Remembering Mandela, His Victories and Failures

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Mandela Embodied the Victories and Failures of the South African Liberation Struggle

Glen Ford: Were the compromises made to avoid bloodshed responsible for the poverty and suffering that continues today?

Mandela Led Fight Against Apartheid, But Not Against Extreme Inequality

Patrick Bond: Mandela deserves great credit for ending racial apartheid in South Africa, but his legacy includes the continuation of mass poverty

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    • on 12/10/2013 at 08:26
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    • on 12/11/2013 at 03:11

    of reading some right-wing sites about Mandela’s death.

    These people are totally clueless.

    According to them, apartheid wasn’t all that bad, Mandela was a communist, Mandela had blood on his hands, etc, etc, and so forth.

    Well, excuse me, but our own “Father of Our Country,” George Washington, also had a whole lot of “blood on his hands.”  He was a frigging general, leading troops against the British.  Most of the time, revolution involves violence.

    It would really be wonderful if those people who are down-trodden, enslaved, marginalized, perceived as inferior and less than human, could wave a magic wand and strew flower petals in order to get freedom and their rights.  Unfortunately, it does not happen that way.

    Even Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Mahatma, was assassinated, and Indian independence was not accomplished without partition and a whole lot of sectarian bloodshed.

    And, BTW, besides the deaths of British troops during the American Revolution, many Loyalists had their lands confiscated, were beaten, tortured, and killed.

    So, no, revolution and regime change do not happen without bloodshed.  This is sad, but true.  I wish that it could be otherwise, but it is not.

    In any case, Nelson Mandela, Madiba, Tata, was the Father of his country.  He was not perfect, but neither were any of our Founding Fathers.

    Madiba is mourned.

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