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I urge all who haven't to read Long Walk to Freedom, his autobiography. He was 100% fighter, yet 100% diplomat at the same time. He never missed a chance to speak and negotiate with people around him. He earned the respect of cold hearted prison guards and officials, no easy feat. He softened up a lot of them and others who had been hardened by apartheid.
I don't recall this being a thread about Marxism. So perhaps if you would like to discuss the topic of Marx, socialism or communism perhaps you should start your own thread instead of trying to hijack this one.
It's not a thread about sainthood and placing a communist on a pedestal, but hey if that floats yer boat.....
Mandela deserves credit as the man who prevented a violent and bloody civil war between 4 million white South Africans and 16 million black South Africans. The war would have been extremely bloody and the chances of reconciliation between the two groups afterwards (or what remained of them) would have been scant, at best.
Among other things, Mandela endured 27 years of imprisonment, many of which doing hard labor, at the Robben Island prison. Mandela was forced to do things like work in a marble quarry without sunglasses, during which time he lost part of his eyesight. There were long periods of time when he was only allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Virtually, anyone going through such an experience would become hardened and embittered. Mandela became exactly the opposite. He became determined to pursue non-violent methods of ending the South African system of Apartheid. Mandela's imprisonment gradually made him a national icon. He became the virtual head of the anti-Apartheid movement from his prison cell.
Fortunately, by the 1980's there were some reasonable people in the South African government. Mandela secretly conducted negotiations from his prison cell with the authorities. Eventually, all members of the ANC were released from prison and Mandela was ultimately released as well. Further, negotiations with South African President, F.W. DeKlerk, resulted in an election that swept the Apartheid System away and established rule by the majority. At many points, during this whole process, things could have collapsed and the outcome would have been a civil war. It was Mandela's patience and determination that kept this process moving forward.
I could care less whether at some point in his passed life he studied Marxism or thought it was a good idea. I could care less whether at some point in his distant past that he was briefly a Communist.
The testimony to Mandela is simply what one man was able to do through qualities such as patience, eloquence, determination, and honor.
South Africa has many trials ahead as a nation, but because of Mandela that outcome is much more likely to be one where it as seen as model by nation's struggling to find their identity. A great man man has now passed. Hopefully, there will be others who come after him.
Marxism is a bottom-of-the-barrel philosophy -- a "race to the bottom" of the ability to think. As such "extermination" is not too strong a term to recommend as a remedy.
A self-proclaimed libertarian as self-appointed judge of socio-economic philosophy? Where do the problems with that actually start!
Aparthied, Nazism and Marxism are all cut from the same cloth -- an attempt to impose a particular order upon the free exchange of both human opinion and commerce.
And the worst of these latter-day "libertarians" (mostly shamed and now rebranded neocons) are cut from the unstable, paranoid, and sociophobic cloth of refusal to recognize common social bonds and obligations. As a group, they are examples of a bottom-of-the barrel brand of isolationist delusion, greed, and selfish exceptionalism, often characterized by demeaning, denigrating, and impoverishing opinions and actions toward others merely for being members of selected and disapproved of groups. I'd stop short of "extermination" obviously. but some of these "libertarians" provide ample reason to wonder whether FEMA Camps might not actually be a good idea.
I could care less whether at some point in his passed life he studied Marxism or thought it was a good idea. I could care less whether at some point in his distant past that he was briefly a Communist.
Keep in mind that you may be talking to some of the paranoids who were deathly afraid of Van Jones.
I'd agree. If you arent a black man or woman, why do i care about Mandela? Thatcher was a great ally who stood by us and could be counted on in any adversity.
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