'more at the wiki site:



Beline, I remember reading this story about a man and they didn't give his name. It was about perspective; and the story told of a man who bombed and killed people etc. and spent time in jail. The story ended with the question, 'should he be allowed out of jail'? Well of course you're thinking no, of course not. Then the story reveals it's Nelson Mandela and that is supposed to change your perspectve.

I guess that is part ot the media blitz on him. He still did those terrible things, but it was for a cause that can be appreciated. I wonder how history will look back at Mandela?

Well Aochriss, there was a couple of sangoma’s (witchdoctors) that told the men that all they had to do to cure themselves of Aids was to rape a virgin, so personally I prefer the garlic and beetroot theory. But it doesn’t go down well on the overall as you can imagine.

The cause can be appreciated, Birch, but you try and tell a man who lost both his legs, his hearing and half his face that. It won’t go down well either.

I wonder why that is. You should copy and paste it and resend it to me! : )