Nelson Mandela Dies at 95

[Stuart]

Nelson Mandela, first black president of South Africa and one of history's most amazing and inspirational activists, died today at the age if 95.

 

He had been receiving intense home-based medical care for a lung infection after three months in hospital.

In a statement on South African national TV, Mr Zuma said Mr Mandela had "departed" and was at peace.

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"Our nation has lost its greatest son," Mr Zuma said.

He said Mr Mandela would receive a full state funeral, and flags would be flown at half-mast.

BBC correspondents say Mr Mandela's body will be moved to a mortuary in Pretoria, and the funeral is likely to take place next Saturday.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was one of the world's most revered statesmen after preaching reconciliation despite being imprisoned for 27 years.

He had rarely been seen in public since officially retiring in 2004.

"What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves," Mr Zuma said.

"Fellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell."

 

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What a tragic day. May he rest in peace.

[Merus]

Godspeed.

[Henroid]

It didn't take long for this kinda crap to show up:

 

 

When I was in gradeschool, we learned about Mandela just as he was getting out of prison. It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized the impact of all that going on back when I was a kid. What a guy.

[Ben X]

*goes to Wikipedia to find out the TRUTH about Nelson Mandela*

[Stuart]

It didn't take long for this kinda crap to show up:

 

 

When I was in gradeschool, we learned about Mandela just as he was getting out of prison. It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized the impact of all that going on back when I was a kid. What a guy.

 

 

What disgusting people. I don't usually think this, but I hope they fail in life. This is fucking preposterous. Even worse are the magazines and movie PR shitheads trying to use his death as a way to advertise Mandela's biopic. Don't get me wrong, the movie could be good and whatever. But the fact this man's death is used as an advertising start point is simply disgusting.

[clyde]

I don't know anything about Nelson Mandela, but I just read this:

http://www.okwonga.com/?p=869

Did Nelson Mandela take up arms and kill people?

Edit: I'm reading about the militant wing he co-founded. It has some answers and a little bit of context.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkhonto_we_Sizwe

Edit 2: Good stuff. I especially like the part where Nelson Mandela disguises himself as a milkman.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Charter

[Henroid]

Mandela had to fight dirty for a while. The same kind of dirty fighting that a lot of ignorant people in America advocate for just because a black person got elected to the presidency.

[elmuerte]

Jep, Mandela was probably the most successful "terrorist" of modern time.

I don't know if Mandela had to fight dirty, they might have been able to achieve the same results without fighting dirty. But that's something you will never know.

Either way... if that playing dirty is the problem, people should really look at what "friendly" governments do. Especially the US has had a hand full of dirty fighting.

"Police action" is a good example of this.

[clyde]

I really enjoyed forming a slight understanding of who he was from reading wikipedia articles yesterday. Here is how I imagine it happened:

Vicious racism abounds in the form of colonialism.

Nelson Mandela and some other people are like, this sucks, we are going to change things non-violently.

Racist government is like "Do you have your hall-pass?"

Black population is like "Fuck your hall-pass!"

Racist government is like "They are getting angry, fire are the oncoming horde!"

Nelson Mandela is like "oh they done fucked up. There's no way that we can convince the black population to be non-violent when they are getting shot and they still have to have a hall-pass. If I do nothing, or continue to encourage non-violence, there will be a mass-scale terrorist action in rebellion. I'm going to have to start the militant wing of protest because if I don't, someone else will and they will totally fuck it up."

So then Nelson Mandela is like writing things to the newspaper like "Dear Newspaper, We are going to blow up the electricity-substation at the intersection of Bullshit Street and Wtf ave during tea-time. If you could be so kind to make sure no one is there, It would be appreciated. We are trying to do this non-violently."

So then the cops catch Mandela and he's like "If only I could disguise myself as a milkman again, but I guess that only works once."

So Mandela is in prison, racism and hall-passes continue and the militant arm of the ANC continues to blow shit up in a sabatoge campaign. Eventually, things escalate and the sabatoge campaign turns into blowing up Wimpy's burger joints or whatever (they switch from government targets to civilian ones). Racist government is like "Remember when things were awesome and they had that leader that would call ahead to tell us that they were going to bomb a place? I wonder what ever happened to that guy." Racist government's buddy is like "Didn't we arrest him for treason? I'm pretty sure he's around here somewhere, let me look... Hey Joe! i found him, he was right here the WHOLE TiME!"

So then racist government is like "This guy we locked up for 27 years has major street-cred and let's be honest... he's a pretty nice guy for a terrrorist. Let's quell all this fighting by negotiatiing with him."

Then Nelson Mandela is like, "It took you 27 years to realize this?! Wtf!"

That's my humorous dramatization of events based on reading 3 wikipedia articles yesterday. Feel free to make corrections.

[elmuerte]

I don't think it took them 27 years to realize it. The world changed and was no longer accepting South African's policy. And apparently this change of acceptance started to influence SA's government/economy. I don't think this is a case of Hanlon's razor.

[clyde]

From Troy Goodfellow's twitter:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/09/nelson-mandela-demanded-justice-before-forgiving-white-south-africans.html

[Henroid]

Thing I was just thinking: I wonder how his death will impact the classroom. Lots of people didn't learn about the guy, but now that he has passed, maybe (hopefully) there's a boost of Mandela education. I mean, insofar as learning about him and what he did as a person of renown in the same fashion one would learn about MLK Jr. and Malcom X, etc.

[elmuerte]

It won't. The CEO of Coca Cola has more influence in the classroom than Mandela.