Posted on 08/20/2006 9:11:39 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Sen. Barack Obama started a two-week tour of Africa on Sunday with a visit to Nelson Mandela's former prison island, paying tribute to the "incredible courage, resilience and hopefulness" of the anti-apartheid movement.
The only black member of the U.S. Senate and one of the Democratic Party's rising stars, Obama said the two-hour visit to Robben Island made him realize that everyday worries in the United States were "fairly trivial stuff compared to the very elemental, basic struggle" of Mandela and other former inmates.
Obama's late father was a goat herder who went on to become a Harvard-educated government economist for his native Kenya.
The senator was guided around the island by Ahmed Kathrada, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 with Mandela and other leaders of the resistance to white racist rule.
Kathrada was classified as Indian which — according to apartheid's laws — made him superior to black South Africans. He was allowed to wear long trousers and socks and got bigger helpings of food.
Mandela, Sisulu and all the black detainees suffered the humiliation of wearing shorts and petty discrimination like not being allowed syrup or jam at breakfast, he said.
"It is a reminder of the extraordinary struggle that not only Mandela went through but people all over the world go through to obtain things that we take for granted," said Obama. "To stand in Mandela's cell and have a sense of the incredible courage, resilience and hopefulness of these men puts into perspective the work we do back home."
Obama said hopes his trip, which will include a trip to his father's home in Kenya, along with visits to Congo and Chad, will help improve ties between the United States and the continent, and give him a better perspective on problems such as HIV/ AIDS.
He is due to visit AIDS patients and meet activists in the impoverished township of Khayelitsha on Monday.
I find a similiar syndrome with a completely different topic-smoking and drinking.Since Nanny State liberals try to deter bad personal habits then somehow the logic becomes,IT IS OK TO SMOKE AND GET DRUNK.Just to show up the meddlers.
Very childish attitude-thumb your nose at the PC police by destroying your health.
Yeah,that'll show those liberals!
I mean the GOP couldn't run anyone except a carpetbagger ??
Well put. Sometimes I am guilty of that kind of Self Sabotage also !
Nah, only Beemers!
Yes, South Africa was the most developed country on the continent, but the White police were brutal.
Basically, you couldn't do anything just because you have the wrong skin color. And Apartheid lasted all the way to 1994, so it's no wonder that the country is so screwed up.
And so am I,truth be told.
Just goes to show all of us got some work to put in on ourselves vis a vis self-discipline.
Resource wealth doesn't lead to general prosperity. Look at Hong Kong. Then look at Saudi Arabia. Then look at Russia. Or for that matter, all the countries in West Africa, which are horrifyingly poor, yet awash in valuable minerals.
What leads to prosperity (see Thos. Sowell on this) is the rule of law and a physical infrastructure that allows for trade inside and outside the country.
Compared to the rest of Africa, which is much more tribal and corrupt, South Africa excelled in both law and infrastructure. (Even bad or imperfect law is better than none, if it can be counted on.) It therefore developed a real economy, and compared to the rest of Africa, a real political system.
The kind of organized looting of a country that went wild in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia and seems still to be sinking South Africa always leads to financial ruin, because it destroys confidence in the law, and reduces entrepreneurs' willingness to take the risks that produce general prosperity.
Biography Channel commercial just juxtaposed JFK with Obama.
It seems the leftist media is setting up the multiple choice exam for the Democrat Party sheep.
(who watches the watchmen wall of TV's)
There is a big difference. Other sub-Sarahan countries at least paid lip service to the idea of equality under the law. South Africa did not.
Sharpeville massacre
domestic biological weapons program
Botswana, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania
2 which had better economies?
Here's a question: Which countries had larger gold and diamond resources and laws that kept wages cheap and political rights for the vast majority nonexistant?
3 if it was so damn bad why were thousands pouring INTO the country instead of out?
Many people would rather be working long, underpaid hours in a South African mine than live in the war zones the apartheid government funded in neighboring Angola and Mozambique.
This is a classic fascist argument. Would you say that Germany circa 1939 was a better place than Botswana 45 years later?
Oh RIGHT. Far better to live in a country where you can't vote and ten's of thousands are killed because they are from the wrong tribe, then to live where you can't vote but can still live in a huge home with a pool (Winnie Mandela). It's OK just as long as you pretend everything is OK.
Wonder why SA needed so many border guards to keep people out?
No color is the real reason we opposed them, though the whites had no where to go and had been there as long as we have been in America.
Angola's war was funded by the US. The dumbest American foreign policy EVER! American owned Gulf Oil has a refinery, guarded by Cuban troops who are paid by Angola, to keep CIA backed terrorist from blowing it up.
Unlike most here, I have lived and traveled in Africa, as have my parents, and there is no where else I would have lived then SA. Now I would not go even there.
I read once where two of Mandela's heroes were Muammar Qadafi and Fidel Castro. That's all I need to know. I haven't been back to South Africa in about 20 years but I sure enjoyed passing through there back in the day. Good restaurants in Jo'burg and Pretoria and good Lion and Castle beer.
So the choice is between no political rights plus arbitrary murders and no political rights plus arbitrary murders plus the chance to own a swimming pool?
To paraphrase Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's puppy, swimming pools are no replacement for freedom.
Some of us have been in America much longer than others.
Do I wonder why an openly racist state wanted to limit the number of non-white people entering the country? Not really.
That is a comment on the population, not the goverment.
Try being white and speaking against the government in Kenya, hell take a picture of a statue there and get arrested.
But Kenya did acknowledge that its white residents as citizens. South Africa did not recognize black South Africans as citizens.
Even if we throw out Kenya, Botswana, Senegal and Tanzania were consistently more free than South Africa. So your claim is wrong.
Unlike most here, I have lived and traveled in Africa, as have my parents, and there is no where else I would have lived then SA.
That's your choice, but it reflects your opinions about other sub-Saharan African countries, not the facts.
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