The renowned South African writer Zakes Mda once told me, "In our indigenous languages, we reserved the equivalent words of 'death' only for animals. For humans, we say 'She has left us,' 'He had passed,' 'She¡¯s gone home,' 'He's gone to join the ancestors.'"More from The New Yorker (+ overview of its past coverage of Mandela), CNN, and The New York Times. The Lede is collating reactions and remarks.
Everywhere Mr. Mandela went, he seemed to be occupying a subtly different dimension from the people--particularly the politicians--around him... his preternatural stamina, the command he displayed in every situation, his enormous personal presence--these qualities seemed to flow directly out of the depth of his political convictions..
Cowards die many times before their deaths:.
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
I am the first accused. I hold a bachelor¡¯s degree in arts and practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for a number of years in partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted prisoner serving five years for leaving the country without a permit and for inciting people to go on strike at the end of May 1961. ¡To remember him as a "peaceful liberator" demeans the struggle of Mandela and his comrades.
Some of the things so far told to the court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the whites.
I admit immediately that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto we Sizwe. ¡ I, and the others who started the organisation, felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the government. We chose to defy the law.
We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence. ¡
We of the ANC had always stood for a non-racial democracy, and we shrank from any action which might drive the races further apart. But the hard facts were that 50 years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights. By this time violence had, in fact, become a feature of the South African political scene.
There had been violence in 1957 when the women of Zeerust were ordered to carry passes; there was violence in 1958 with the enforcement of cattle culling in Sekhukhuneland; there was violence in 1959 when the people of Cato Manor protested against pass raids; there was violence in 1960 when the government attempted to impose Bantu authorities in Pondoland. Each disturbance pointed to the inevitable growth among Africans of the belief that violence was the only way out - it showed that a government which uses force to maintain its rule teaches the oppressed to use force to oppose it.
I came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic to continue preaching peace and non-violence. This conclusion was not easily arrived at. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle. I can only say that I felt morally obliged to do what I did. ¡
Political division, based on colour, is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one colour group by another. The ANC has spent half a century fighting against racialism. When it triumphs it will not change that policy.
This then is what the ANC is fighting. Their struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination.
I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve.
But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve.For whatever reason the judge not to pass out the death sentences that were expected by the defendants' lawyers, the state and white media and instead gave them all life sentences, which was greeted by great happiness by all the accused.
But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
The judge said 'death is the appropriate sentence, but...' and we smiled a little bit, and then he said life sentences for all of us on three or four counts and we laughed and what a relief. Just imagine what South Africa would have been like had the apartheid government had carried out death sentences, not just on Nelson Mandela, but on Mbeki and Sisulu, on all of us.It is very likely that Mandela's words were the reason for this unusual departure from the relentless state sanctioned murder that was the justice system under apartheid, and it is certain that his words were the reason for his international fame. There were plenty of other people who were killed or locked up indefinitely in apartheid South Africa.
Our media still talk about the 'bloodless revolution', meaning not many whites died. Black peoples' blood doesn't seem to count for the media.He said that Mandela hoped that his example would cause big business, international corporations, rich whites, professionals and political elites to realise what an act of generosity the reconciliation that he promoted was. Not just from Nelson Mandela, but from 'our whole people'. However, Goldberg said that the new rich, the whites and the current political elites have not learned this lesson and have not had to sacrifice anything, that the new regime is pretty much the same as the old regime from the point of view of the poor. The rich are paid too much and the poor are paid too little. Society is imbalanced.
Our people are getting angry. The legacy of Nelson Mandela is how do we overcome this? We have to overcome it.I was pondering this morning how much Nelson Mandela became a figurehead for the corrupt ANC and how little he liked their political machinations and dealing with all the other cretins who wanted to be associated with him not because they believed what he believed, but because it would look good for them. The struggle in South Africa was/is just like the struggle for equality in the rest of the world. Mandela represented the best in the human spirit, but I am sure he would recognise that there is still work to do.
For many years, a large swath of this country failed Nelson Mandela, failed its own alleged morality, and failed the majority of people living in South Africa. We have some experience with this. Still, it's easy to forget William F. Buckley¡ªintellectual founder of the modern right¡ªeffectively worked as a press agent for apartheid.posted by tonycpsu at 12:02 PM on December 6, 2013 [12 favorites]
...
Buckley's racket as an American paid propagandist for white supremacy would be repeated over the years in conservative circles. ... The roster includes Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff, Jesse Helms, and Senator Jeff Flake.
...
When you see a Tea Party protestor waving the flag of slavery in front of the home of the first black president, understand that this instinct has been cultivated. It is still, at this very hour, being cultivated:He won the country's first free presidential elections in 1994 and worked to unite a scarred and anxious nation. He opened up the economy to the world, and a black middle class came to life. After a single term, he voluntarily left power at the height of his popularity. Most African rulers didn't do that, but Mandela said, "I don't want a country like ours to be led by an octogenarian. I must step down while there are one or two people who admire me."That is the Wall Street Journal, offering a shameful, condescending "tribute" to one of the great figures of our time. Understand the racism here. It is certainly true that "most African rulers" do not willingly hand over power. That is because most human leaders do not hand over power. What racism does is take a basic human tendency and make it it the property of ancestry. As though Franco never happened. As though Hitler and Stalin never happened. As though Pinochet never happened. As though we did not prop up Mobutu. As though South Carolina was not, for most of its history, ruled by Big Men as nefarious and vicious as any "African ruler."
To not see this requires a special disposition, a special blindness, a special shamelessness, a special idiocy.
I knew that the tributes would be pouring in immediately from around the world, and I also knew that most of them would try to do to Mandela what has been done to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: turn him into a lovable, platitudinous cardboard character whose commitment to peace and willingness to embrace enemies could make everybody feel good. This practice is a deliberate misreading of history guaranteed to miss the point of the man.The Right Wing¡¯s Campaign To Discredit And Undermine Mandela, In One Timeline
The primary significance of Mandela and King was not their willingness to lock arms or hold hands with their enemies. It was their unshakable resolve to do whatever was necessary to bring those enemies to their knees.
...
These were not warm and fuzzy individuals, fantasy figures for the personal edification of the clueless and the cynical. They were hard-core revolutionaries committed with every ounce of their being to the wholesale transformation of their societies. When giants like Mandela and King are stripped of their revolutionary essence and remade as sentimental stick figures to be gushed over by all and sundry, the atrocities that sparked their fury and led to their commitment can be overlooked, left safely behind, even imagined never to have occurred.
It¡¯s a way for people to sidestep the everlasting shame of past atrocities and their own collusion in the widespread horrors of racism that are still with us.
Sitting in her comfortable suburban living room 45 minutes east of Johannesburg, Nokuthula Magubane, 18, was doing something close to unthinkable to older generations of black South Africans - she was affectionately praising Afrikaans.posted by Golden Eternity at 5:26 PM on December 8, 2013 [3 favorites]
"It's such a laid-back and beautiful language," she said.
[...]
Such feelings are common among members of Magubane's generation, known as the "born frees" because they were born after the end of apartheid, or just before it ended, and are too young to remember it.
[...]
Older South Africans say they are apathetic and apolitical, unaware of the history of the struggle that made their lives better.
But the born-frees have another name as well - the Mandela generation - and they insist that their determination to look to the future and not the past is the greatest tribute they can pay him.
[...]
"It seems young people may be developing deeper relationships across historic dividing lines, beyond just interaction," last year's Barometer reported.
Born-frees are also overwhelmingly optimistic, the Barometer found.
"Now there are no boundaries," said Miles Mabaane, 18, a resident of Vosloorus, southeast of Johannesburg. "We young people have the potential to come up with new strategies of how to save the country, how to do things better, how to accommodate everybody."
Covering the volume in colorful, religious Diwali cards, celebrating the Hindu festival of lights, Venkatrathnam convinced a gullible warder that it was his bible, and when he was transferred to the small single-cell section where Nelson Mandela, among others, was kept, he took it with him. He then circulated the book to his fellow prisoners in the single cells, asking them to mark their favorite passages from Shakespeare with their signature and the date. Between 1975 and 1978 thirty-three of Venkatrathnam¡¯s fellow prisoners signed the book.Sonny Venkatrathnam and Kadir Hassim
United States foreign policy elaborated a detailed strategy of how to exert damage control by way of rechanneling a popular uprising into acceptable parliamentary-capitalist constraints ¨C as was done successfully in South Africa after the fall of apartheid regime, in Philippines after the fall of Marcos, in Indonesia after the fall of Suharto and elsewhere. At this precise conjuncture, radical emancipatory politics faces its greatest challenge: how to push things further after the first enthusiastic stage is over, how to make the next step without succumbing to the catastrophe of the "totalitarian" temptation ¨C in short, how to move further from Mandela without becoming Mugabe.posted by Golden Eternity at 1:10 PM on December 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
If we want to remain faithful to Mandela's legacy, we should thus forget about celebratory crocodile tears and focus on the unfulfilled promises his leadership gave rise to. We can safely surmise that, on account of his doubtless moral and political greatness, he was at the end of his life also a bitter old man, well aware how his very political triumph and his elevation into a universal hero was the mask of a bitter defeat. His universal glory is also a sign that he really didn't disturb the global order of power.
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posted by Monkeymoo at 3:10 PM on December 5, 2013