Posted on 12/07/2013 2:16:29 PM PST by EveningStar
Yesterday I issued a heartfelt and personal statement about the passing of President Nelson Mandela. I said that his family and his country would be in my prayers and Callista’s prayers.
I was surprised by the hostility and vehemence of some of the people who reacted to me saying a kind word about a unique historic figure.
So let me say to those conservatives who don’t want to honor Nelson Mandela, what would you have done?
Mandela was faced with a vicious apartheid regime that eliminated all rights for blacks and gave them no hope for the future. This was a regime which used secret police, prisons and military force to crush all efforts at seeking freedom by blacks.
What would you have done faced with that crushing government?
What would you do here in America if you had that kind of oppression?
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What really depresses me is W and Laura demeaning themselves by flying off to this thug’s funeral with the commie and moochelle on AF1.
Oh and did I mention that bubba and the hildabeast will also be on board?
I wish W would grow some balls and do a little fighting back at these slime that have been trashing him for the last 5 years instead of hobnobing with them.
WHAT WE NEED IS 536 NEW FOLKS IN DC!!!!!!!!!
Wrong. I was born in South Africa, and lived there for 35 years of my life, including the time of apartheid, through the transition and after. The documentation is liberal revisionist history at worst, or incomplete at best.
Newt is wrong in many ways, but I have been seeing you comment almost every Mandela thread trying to demonize white South Africa, just like Newt is doing.
Just to be clear, I am no champion or supporter of apartheid, and worked to help change it. I was not on board with what was agreed to in the end, but almost everyone there agreed that things could not continue as it was, hence the change. The ANC and Mandela had almost zero influence, and South Africa could have continued with apartheid for many more years without any major problems. Sanctions were hurting only those it was supposed to help, and military intervention was not an option.
So specifically which rights were denied to blacks under apartheid? I would think these were the most important.
1. They couldn’t own land or lived where they wanted outside of their tribal homelands.
2. They couldn’t vote outside of their tribal homelands.
3. They could not participate in the national government, only their own.
4. They could not use the same facilities as whites.
The idea was to help tribes gain independence in countries located in their traditional and historic tribal areas , not unlike Native American reservations (just bigger), and not unlike the kingdoms of Lesotho and Swaziland. Economic Development Corporations were set up, some investments made, but that was where it mostly stopped. Even with big infusions of capital the tribal lands were and stayed poor, and the people did not want to live there, as the better infrastructure and jobs were around the major cities.
Some rights they did have:
1. The right to free medical care, anywhere in the country, in hospitals set up for them, and staffed by white and black doctors and nurses.
2. The right to free education, through school and college, in facilities built for them, and again staffed by white and black.
3. The right to work anywhere.
4. Homes were built and utilities provided in some cases, but the demand was really high, and the government could not keep up.
Was it right that they were kept separate? No, but to say they were denied “all rights” is total nonsense.
Now do yourself a favor and go and research the mfecane, which explains what the thinking process was behind keeping the warring tribes apart. Now extrapolate that to the time 1990 to present, and see what has been going on. It explains a lot of the violence.
Furthermore, in all the years of apartheid, around 30,000 “political” prisoners passed through the prisons, where the vast majority were treated like any other prisoners. Yes, regrettably there were some tortured and killed. The total amount of dead at the hand of the South African authorities was just under 600. If the white government wanted to viciously suppress, kill opponents and deny rights, they sure stunk at it, and I can promise you it was not due to lack of ability.
Now, if you want to know more personal stories, I can tell you how my uncle lost our family farm (in our family for more than 100 years, bought legally from the British) under apartheid so that it could be given, free of charge, to the Ndebele people. At the time he was operating a successful fruit juice factory, providing employment, housing and schooling to more than 200 Ndebele, and free medical care, since he was also a medical doctor. After he left, it all went to ruin.
How about the black police officers, soldiers and security guards that stood in the trenches with the white government to fight the ANC? They were subject to the same “abuses” and “oppression” that you and Newt are talking about, yet they saw fit to rather defend that “oppressive” system as opposed to submit to the communist ANC. And for good reason, the non-ANC supporters were, and are, being murdered and intimidated in large numbers.
I freely admit that my opinion is biased because I lived through it, personally. I saw it from the inside, from both perspectives, before and after apartheid. Before 1990 I served in the military. I was an officer, required to study the complete history of the ANC, and had access to all the intelligence that was shared with us, also from the US government.
After 1994 I worked with some high ranking ANC officials (including their chief of intelligence, who sadly died in a car accident later. Even though he had risen to the equivalent of the rank of colonel in the KGB, and we were on opposite ideological ends, he was a gentleman who I respected) on a local project. I heard what their perspective during the negotiations were, and saw their motives and modus operandi first hand. I understand why they did what they did. I disagree with how they went about it. Moderate black leaders, like the Zulu chief minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, had much more of an influence on the decision to end apartheid.
You are welcome to believe what you want, as is Newt. But I do implore you to look for the rest of the story, and not just rely on what liberal scholars propagate. There is a lot more to it.
There is a lot more to it.
Good response against the tide. There are many levels between perfect and perfectly evil.
At least he was elected president of a non-communist government and followed the constitution as it had been set up. Black people were obviously not ready when freed to assume the responsibilities of government and lives as productive, lawful citizens. How could they have been ? Literally every mechanism in society for decades had been designed to prepare them for lives as a laboring class. It was hardly the fault of Mandela.
Well Newtzter when the tough got going for you then you did what? You resigned giving up the Conservative fight and allowing the GOP-E control of the House. Nothing has been right since now has it Newt? No Indeed it hasn’t. Three Cheers for you MORON. Maybe Da Revurund Jesse can adjust your compass for you LOL.
“Nelson Mandela “could have” started an “ethic purge” of South African whites that would have made Hilter, Mao and Stalin green with envy.
Mandel chose the right path, and did not initiate genocide. “
He could have tried. He knew that if he tried that, yes, many white people would die, but millions and millions of blacks would die too. There was a reason the ANC could not overthrow the country by force, despite trying for 30 years. That did not change in the years following 1994. In the years right after apartheid, a strong core of white soldiers, trained in and hardened in the Angola border war and generals remained, and that had to be worked out of the system before he could entertain thoughts like that. It took about 10 years, by which time he was gone from power and MBeki was in charge.
He chose the right path, maybe because he was benevolent, but for sure because he could not win. In addition, he had just won the political battle, and had the goodwill of the world. Why would he squander that?
Well, Mandela is a VERY old man . As he moved toward the end of his presidency hebegan to let the crazies take over. But what you have to measure is what actually happened after he was released and what we feared MIGHT happen. Kind of the opposite of what happened in the case of Castro.
Would you want to live under those conditions?
Right on.
Too many fools spreading the Communist version of South Africa and Rhodesia while remaining blissfully ignorant of the Communist crimes during the same time period. No, apartheid was not “evil”, any more than what is happening now in those countries, any more than what was happening in Albania, Poland (martial law), Romania (practically martial law) and other lands of the Soviet Bloc, while the Soviets with the help of their agents and useful idiots conducted their propaganda war against South Africa and Rhodesia in the West.
It’s disheartening that so many Conservatives accept without questioning the Soviet version of history.
Unlike you, I've only viewed South Africa from a million miles away and couldn't possibly have the perspective of someone who was actually there.
Another poster characterized the SA people as nothing but insane racists; my only response is to ask how, then, could they have allied themselves to Dr. Jonas Malheiro Savimbi who was blacker than even me if their motivation was racism rather than self preservation?
Interesting background. In your opinion, how much, and what type of influence might Stephen Biko have had were he not killed?
You may find this interesting......The Real Newt Gingrich
I don’t think it is an apples to apples comparison.
And as I said many of the Blacks migrated to the south in search of work, in the mines and on the farms.Not all the Blacks are indigenous to the area.
The White population has resided there for hundreds of years in many cases.
It is unfortunate that some choose to characterize all SA people as insane racists, while also decrying the race-baiting politics of the left in the USA. I cannot help but notice the irony.
Yes, policies were racist in South Africa, and no doubt, like any country, it had, and has, its fair share of insane racists. But in the end the racist policies were ended by the same people that started it, the Afrikaner. My personal experience was that my parents taught me from young age that I am no better than another just because my skin is a different color, and I rarely saw someone, on a personal level, act out of pure racial hatred, either black or white.
What annoys me no end though is that it is being cast as only a black vs white issue, when it was also a conservative vs liberal issue, from the middle 80’s. By that time, most of the racist laws were disappearing anyway, the country was well on its way to transformation, yet that was when the fighting was at it fiercest, not between white and black, but between the conservative Zulus and the liberal Xhosas.
Sad that people will believe the race baiters when it comes to South Africa, and sad that the history makes it easy to do so.
I do not say it was “evil,” but it was unjust. Maybe there was no choice. Tribalism is the curse of the Bantu. The Afrikaners and the Indians are just another tribe to them, and the Bantu cannot get along with one another enough to settle on a way to use the machinery that the whites created.
>> Thanks to Mandela, South Africa has not become one of the hell-holes found to the North.
ROFLMAO!
You don’t get around much, do you. Or study much history, or read much about current events.
South Africa is a MAJOR crime-ridden, violent hell hole — as is WELL documented.
What color is the sky on your planet, Robby?
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