Nelson Mandela Dead At 95

New submitter Emilio Hodge writes "Nelson Mandela, the revered statesman who emerged from prison after 27 years to lead South Africa out of decades of apartheid, has died, President Jacob Zuma announces. He was 95." Mandela's death is covered by lots of news sources, of course, including The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Comments

What a great man

[Finallyjoined!!!]

He will be sadly missed. Huge respect.

Re:What a great man

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. Was he still considered a terrorist by the US, or did he live to see that finally set right?

Re:What a great man

[Anonymous Coward]

Both. He was, in his own words in his autobiography, a terrorist inspired by Castro and Che Guevara and spearheaded the creation of an ANC spinoff for the purposes of armed violence.

Re:What a great man

[PopeRatzo]

Was he still considered a terrorist by the US

It's so much worse than just Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher calling Mandela a "terrorist".

When congress passed anti-apartheid sanctions, Reagan vetoed them, and then actively called the Senators before the veto override vote to try to convince them to let it stand. Congress went ahead and overrode the veto, giving Reagan one of his worst political defeats as president. It was the only time in the 20th century when congress overrode a president's veto of a foreign policy bill.

Reagan still refused to enforce the sanctions against the apartheid regime, asking South African President Botha to call congress himself and lobby to have the sanctions lifted.

Reagan's successor, George H W Bush, included in his platform a promise to enforce the sanctions to their fullest extent, which he ultimately did.

Mandela's legacy will ring out long after Reagan and Thatcher's have been relegated to the trash.

Re: What a great man

[amiga3D]

People are a product of their times. While true that Mandela embraced violence he felt that he had no choice at the time. Terrible acts were being committed against his people by the government of South Africa. I think most telling was that when he finally overcame and was elected president he did not use that power to trample the former oppressors but instead used his power to heal his country. I think I was most impressed by how instead of imprisoning and executing former secret police he had them confess on video their crimes and then pardoned them. Some criticized him for this but they miss the beauty and power of the act. By having them confess on video he broke these men and made them small. If he had executed them in a wave of bloodshed then the backlash would have caused South Africa to take decades to heal, if ever. The legacy of these men will be forever shame and disgrace as is that of the apartheid regime. No hero is perfect and I feel that Mandela genuinely deserves the term.

Re:What a great man

[bmajik]

Not that you're interested, but for the benefit of people who come across your posts, I offer this clarification:

Read the Wikipedia article on Mandela. All of it.

ANC/Mandela supported economic nationalism. He was honored by the Soviet Union for his pro-communist affiliations. In 61-62 he participated in a _bombing campaign_ to put pressure on the apartheid government.

Mandela was anti-capitalist. Not as in, "bmajik says so", but as in, Mandela says so.

Reagan and Thatcher were hesitant to cut off South Africa not because they gave a shit about Mandela or because they loved sticking it to black people; they saw SA as a pawn in the cold war. They didn't want a bunch of African Nationalist Parties starting communist and Russia-aligned states all over the untapped African continent.

To Manela's credit, while he advocated for nationalizing of banks, gold production, other mining, and the abolition of private property, he didn't enact these policies when he eventually took control of the government. He was smart enough to understand that SA badly needed foreign investment, and nationalizing industry and destroying property doesn't get you investors.

Mandela is a mixed bag. As terrorists go, he was a pretty pleasant one -- MK (the militant wing he was part of) only attacked infrastructure at night, hoping to minimize civilian losses.

But, he was willing to resort to violence to bring about a communist revolution in Africa.

You think Reagan and Thatcher were against that? You're right.

Again -- read the WP article. I just summarized it here.

Re: What a great man

[Alain Williams]

You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs. He might not have been an angel 100% of the time, but overall he did the right things. He did much more good with his life than I have in mine, and more good that I suspect you have done.

Re:What a great man

[ackthpt]

Was he still considered a terrorist by the US

It's so much worse than just Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher calling Mandela a "terrorist".

When congress passed anti-apartheid sanctions, Reagan vetoed them, and then actively called the Senators before the veto override vote to try to convince them to let it stand. Congress went ahead and overrode the veto, giving Reagan one of his worst political defeats as president. It was the only time in the 20th century when congress overrode a president's veto of a foreign policy bill.

Reagan still refused to enforce the sanctions against the apartheid regime, asking South African President Botha to call congress himself and lobby to have the sanctions lifted.

Reagan's successor, George H W Bush, included in his platform a promise to enforce the sanctions to their fullest extent, which he ultimately did.

Mandela's legacy will ring out long after Reagan and Thatcher's have been relegated to the trash.

I continue to feel Reagan is overrated. Mandela was the Gandhi of our time.

Re:What a great man

[PopeRatzo]

Reagan & Thatcher opposed "sanctions". They didn't support apartheid.

They supported the apartheid government, which is the same thing. It's like saying you support the German government in 1939, but you don't support Nazis.

Both Reagan and Thatcher called Mandela "terrorist" well after the world could see the truth. They were trying to hold on to the last vestiges of white colonial Africa. May their names be erased from the Book of Life.

Re:What a great man

[PopeRatzo]

So, when Thatcher and Reagan participate in "bombing campaigns" it's "fighting for liberty" but when Mandela does it, they call it terrorism. Yes, that sounds like what you're saying.

Thatcher was "resorting" to her own campaign of violence in Ireland, and Reagan, disappointed that he didn't have a real war to fight, sent the marines to invade, uh, Grenada.

South Africa was enormously helped by the influence of Nelson Mandela. Both the UK and the US were left worse off by the influence of Thatcher and Reagan, (may they burn in Hell).

Re:What a great man

[Anonymous Coward]

If sanctions are not effective, why are they used so avidly against Iran?

Re:What a great man

[bmajik]

I hesitated to respond to you because we live in entirely different worlds, and I don't think any number of Slashdot posts is going to fix that.

However, to be clear, I wasn't implying that Reagan or Thatcher had a problem with violence.

On the contrary; they had a problem with South Africa becoming a communist satellite. When the communist agitators resort to violence, that just makes it easier to convince the domestic public that the communists are bad. Obviously when it is bin Laden fighting the Soviets, violence is just fine. We both understand how it works.

Regarding your last point: South Africa of today is one of the most dangerous and violent places on earth; Mandela did next to nothing to address black on white or even black-on-black violence. There was a huge white-flight out of SA during the 90s.

Perhaps you think this is a positive outcome. I don't.

No racial reconciliation is perfect, of course. I would say that the US probably didn't do enough to help re-enfranchise blacks, and that South Africa may have done a bit too much.

The bottom line is this: I very much enjoyed living in the Reagan years America. I very much would NOT have liked living in the Mandela years SA.

I think Reagan and Thatcher were both great, as far as people who have actually held office go, and I am disappointed that the Reagan we got was nowhere close to the Reagan that campaigned. I was all for abolishing the Depts of Ed, Energy, and the ATF. Very disappointed with Reagan on that score...

The other transgressions in his career (military adventurism) bother me, but I don't think they actually bother Reagan detractors that much. The people who bitterly hate Reagan tend to hate him for reasons that his supporters like him. Similarly, if you accuse Thatcher of being a union buster or for cleaning up free loaders on the dole, people like me will say "bravo Thatcher".

The bottom line is that you and I probably agree that Reagan/Thatcher supported a bunch of wars and terrorists that they shouldn't have. But you shouldn't pretend like that is the basis for your displeasure with them. Especially not when every other US and UK leader since (some of which you've certainly hated LESS, if not mildly supported) has done the same exact shit...

Re: What a great man

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandela was working against a government who developed such things as the 'street sweeper' ultra-high capacity shotgun for crowd control

When a freaking beast has their boot on your throat it is impossible to play nice

The greatest credit to Mandela is that when he did gain power he did not succumb to stupid behavior (land grabs, nepotism and economic decline) like his neighbor Mugabe

Re:What a great man

[PopeRatzo]

If sanctions are not effective, why are they used so avidly against Iran?

Well...there you go again, bringing up inconvenient questions.

I think the answer is, sanctions work in Iran because it's just a bunch of muslims getting hurt, but they don't work in South Africa because some rich white racists lost money.

Mandela pleaded with the world to keep the sanctions in place against the apartheid South African government. He pleaded with Thatcher and Reagan to support those sanctions, and for his troubles they labeled him a "terrorist" and did everything they could to thwart the end of apartheid.

Re:What a great man

[Anonymous Coward]

Thatcher never called Mandela a terrorist, you'll comb records in vain for any first-hand report of that remark because it never happened.

Mandela himself stated that he considered Thatcher to be a strong enemy of apartheid, and it's even been argued that she played a pivotal role in ending it.

Re:What a great man

[isorox]

Was he still considered a terrorist by the US

It's so much worse than just Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher calling Mandela a "terrorist".

When congress passed anti-apartheid sanctions, Reagan vetoed them, and then actively called the Senators before the veto override vote to try to convince them to let it stand. Congress went ahead and overrode the veto, giving Reagan one of his worst political defeats as president. It was the only time in the 20th century when congress overrode a president's veto of a foreign policy bill.

Reagan still refused to enforce the sanctions against the apartheid regime, asking South African President Botha to call congress himself and lobby to have the sanctions lifted.

Reagan's successor, George H W Bush, included in his platform a promise to enforce the sanctions to their fullest extent, which he ultimately did.

Mandela's legacy will ring out long after Reagan and Thatcher's have been relegated to the trash.

I continue to feel Reagan is overrated. Mandela was the Gandhi of our time.

How many buildings did Gandhi blow up?

Re:What a great man

[10101001 10101001]

ANC/Mandela supported economic nationalism. He was honored by the Soviet Union for his pro-communist affiliations. ...

Mandela was anti-capitalist. Not as in, "bmajik says so", but as in, Mandela says so.

And? Mandela could have been Satan incarnate. That doesn't justify vetoing anti-apartheid sanctions.

In 61-62 he participated in a _bombing campaign_ to put pressure on the apartheid government.

I like how you sandwich that in the above. It's as if you believe that Mandela was a one dimensional man with specific intentions involving communism. Meanwhile, if he had staged non-violent sanctions, would that have been okay? Because Reagan wasn't even willing to push or enforce for that. And if he managed it, Reagan would have likely called for his own _bombing campaign_.

Reagan and Thatcher were hesitant to cut off South Africa not because they gave a shit about Mandela or because they loved sticking it to black people; they saw SA as a pawn in the cold war. They didn't want a bunch of African Nationalist Parties starting communist and Russia-aligned states all over the untapped African continent.

So, they don't give a shit about Mandela, but it's because of Mandela they weren't willing to piss off the South African government as it could possibly lead to Mandela gaining power... Funny. It also goes against the long-held truth that America has consistently in the past (a) pushed sanctions and (b) simultaneously provided support for a pro-nationalist pawn in the country to form a coup. The only reason Mandela wasn't chosen is he was anti-capitalist. And odds are good no other pro-capitalist was chosen because the South African government was good enough for Reagan as a useful pro-capitalist pawn.

To Manela's credit, while he advocated for nationalizing of banks, gold production, other mining, and the abolition of private property, he didn't enact these policies when he eventually took control of the government. He was smart enough to understand that SA badly needed foreign investment, and nationalizing industry and destroying property doesn't get you investors.

I like how you mixed "nationalizing industry and destroying property". Perhaps if you said "destroying capital" it'd mean something. In fact, nationalizing industry can spur foreign investment if done correctly. The hard part is, of course, convincing foreign investors that you're only going to nationalize those resources that were unreasonably sold to foreign investors in the past. That's the real destroyer, the destroyer of confidence. And there's no real simple way to fix that problem, no matter how unjust a previous government was with previous contracts or grants. The closest thing is to have a slow transition and a strong political party to see it through. The only alternative is to just let things stand and hope that either inequity fixes itself or you can use taxes or something similar to mold the system to solve the problems. In short, there's no simple solutions, and as you state, Mandela was wise to not engage in coarse action.

Mandela is a mixed bag. As terrorists go, he was a pretty pleasant one -- MK (the militant wing he was part of) only attacked infrastructure at night, hoping to minimize civilian losses.

Certainly better than the US government's own various bombing campaigns.

But, he was willing to resort to violence to bring about a communist revolution in Africa.

As above, being peaceful wouldn't have meant the US would have responded in kind.

You think Reagan and Thatcher were against that? You're right.

As you hinted above, Reagan and Thatcher were against any potentially Soviet Union puppet because Reagan and Thatcher wanted to be the puppet masters. You had to be the US or t

Re:What a great man

[PopeRatzo]

"Reagan and Thatcher supported Apartheid", please do some research, preferably not on wikipedia, and revert.

Did they support the apartheid government?

Case closed.

Re:What a great man

[istartedi]

To Manela's credit, while he advocated for nationalizing of banks, gold production, other mining, and the abolition of private property, he didn't enact these policies when he eventually took control of the government. He was smart enough to understand that SA badly needed foreign investment, and nationalizing industry and destroying property doesn't get you investors.

So he was smart enough to use communist rhetoric as a first stage, and then jettison it to fire stage 2 and insert South Africa into a successful orbit.

Would that all communists were that smart. We could have avoided a lot of problems.

Re:What a great man

[PopeRatzo]

Thatcher never called Mandela a terrorist

That's interesting, because the Tories apologized for her having called Mandela a terrorist.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-we-were-wrong-to-call-mandela-a-terrorist-413684.html

and it's even been argued that she played a pivotal role in ending it.

How funny is it that people post links without reading them. Here's the headline of the story you link to:

How Margaret Thatcher helped end apartheid - despite herself

And here's an interesting quote from that story:

A close aide once told me that she opposed apartheid more on the grounds that it was a sin against economic liberalism rather than a crime against humanity. She also was bitterly against sanctions of any sort â" they were a crime against free trade. She even went on denouncing them after Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth had imposed a ban on sporting contacts and other marginal sanctions. She boasted that she alone had managed to fight off demands for stronger sanctions.

Advised by her husband, Dennis, who had business interests in South Africa, she felt that anything that damaged wealth creation must be bad for South Africa. She was also a great admirer of Laurens van der Post, the South African writer and traveller later exposed as a fraud, who also opposed sanctions on the country. He introduced her to Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the Zulu leader, who played an ambivalent role in the struggle against apartheid, splitting from the ANC in 1979 and accepting "homeland" status for Kwazulu. His movement, Inkatha, helped the South African police repress ANC rebellion in the townships.

That's right, Margaret Thatcher's household income came in part due to South African investments under apartheid.

Re:What a great man

[Solandri]

Reagan & Thatcher opposed "sanctions". They didn't support apartheid.

They supported the apartheid government, which is the same thing. It's like saying you support the German government in 1939, but you don't support Nazis.

The Nazis were democratically elected into power. If you supported democracy, you had to support the Nazis in 1939 (prior to their invasion of Poland in September). I opposed the younger Bush and voted against him both times, but I supported his government because he fairly won a democratic election.

There's this baffling tendency for people to try to oversimplify other people's actions and motivations to one single factor. That's almost never the case. Support or opposition is usually based on a myriad of factors, and quite often one's support can be a borderline thing chosen only because it's the lesser of two evils. It's very possible to oppose apartheid, yet support the (then) current government of South Africa because you feared if they lost power the government which replaced it would be much worse than apartheid.

If all choices were easy, politics wouldn't exist. Politics is all about having to decide between difficult (and often unpalatable) choices. Armchair quarterbacking is all about criticizing those making those difficult choices, by pretending that the negative consequences of the other choices don't exist.

Re:What a great man

[PopeRatzo]

I very much enjoyed living in the Reagan years America.

Did you know that the average annual growth in GDP under Reagan was less than it was under Jimmy Carter? That doesn't figure in to your Reagan hagiography, does it?

Of course "living in the Reagan years America" was good, especially compared to the years after his trickle-down insanity kicked in.

Sometime, go take a look at the trend in middle-class income, starting with Ronald Reagan. In many ways, we're still living in Reagan's America. It's still his trickle-down voodoo economics. Even Pope Francis has recently weighed in on Ronald Reagan's beloved "supply-side" economics, calling it a "new tyranny".

And it's only very recently that we're starting to see people begin to push back, as they start to understand what Ronald Reagan really did to this country.

Re:What a great man

[Kjella]

Regarding your last point: South Africa of today is one of the most dangerous and violent places on earth; Mandela did next to nothing to address black on white or even black-on-black violence. There was a huge white-flight out of SA during the 90s. Perhaps you think this is a positive outcome. I don't.

What did you expect? I suspect a lot of "white flight" from certain areas of the US post-1865, it's not easy to have a man you used to have in shackles and call your property now be a free man and your equal - though I doubt most ex-slave owners ever saw it that way. We here in Norway did some very unkind things to children of Nazi soldiers and their mothers (there were 400.000 soldiers = males at the capitulation occupying a country of 3.000.000 and they'd been there for 5 years, contraception was generally not available and the Nazis had their Lebensborn program - shit happens), you don't get a toss-up like that without revenge.

Like you say, a lot of that is black-on-black violence which is more about SA being in the same troubles as many other countries in Africa, they're 15th on the global list of murder rates but only 6th in Africa. The entire continent is so screwed up in more ways than you can count, there are still countries there with <35% literacy rates while South Africa is actually the most literate country in all of Africa, they have the highest GDP south of Sahara and so on. We're all affected by our neighbors and really they got nobody to look up to in a 5000 km radius.

Re:What a great man

[Darinbob]

Sanctions are basically a way to do something and be seen as doing something, without actually having to do something even more distasteful or controversial.
It's like wearing a "down with those guys!" tee-shirt.

It's a compromise between doing something utterly stupid like going to war and between losing all political support by being seen as a supporter of the other regime. Ie, Reagan opposed the sanctions and which caused a lot of people to erroneously conclude that he must have supported apartheid.

The political arithmetic isn't too hard. Your choices boil down to being seen as supporting the existing regime, ssupporting the opposition to the regime (ie, arming them, giving them money, etc), or sanctions. Of course there are nuances in between those extremes.

Re:What a great man

[Deadstick]

OK, let's see. We had to fight a war that killed over half a million people to destroy slavery in a country of thirty million. That godless commie killed maybe a few hundred people in destroying apartheid in a country of fifty million. Wonder if a lesson lurks therein...

Re:What a great man

[Darinbob]

When it comes to apartheid, Reagan was nearly on his own as quite a lot of conservatives were also opposed to apartheid and wanted the sanctions. Yes at the start it was mostly right wing versus left over the issues of communism. But the average American was also very ignorant of what was happening in South Africa and did not know about apartheid or the atrocities happening there. Once the Americans began to become better informed and learned how things were in South Africa the mood changed even amongst the right wing. It was becoming very clear at the time that the global communist movement thing was falling apart and so the idea that the US should fervently supporting brutal anti-communist regimes was also dying out.

Sure some people never budged on their stance and still think sanctions were a mistake today, just the same those few remaining die hards who think the Vietnamese war was a good idea.

Re:What a great man

[Darinbob]

How many buildings did Gandhi blow up?

Not nearly as many as Reagan did.

You're making the assumption that violence from someone you agree with is good whereas violence from someone you disagree with is bad. Ie, freedom fighters versus terrorists depends upon your viewpoint. What about all the founding fathers of the US who burned down a lot of buildings and tortured or killed a lot of British supporters? Ie "tar and feathering" which we are taught about in grade school was not just some mild public humiliation but a form of torture that could sometimes cause death. Were those people brave patriots fighting for freedom or terrorists using fear tactics?

Re:What a great man

[Anonymous Coward]

I opposed the younger Bush and voted against him both times, but I supported his government because he fairly won a democratic election.

Did he now?

Re:What a great man

[clarkkent09]

Reagan after the Congress vote on SA sanctions:

"America - and that means all of us - opposes apartheid, a malevolent and archaic system totally alien to our ideals. The debate, which culminated in today's vote, was not whether or not to oppose apartheid but, instead, how best to oppose it and how best to bring freedom to that troubled country ....
Punitive sanctions, I believe, are not the best course of action; they hurt the very people they are intended to help. ...
It would be tragic to lose this opportunity to create a truly free society which respects the rights of the majority, the minority, and the individual. There is still time for orderly change and peaceful reform. South Africans of good will, black and white, should seize the moment."

He (correctly IMHO) believed that gradual change was the best course and that suddenly weakening the government would hand the power to ANC which at the time was a strongly anti-capitalism, pro-USSR, extremely violent (look up its practice of "necklacing") movement.

It is to Mandela's credit that he controlled such a vicious organization and managed to bring about peaceful change instead of the race and ideological war that would have taken place with just about anybody else in his place.

Re:What a great man

[riverat1]

It's very possible to oppose apartheid, yet support the (then) current government of South Africa because you feared if they lost power the government which replaced it would be much worse than apartheid.

And Nelson Mandela is probably the major reason RSA didn't devolve into a civil war or become like Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) after apartheid ended. His leadership in those first few years after the change held the country together.

Re:What a great man

[PopeRatzo]

30 secs of google found a NY Times article* by Floyd Norris from 2011, using data from the Commerce Department, shows that it avg GDP growth was 3.5% under Reagan, The Gipper and 3.2% under Carter,

Here's something more recent that shows something different:

If you calculate the average GDP growth by term, you get the figures you cite. If you calculate the average GDP growth by presidency you get Carter ahead. See the paper below, figure 1b:

http://www.princeton.edu/~mwatson/papers/Presidents_Blinder_Watson_Nov2013.pdf

Re:What a great man

[mjwx]

Reagan & Thatcher opposed "sanctions". They didn't support apartheid.

They supported the apartheid government, which is the same thing. It's like saying you support the German government in 1939, but you don't support Nazis.

The Nazis were democratically elected into power. If you supported democracy, you had to support the Nazis in 1939 (prior to their invasion of Poland in September). I opposed the younger Bush and voted against him both times, but I supported his government because he fairly won a democratic election.

The Nazi's were elected, but not democratically.

In 1933, the Nazi's had an organisation called the Sturmabteilung or SA (commonly called the brown shirts) which acted as a private army for the Nazi party. Their role during the election was to act as standover men to watch who voted for who and to provide "assistance" to people who voted incorrectly. The German election of 1933 was pretty much rigged and immediately after the election Hitler set about destroying the democracy, stabbing his political enemies and adsorbed the SA into the German army.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung

It has no equilency to the election of George Bush (either of them).

Now I did not vote for Tony Abbott in the Australian elections, I do not support the Abbott government as is my democratic right to oppose an elected government and I will take any steps, legal under Australian laws to oppose and democratically remove the Abbott government because I believe the Abbott government is bad for Australia (he's essentially our George W Bush and in his 2 months in office has proved this in spectacular fashion). The brilliant thing about democracy is that the leaders dont get to rule by fiat until the next election and that you are allowed to be critical or in open opposition of a government. Of course Abbott supporters will oppose me (as is their right), but I'm not worried as Abbott seems to be proving my points for me.

Re:What a great man

[PopeRatzo]

I don't believe in erasing anything from history

I didn't say anything about erasing from history. My suggestion was to erase their names from the Book of Life, which is an ancient curse, equivalent to damning them to Hell for eternity.

Read twice, comment once. This way you won't make the same mistake again.

Re:What a great man

[phantomfive]

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers, it looks like the gdp dropped under Carter, and rose under Reagan. Maybe you forgot to adjust for inflation? You could probably give some credit to Carter because Reagen followed some of his economic policies (like keeping Volcker around), but strictly looking at the numbers, growth was higher during Reagan's presidency.

Re:What a great man

[Attila Dimedici]

You missed an important point there. The poster you replied to did not say that sanctions were not effective, nor did he say that Reagan believed that sanctions would be ineffective. What he said was that Reagan believed that sanctions would cause more harm to South African blacks than whatever help those sanctions would give them. He then offered a link which lends support to the conclusion that that was actually the result of the sanctions.
In the case of Iran, the purpose of sanctions is NOT to help one segment of the population overcome the oppression of the government. The purpose of the sanctions is to reduce the economic capability of the government to develop a nuclear weapon, and in the process cause so much economic pain to the country of Iran that it gives up the idea of doing so.

Re:What a great man

[Smauler]

He's one of the reasons... I believe De Klerk was also massively important. I see his role as similar to Gorbachev's, at the end of the USSR. They both could have held on to power, they both could have kept the status quo to some extent.

Re:What a great man

[flyingfsck]

You just have no fscking idea do you? How the hell do you use 250,000 hand grenades and 140 tons of explosives for peaceful purposes? If you want to ignore all the people who died because of his callousness, maybe you should think of the children his wife murdered?

Re:What a great man

[shutdown -p now]

Thing is, ANC did deliberately target civilians. Churches, that kind of thing. A lot of that came up in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

So yes, ANC were definitely terrorists. Fighting for a just cause, perhaps, but the definition is about the means, not the ends.

He will be missed...

[Anonymous Coward]

...he was...like...Morgan Freeman 2.0 down there...

cause of death

[Gravis Zero]

hang gliding accident

Mandela taught forgiveness

[JoeyRox]

To be imprisoned for 27 years but still have the selflessness to bring peace and freedom to his country so that nobody should share his fate is the essence of compassion, generosity, and forgiveness. He is a shinning example of the human spirit.

RIP Bill Cosby

[Niterios]

Just wait for all the Bill Cosby pictures with the caption "RIP Nelson Mandela".

Re:RIP Bill Cosby

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Morgan Freeman's pictures, dork!

Local perspective

[Any Web Loco]

South Africa's Mail & Guardian is worth a read - local perspective.

Re:Why is this here?

[coldsalmon]

Without Nelson Mandela, there would have been no Mark Shuttleworth, and hence no Ubuntu Phone.

Re:Not news for nerds

[RLiegh]

Because it's "stuff that matters."

Truly a South African icon

[_UnderTow_]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Anit-Apartheid activist Nelson Mandela was found dead in his South Africa home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in this community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly a South African icon.

Re:Not news for nerds

[CanHasDIY]

How is this relevant on /.? I mean no disrespect

Well, you've shown it, intentionally or not.

Anyone old enough to have at least a 10th grade education should know why Nelson Mandela was an important person, and why his death is relevant to everyone on the planet.

IMO.

One word

[bob_super]

"Ubuntu"

Learn a bit.

Really deserved his Nobel Peace Prize

[dkleinsc]

When Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress took power, they were in a position where they could well have taken revenge for a couple of centuries of repression by the English and Afrikaners. He led the effort to do something else (the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions), so that his country would not tear itself apart the way so many of its neighbors had done, repeatedly.

I'm not saying South Africa is a paradise compared to, say, the UK, but it's doing a heck of a lot better than Zimbabwe or Lesotho, and his decisions had a lot to do with that.

Re:Really deserved his Nobel Peace Prize

[clarkkent09]

If we are to be honest rather than PC, whites were the reason South Africa was the most developed country in Africa (by far) and not a mess of poverty, crime, war, disease, violence and disease like every other African country. I would say he was smart, not generous, when he made a deal with whites instead of trying to force them out like Mugabe did.

My own Mandela story

[spaceyhackerlady]

When Nelson Mandela turned 70 there was quite a bit of coverage in the news here. He was still in jail, so I called Cape Town information, got the number, phoned the jail and left a message ("Happy Birthday!") for him.

The man who answered the phone sounded like he'd been on the phone a lot that day. He was also very careful to take down my name and where I was calling from. I suspect that until the government changed there would have been little point in trying to get a visa to visit South Africa...

...laura

Nelson Mandela dies at 95

[richy freeway]

Respect where it's due... That's 5 miles an hour faster than Paul Walker!

Re:Finally

[isorox]

That took forever...

That took forever...

Aww, was it upsetting for you to go through those 22 weeks his health and body were failing?

Imagine what is must have been like for him.

We wouldn't do it to pets

R.I.P.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Mandela, who died Thursday night at age 95, seemed to understand that the motivating force behind ethnic, religious and racial hatred is not only, or even primarily, self-interest; it is fear, distrust, a lack of understanding. In his person and his policies, he set out to show those on the other side that they had little to fear. He sought unity rather than revenge, honesty and understanding rather than the naked exercise of power. These are all fine abstractions, of course, but never so clear to us as when there is a living figure to exemplify them. That's why Mr. Mandela’s influence extended so far beyond South Africa and was felt by so many of the world's peoples other than Africans. It is the reason, now that he is gone, that it is more important than ever — in a century marked so far by frightening eruptions of terror and religious intolerance — to keep before the world the name and example of Nelson Mandela.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nelson-mandela-brought-the-world-toward-a-racial-reconciliation/2013/12/05/4a2dfb7e-2d77-11e0-8dd8-83b74589130a_story.html

so true

[chameleon3]

every word the truth

Re:Finally

[artor3]

Is there any reason to think that he wanted to die sooner? I was happy to support legalizing euthanasia when it came up to vote in Seattle, but let's not go presuming all of the old and sick are just waiting to be put out of their misery. He's not some dog to be put down when the medical bills get too high.

Larger than Life

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Nelson Mandela is a larger-than-life figure. The true hero, that sacrifices his life and gives all of his energy for a cause. He may not always have resorted to peaceful means, but when your opponents will not listen to reason and only speak the language of violence, the temptation to fight fire with fire runs high. Despite losing friends, witnessing the mercilessness and brutality of a police state and being treated less than human, he transitioned the unjust, abusive apartheid regime of South Africa into a free democracy for all.
South Africa is still a troubled country. But this is the product of decades of apartheid, that has created a huge divide between the rich and the poor, and ignoring the education and integration of most of its population. With these foundations, it is no wonder that poverty and crime still pose a huge challenge to South African society.

Nelson Mandela has done more than his part, much more than can be expected from a single lifetime. Rest in peace.

Case closed ? Not so fast !!

[Taco Cowboy]

"Reagan and Thatcher supported Apartheid", please do some research, preferably not on wikipedia, and revert.

Did they support the apartheid government?

In the Syria conflict USA/France/Britain support the "rebels" who fight against the Assad regime. Those "rebels" happened to include the Al Queda terrorists.

In conclusion, perusing your own analogy, what USA, France and England are doing is to give their support to Al Queda and all the jihadist terrorists

What is YOUR answer to that ?

Re:Case closed ? Not so fast !!

[PopeRatzo]

When France supported the United States in the Revolutionary War, I'm sure there were some criminals in the US.

The Assad regime was a brutal dictatorship. The opposition to Assad is made up primarily of people who are not at all jihadists. In fact, the freedom fighters have in many cases fought the Al Qaeda forces who came into Syria to exploit the violence.

When Thatcher and Reagan supported the apartheid white minority government in South Africa, they were doing so to preserve apartheid.

Mrs Thatcher profited directly from apartheid, since her husband had extensive investments in white South Africa during apartheid.

What is YOUR answer to that?

It's always better to oppose unjust, undemocratic regimes. 20th century American history is littered with occasions where the US supported the unjust regime and came to regret it later, in sometimes devastating ways. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central America, South America, Africa, Cuba...the list goes on.

Re:All of us who were around back in 1990 ...

[Smauler]

Mandela, ~ unlike all other hypocritical politicians all around the world, ~ is a dude who was TRUE TO HIS WORDS.

I think his actions speak louder.

"The TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) found that torture was "routine" and was official policy – as were executions "without due process" at ANC detention camps particularly in the period of 1979–1989."

Mandela founded MK, because he thought the ANC was not militant enough.

I think he was right and just to do most of the things that he did. Brushing under the carpet military and terrorist tactics like most seem to do now, because he was on the right side, is unhelpful IMO.

It wasn't his words that influenced politics in South Africa, it was his actions, however unsavoury they were. Also, yes, I do know he was in prison when those attacks took place. The organisation he founded carried out the attacks.

Really sad

[Chrisq]

Nelson Mandela was one of my heroes. His "truth and reconciliation" was the only way to heal South Africa after apartheid, and puts lie to the claims that "people who are mistreated have no choice but to become murderers" that we hear so often.

Re:All of us who were around back in 1990 ...

[TapeCutter]

Yes, Winston Churchill was also a ruthless and cunning bastard, precisely what's needed if you want to survive a bitter conflict. Problem is today's ruthless dictator is often yesterday's courageous hero, eg: Mugabe. I admire both Churchill and Mandela for many reasons, but to me MLK and Ghandi are in a class of their own when it comes to righteous victories over formidable oppressors.

And yeah I remember 1979 quite well, it was the year before I got married, Stevie Wonder was singing "peace has come to Zimbabwe". Maybe in 20yrs time people will start to realise that the Syrian war and much of the "Arab spring" was triggered by severe drought rather than facebook. Much of rural Syria simply walked away from their farms in 2009-10. 10% of the population was internally displaced before it exploded, first into food riots, then a civil war and all the side-battles between splinter groups and factions that entails. In the cold war Syria was to the Russians what Israel was to the US, Putin and Obama have so far done a pretty good job of containing the conflict within Syria's borders, which is definitely a GoodThing(TM) for everyone who's not in Syria..