Fiyah pon mandela

[blugiant]

Blu, you make some interesting points. However, the very point that he was a broken man after 27 years in prison so he made a deal to sell out makes me wonder if he is really deserving of the fiyah you direct his way. None of us can effectively judge the man after what he went through. Who among us would not have sold out as well?

When he came to power he could have moved to nationalize all property as Cuba did after their revolution but that would have resulted in the isolation and the return of economic sanctions against South Africa by the west, only for a different reason.

Jamaica gained independence, appartheid ended in South Africa, big friggin whoop! At the end of the day it is the wealthy that control how things are going to run and every little thing that seems like it is a small victory for the average man is only an illusion.

yuh kno even winnie sed imm was a broken man woo sold out. yuh doan assume dat leadership position dat mandela assumed widdout undertandinn da risk involved. mandela ovatand da risked but chose to bow. ave yuh studee da life aff relative comfort mandela lived in prison in comparrassion to addar prisoners? ave yuh studee ghandi in depth fe sey woo among us wood natt bow? did mugabe bow?

do yuh reallee tink imm cood ave move to nationalized awl da propertee given da imm bowed ann compromise before dem made imm a weak symbolic head. awl aff dat wass negoiated before dem released imm fram prison

didd ja reallee gain independence? didd aparthied in south afrikka reallee end since manee blakks still living in da same conditions aff segregation ann economic isolation ar didd dem change da name aff da system to mekk itt more palatable to blakks?

[blugiant]

Highlighting this:



It would also have lead to a massive exodus of capital and unemployment at the levels we see in Haiti.

doan yuh tink usinn haiti as an example given da diffarant historeekkal path in comparrassion to south africa iss invalid

[Tropicana]

doan yuh tink usinn haiti as an example given da diffarant historeekkal path in comparrassion to south africa iss invalid

Not at all actually. Do you know how Haiti got to be so poor? If yo don't tell me and I will fill you in,

[blugiant]

Not at all actually. Do you know how Haiti got to be so poor? If yo don't tell me and I will fill you in,

badd negotiation, sellouts, misleaders, oyinbo double dealinn ,etc

mandela was lawyer woo was train in da art aff contracts ann well verse inn negotiation da same cyaan be sed bout da haitian leaders. da ting iss dat haiti ann south afrikka ar natt reallee poor dem ar juss mismanaged by sellouts ann misleaders

[My Looh]

Didn't his jailors have Mandella living in general comfort and giving him little glimpses of freedom towards the end of his time in prison in order for him to comply to their rquest to denounce violence? The idea being that if they gave him a little taste of what freedom would be like he would cave in and sell out.

It seems like that is what eventually happened.

[Tropicana]

badd negotiation, sellouts, misleaders, oyinbo double dealinn ,etc

mandela was lawyer woo was train in da art aff contracts ann well verse inn negotiation da same cyaan be sed bout da haitian leaders. da ting iss dat haiti ann south afrikka ar natt reallee poor dem ar juss mismanaged by sellouts ann misleaders

MUCH more to it than that. Surprised you don't know. Coles notes version. If you need more holler:

.

1. The international community's role.
   1. French colonial contribution.
   2. The international boycott of the new nation of 1804. This would have been a risk for South Africa along with massive flight of wealth, capital, companies and with them jobs.
   3. The French debt of 1838 - extortion - forced to re-pay France to compensate plantation owners for their losses to end the international boycott and stop risk of invasion. This would have been a risk for South Africa. They could have been died up for decades in lawsuits from well heeled companies seeking compensation.
   4. The United States Occupation, 1915-1934. This would have been a risk for South Africa if Mandela had not sold the forgiveness argument and there had been a bloodbath.
   5. Post World War II United States domination.
   
   
2. The role of Haiti's rulers.
   1. Slave-like labor systems in the early republic.
   2. The elite's protection of its wealth.
   3. Haitian corruption.
   4. Human rights violations as a tool of oppression.

France urged to repay Haiti billions paid for its independence

Leading activists write to Nicolas Sarzoky urging president to repay more than €17bn to help earthquake-hit country rebuild

A group of international academics and authors has written to Nicolas Sarkozy calling on France to reimburse the crushing "independence debt" it imposed on Haiti nearly 200 years ago.The open letter to the French president says the debt, now worth more than €17bn (£14bn), would cover the rebuilding of the country after a devastating earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people seven months ago.
Its signatories – including Noam Chomsky, the American linguist, Naomi Klein, the Canadian author and activist, Cornel West, the African-American author and civil rights activist, and several renowned French philosophers – say that if France repays the money it would be a solution to the shortfall in international donations promised following the earthquake.
Despite pledges at an international donors' conference in March of aid totalling £3.4bn, only five countries – Brazil, Norway, Australia, Colombia and Estonia – have sent aid amounting to about £325m.
The letter, published in the French newspaper Libération today says the debt was "patently illegitimate ... and illegal".
The debt dates back to when Haiti, then St Dominique, was France's most profitable colony thanks to slavery. In 1791 the slaves revolted, and in 1804, after defeating Napoleon's forces, they founded the world's first independent black republic.

This part is extremely important.

But after independence, French slave owners demanded compensation. In 1825 the French monarch Charles X demanded Haiti pay an "independence debt" of 150m gold francs – 10 times the fledgling nation's annual revenue. The original sum was reduced but Haiti still paid 90m gold francs – about €17bn today – to France. It was still paying off this debt in 1947.

In 2004, a lawsuit launched by Haiti to recover the money was abandoned when France backed the overthrow of the government.
Campaigners say the debt was illegal even in 1825, because when the original demand for compensation was made slavery was technically outlawed.
Their letter says: "The 'independence debt', which is today valued at well over €17bn ... illegitimately forced a people who had won their independence in a successful slave revolt, to pay again for the freedom.
"In 2003, when the Haitian government demanded repayment of the money France had extorted from Haiti, the French government responded by helping to overthrow that government."
The letter describes France's actions as "inappropriate responses to a demand that is morally, economically, and legally unassailable", adding: "In light of the urgent financial need in the country in the wake of the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010, we urge you to pay Haiti, the world's first black republic, the restitution it is due."
The letter has also been signed by members of parliament from Europe, Canada and the Philippines, as well as scholars, journalists and activists in France, Haiti, the US, Canada, the UK, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Germany.[/QUOTE]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/15/france-haiti-independence-debt

[blugiant]

Didn't his jailors have Mandella living in general comfort and giving him little glimpses of freedom towards the end of his time in prison in order for him to comply to their rquest to denounce violence? The idea being that if they gave him a little taste of what freedom would be like he would cave in and sell out.

It seems like that is what eventually happened.

yes ann no. fram 1982 wen dem moved mandela to common law prison wear imm add more rites. mandela and imm familee paid a steep price butt mandela put immself in dat position. itt was aftah dem released imm fram prison dat mandela bowed to oyinbo demands. mandela bowed ann look for compromised instead aff cantinuinn fe tand pon principles.

In 1985, the apartheid President P. W. Botha offered Mandela his freedom if he unconditionally renounced all violence as a political instrument. Mandela’s reply was read out by his daughter Zindzi, at a huge stadium in Soweto: “Let him renounce violence. Let him say that he will dismantle apartheid. Let him unban the people’s organization, the African National Congress. . . . I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you, the people, are not free.”

“Let him renounce violence,” Mandela declared, through his daughter. “I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free.”

wen oyinbo supremacist botha ask mandela fe renounce violence mandela took a principled stance ann sed "let dem denounce violence" and imm refused at furst fe sellout. da violence claim dat oyinbo media pushinn iss distraction fe ignore da needed redistreebution aff wealth dat neva happen ann y so manee blakks ar still poor ann still suffering under apathied condition. mandela iff imm was principled ann wanted a movement widdout violence imm shood ave fallowed ghandi lead cah da oyinbo supremacist minoritee wood ave lost da abilitee fe govern. wen mandela cawled fe general strike, imm neva add da name recognition ar da power fii dat fe be successful ann itt was aftah dat failed dat mandela pushed fe violence solution.

wen didd mandela reallee renounce violence against da aparthied system? dat argument dat mandela renounce violence is a distraction cah mandela onlee resorted to violence against da aparthied system so wat do oyinbo media reallee mean by mandela renounced violence?

Mandela wen cumpared to ghandi ann mlk sed "I was not like them. For them, nonviolence was a principle. For me, it was a tactic. And when the tactic wasn't working, I reversed it and started" –that's a very important difference.

dem sed mlk was non violent even dough imm add a gun ann dem refused fe give imm concealed weapon permit. iff yuh studee ghandi yuh will see dat de movement imm pushed was widdout violence ann dat iss diffarance dan non violence: tink pon dat. iff peeps ovatand dat den dem wood ovatand dat ghandi's position ann mandela's position was eereelee similar. too bad oyinbo media tryinn fe spinn itt widdout examininn da contradictions ann wat was reallee being sed

[blugiant]

MUCH more to it than that. Surprised you don't know.

tell mii wat mii missinn cah durinn slaveree haiti was da richest island in da caribbean

[Tropicana]

tell mii wat mii missinn cah durinn slaveree haiti was da richest island in da caribbean

I posted it, check my last post.

[j-kid]

Why are Blacks always turning the other cheek, when others just slap it? Other cultures don't forget of forgive, but Blacks do. Other cultures hunt dem dung an mek sure dem get brought tuh justice. Historically, based on di way dem treated Blacks an Indians, wi kno, if di shoes was pan di odda foot, dem would not bi forgiving nutten (as dem hav made clear pan many occasions). So, why are Blacks such ah forgiving people, even tuh their own detriment?

[Tropicana]

What about Gandhi who also advocated forgiveness and last I checked Jesus wasn't African? So you would have been in favour of a blood bath? How would that have served South Africa?

[Emperah]

Why are Blacks always turning the other cheek, when others just slap it? Other cultures don't forget of forgive, but Blacks do. Other cultures hunt dem dung an mek sure dem get brought tuh justice. Historically, based on di way dem treated Blacks an Indians, wi kno, if di shoes was pan di odda foot, dem would not bi forgiving nutten (as dem hav made clear pan many occasions). So, why are Blacks such ah forgiving people, even tuh their own detriment?

mi agree wid yuh bredren, look how de jews dem still a hunt dung every lass german an dem nuh care if dem find dem pan life support wid 26 tubes a come outta dem eedah.

[blugiant]

Why are Blacks always turning the other cheek, when others just slap it? Other cultures don't forget of forgive, but Blacks do. Other cultures hunt dem dung an mek sure dem get brought tuh justice. Historically, based on di way dem treated Blacks an Indians, wi kno, if di shoes was pan di odda foot, dem would not bi forgiving nutten (as dem hav made clear pan many occasions). So, why are Blacks such ah forgiving people, even tuh their own detriment?

blakks affii chatt sey dem figgive ann figget fe mekk oyinbo feel redempsham bout dem inhumanitee. dat awlso bring mii too wan aff da main criticism aff mandela ann desmond tutu sellinn out blakks. itt was mandela ann tutu woo push da trooth ann reconcillieation as a way fe figgive oyinbo supremacists cah dem were da main benefisharees. to give dem so called trooth ann reconcillieation tanding ann credibilitee, dem force winnie mandela, da troo hero woo advocated fe blakks, to apologized. dat was disgracefull ann demeaninn to blakks ann itt create da climate fe demonized ar ann relegate ar innto a bax.

y ar blakk peeps force to apologized fe fiteinn fe be recognized as human beings entitle to da same right as everee addar race?

y muss blakks bye forgivinn oyinbo be force to accept dat dem no langer ave de rite to propertee ann riches stolen fram dem ancestars

[blugiant]

Stop Shedding Crocodile Tears for Nelson Mandela – Part l


When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace—Nelson Mandela, 1994.

And I hear the angel with the seven seas say; Babylon throne gone down, gone down…I say fly away home; I say fly away home. One bright morning when my work is over, man will fly away home—Bob Marley, “Rasta Man Chant.”

The sad news of the sudden passing of one of the world’s adored moral leaders came as a shock. Indeed, one of the greatest men of our time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, has passed on, joining the pantheon of creative leadership: Harriet Tubman, Kwame Nkrumah, Sojourner Truth, Marcus Garvey, Mother Teresa, Walter Sisulu, Malcolm X, Oliver Tambo, Julius Nyerere, Martin Luther King, Jr…The following eulogia have since trailed his passing:

President Barack Obama—“He achieved more than could be expected of any man. Today he’s gone home, and we’ve lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on earth.”

Jacob Zuma—“Our people have lost a father. Although we knew this day was going to come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon—“Nelson Mandela was a giant for justice and a down-to-earth human inspiration. Nelson Mandela showed what is possible for our world and within each one of us if we believe, dream and work together for justice and humanity.”

FW De Klerk—“He was a great unifier and a very, very special man in this regard beyond everything else he did.”

UK Prime Minister David Cameron—“Not just a hero of our time, but a hero of all time.”

Kofi Annan—“The world has lost a visionary leader, a courageous voice for justice, and a clear moral compass. By showing us that the path to freedom and human dignity lies in love, wisdom, and compassion for one another, Nelson Mandela stands as an inspiration to us all.”

Benjamin Netanyahu—”Nelson Mandela was one of the outstanding figures of our time. He was the father of his nation, a man of vision, a fighter for freedom who avoided violence. He was a humble man who provided a personal example for his nation during the long years he spent in prison.”

Wasn’t Israel one of the most powerful friends of Apartheid South Africa? Was Mandela “a man of vision,” “the father of his nation,” “a humble man,” “a freedom fighter,” and “a man of vision” when the State of Israel solidly supported Apartheid South Africa? Did Ronald Reagan, America, and the West, in general, see Mandela as “a freedom fighter”? Directly or indirectly, didn’t Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” speak to this closet relationship between Apartheid South Africa and the State of Israel?

How great! And how strange the political animal suddenly changes its spots and dancing tune, a beautiful tune Billy Joel once called “We Didn’t Start The Fire”! Yet the world into which Nelson Mandela, David Cameron, Barack Obama, Jacob Zuma, Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon, Benjamin Netanyahu, and De Klerk were born is as comically hellish and hypocritically dangerous as it is contradictorily Orwellian. De Klerk for one calls Mandela “a great unifier” even while he, as recent as 2012, vigorously defended the benefits of separate racial states under Apartheid.

Cameron, on the other hand, calls Mandela “a hero” even while a section of the British public, represented by conservatives in Westminster Council, fiercely opposed the erection of Mandela’s bronze statue on London’s Parliament Square. Was Mandela “a hero” when Margaret Thatcher adroitly swam in a conservative political marriage with Ronald Reagan? That being said, several insightful commentators, including Glenn Ford, an editor at Black Report Agenda, have hinted at the global elevation of Mandela by the West for an obvious wrong reason: Capitalism. That is, the role of British political manipulation of Mandela in protecting Britain’s economic interests in post-Apartheid South Africa.

Wasn’t Margaret Thatcher a great friend of Apartheid South Africa? In fact, isn’t the legacy of Margaret Thatcher deeply intertwined with the shameful legacy of Aparthied? Wasn’t Ronald Reagan himself a great friend of Apartheid South Africa? Ford writes: “The 1994 agreement between Nelson Mandela’s ANC and the white South African regime was a pact with the devil, which could only be tolerated by the masses of the country’s poor because it was seen as averting a bloodbath, and because it was assumed to be temporary. But, 18 years later, the agreement has calcified into a bizarre protectorate for foreign white capital and the small class of Blacks that have attached themselves to the global rich.”

Is America South Africa or Brazil? Where is Abdias do Nascimento? Isn’t South Africa a microcosm of America in many respects? In fact, what do MIT Prof. Craig S. Wilder’s influential book, “Ebony $ Ivy: Race, Slavery, And The Troubled History of America’s Universities,” and the four South African white male students from the University of the Free State who forced black cleaners to eat urine-soaked meat, have in common? Racism, slavery, and intolerance. Why should they poison black employees on the basis of their dislike for integration? Aren’t South Africa’s institutions built on the suffering of Black South Africa?

Let’s leave that for now and continue from Ford’s end. What is more, responding to Ford’s essay, “South Africa’s Unfinished Revolution And The Massacre At Marikana,” a piece from which we quoted Ford above, a commentator who goes by the name Joell, writes: “There is the Nelson Mandela Statue in London Parliament Square and they celebrate his birthday every year, supposedly for representing the ‘dignity of Africa.’ In reality, it’s a reward for preserving British financial interests in South Africa.” Therefore, in the opinion of Western capitalists, was Mandela “a hero” of capitalist triumphalism or “a hero” of social and racial justice? Western political capitalists would seem to have won, hands down, on the strength of social and economic realities in post-Apartheid South Africa alone!

Then again, possibly, this pact with “the devil,” an arrangement Ford eloquently referred to, appears to form the basis of the collective anger of Black South Africa against Black leadership, particularly Nelson Mandela. In reality, many believe he sold out blacks in exchange for his and his friends’ freedom, as part of the negotiated settlement with the Nationalist government of P.W. Botha, to bring Apartheid to an end. This is because The Freedom Charter of the ANC had called for the nationalization of South Africa’s national wealth and, consequently, its return to the people. This was not to be.

This had, therefore, meant, among other things, completely breaking white monopoly over the people’s wealth, South Africa’s national wealth. But then again, Black South Africa also had faulted Mandela for separating politics from economics in his negotiated settlement with the Nationalist government. It soon became clear as Mandela assumed the presidency that he was not going to adhere to the stipulations enshrined in The Freedom Charter. It also became apparent that he was not going to pursue economic freedom for Black South Africa.

In fact, if had done precisely that, entangling political power with economic freedom for blacks, that would have contravened the secret arrangements he had made with the white Nationalist government, this, according to the candid opinion of hotheaded conspiratorialists and well-informed political analysts. Therefore, this may partly explain why the entire fabric of the negotiated settlement seemed to have met the fierce disapproval of some of the core leadership of the ANC.

Oliver Tambo, for instance, upon getting wind of Mandela’s secret negotiations with the government of P.W. Botha, opined that it was not in the best interest of prisoners to negotiate their release. These secret negotiations would come to haunt South Africa. In fact, they didn’t augur well for the new South Africa. Quite poignantly, other core ANC leaders speculated that Mandela’s betrayal may have precipitated Tambo’s initial stroke. On the contrary, some contrarian commentators have lauded Mandela for rigorously pursuing political power for Black South Africa, even going so far as to theorize that pursuit of political power necessarily led to economic power.

Those who made this bold claim underestimated the power of history, the political economy of entrenched social injustice, and structural deficits in society, particularly a racist one. The question, in and of itself, recalls the proverbial “chicken and egg situation.” Couldn’t it have been equally right to assert that economic power necessarily led to political power? Could Mandela have achieved any lasting success if he had rigorously pursued both goals simultaneously? Hindsight may not be a suitable replacement for objectivity.

Yet, quite apart from our reservations, the hypothesis is only nominally true. Even if the hypothesis has any sociological or econometric validity, it, certainly, is the Black leadership, a few members of the ANC, whose political power has turned into gold, a feat achieved through the political alchemy of black impoverishment and through the increased oligopoly of white cartelized power. This is evidenced by the lavish lifestyles of the leadership of the ANC and those closest to them. The poor black masses have seen this open evidence for themselves.

Yet, rather than bridging the gross disparities between the rich black and the poor black, the corrupt leadership of the ANC has strategically shifted black anger to Julius Malema, the charismatic ex-ANC Youth Leader, citing flimsy excuses such as his association with Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and late Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, both pariahs in Western political consciousness. This, despite the fact that Africans voted President Robert Mugabe “the third-greatest African of all time,” according to the New African Magazine.

Moreover, regarding the theoretical complexities surrounding the relationship between political power and economic power, there’s universal sociological data to undermine an alleged transition between political power and economic benefit for a brutalized people, a wholesome one, of course, especially for black minorities in any major republic. That is to say, political power has not directly translated into economic power for the black masses in Brazil, America, and South Africa.

A highly respected and keen observer understands the post-South African political dilemma. “I believe, at the end of the day, the kind of compromises we made in 1994 are coming to haunt us. In 1994, we took the political kingdom. We delayed the economic kingdom. I believe that the patience of blacks have not been rewarded with a requisite generosity from whites and from the owners of our economy,” Mr. Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to America, tells Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.

Ordinarily, this proposition is philosophically unlike Kwame Nkrumah’s “seek ye the political kingdom first and everything else shall be added onto it,” given that the social and political contexts in Nkrumah’s Ghana and Mandela’s South Africa were radically different—though both leaders demonstrated uncompromising tendencies in their dealings with racism. On the other hand, the shamefully patronizing decisions made by African leaders such as Ghana’s Kofi Busia, Ivory Coast’s Félix Houphouët-Boigny, and those of Malawi strengthened the racist and exploitative hand of Aparthied around the hyoidean neck of Black South Africa!

Let’s begin to shed real, not crocodile, tears for Madiba! We ask the good people of South Africa and all peace-loving people to join us in commiserating with Mandela’s family. We shall return with Part ll…

Francis Kwarteng

http://vibeghana.com/2013/12/06/stop-shedding-crocodile-tears-for-nelson-mandela-part-l/

[blugiant]

Stop Shedding Crocodile Tears for Nelson Mandela – Part ll


Let’s proceed from Part l. Mr. Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, continues: “That if workers don’t even have basic amenities, then who can argue with their right? And I think it’s the most important wake-up call that South Africa can have, tragic as it is, to address the need for the second transition in South Africa, so that we can begin to share out that economy, make people’s lives better, and ensure that we don’t have an equilibrium in society, but certainly that we move now to get to a greater harmony in our society” (Democracy Now).

This speaks directly to the great mismatch, theoretical and practical, between the instruments of political power and economic exigencies in post-Apartheid South Africa―particularly in the case of Black South Africa. But what is Mr. Rasool exactly saying? He seems to be suggesting that the secret negotiated settlement between Mandela and the white Nationalist government, led by P.W. Botha, on the one hand, and the first transition, what, in other words, has become known as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on the other hand, have failed to adequately address, among other challenges, the structural problems carried over from the Apartheid era.

Indeed, accumulated Apartheid-era structural deficits had nearly drowned South Africa’s economy on the eve the ANC assumed political power. Interestingly, Molefi Kete Asante catches the drift of Rasool’s analysis. He writes: “In effect, when Mandela’s party came into office they discovered something that they did not know: “The country was laden with international debt that stifled the progressive and radical agenda of wealth redistribution” (See Asante’s “Nelson Mandela Is An Ancestor”). We need to consider these facts as we constructively criticize South Africa’s Black leadership for their dismal performance in the economic sphere.

However, we may respectfully disagree with Mr. Rasool’s analytic prognostication, if our reading of him is in fact correct, by asserting that, indeed, the negotiated settlement benefited both black and white elites, although to what degree it did requires further sociological investigation, while the Truth and Reconciliation Commission benefited mostly White South Africa. This is one of the major, if sad, contradictory legacies of Nelson Mandela. Certainly, the moral shortcomings of those two projects, particularly of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, invariably threw economic and political South Africa freely into the embracing laps of oligopolistic whites and white cartels. Organized crime with deep roots in South America is also cashing in on white oligopolism, further sapping the vitality of the economy.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has its serious critics. Wole Soyinka, for instance, faults the Commission for its moral inadequacies in firmly establishing the social need for and benefits of restorative justice in the public consciousness of South Africa. And for good reasons! So have South Africa’s Khulumani Support Group and Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. A Booklist reviewer of Soyinka’s “The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness” writes: “Although Soyinka respects the generosity of spirit behind South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he points out that failure to demand restitution may build an expectation of impunity that can only encourage further crimes.”

An apposite illustration of Soyinka’s crisp critique is the 2010 murder of South Africa’s infamous white supremacist, Eugène TerreBlanche, allegedly by his two black employees, an incident, which, is, to say the least, a clear symptomology of one of South Africa’s entrenched carry-overs―racial tension. The case itself restates Soyinka’s pointed indictment of the Truth and reconciliation Commission as an effective arbiter of human rights abuses, as the Commission granted TerreBlanche amnesty for making unauthorized entries into a set of public properties. Meanwhile, one serious crime after the other pursued him. And he had to serve brief prison terms for assault and attempted murder of a black South African.

These suspected black employees accused him of not paying them for their work, of sexually abusing one of them, etc. In fact, many black South Africans worked for their white employees without remuneration of any kind; instead they get alcoholic beverages as pay. This is called the Tot or Dot System. This system has produced so many black children suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome as to render them useful to society. Yet the system still exists in a few residual pockets on white plantations. Productivity, human capital development, and labor are negatively impacted by this notorious system. Black families are negatively affected as well.

Finally, Edelstein’s “Truth and Lies: Stories from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission” and Wilson’s “The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa” both expose the moral, legal, and political deficits of the Commission. In reviewing the latter, for instance, Choice has this to say: “Focusing on attitudes toward reconciliation, retribution, and vengeance, the author sees human rights in South Africa essentially as legal instruments that serve purposes of compromise rather than the concept of justice….Wilson’s analysis raises basic questions about the long-term efficacy of truth commissions and is useful for comparative purposes.” Soyinka is vindicated.

However, despite Soyinka’s well-meaning reservations, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an institutional invention borne out of Ubuntu, an African philosophical system based on humane inter-personal community, is, to say the least, Mandela’s and Tutu’s seminal idea, achieved some positive results for the people of South Africa. In fact, its global impact cannot be overstated. It has been acknowledged as having been more efficient than the Nuremberg Trials, for instance, in addressing human rights abuses. Further, the Solomon Islands, Liberia, Sierra Leon, Ghana, Kenya, and a few other countries have modeled their truth commissions after South Africa’s. It’s unfortunate that P.W. Botha didn’t acknowledge the moral authority of the Commission or accord it the respect it deserved. As a result, when the Commission summoned him to appear before it he ignored it as one conveniently ignored a leprotic handshake!

Then again, if White South Africans believe they are truly South Africans, why do they, unabashedly, display variegated flags according to their European ethnicities or nationalities, while Black South Africans patriotically carry the national flag, during public gatherings such as when South Africa hosted the World Cup? Why do some in White South Africa still prefer Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, the white Nationalist anthem, to Nkosi Sikele’ iAfrika, the national rainbow anthem? Isn’t it interesting that the American national anthem is in English while South Africa’s national anthem is in five major languages—Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans, and English?

Then, not so surprisingly, there is President Obama’s soulful eulogium to the great man, Nelson Mandela. Interestingly, following President Obama’s triumphant reelected to the presidency, 26 American States petitioned to break away from the Union, because, once again, a black man has assumed the executive office, an office supposedly meant for the exclusive privilege of whiteness. The historical connection between America and South Africa is an important one. That said, let’s also add that the racial situation in post-Apartheid South Africa is a politically dicey one. In fact, it constitutes the moral basis of Lucky Dube’s powerful track “War and Crime.” Who do we blame, blacks, Indians, coloreds, or whites, for the situation in South Africa, he seems to ask rhetorically, if not directly?

Back to square one. Why is the sudden flow of what seems like crocodilian accolades from Mandela’s one-time enemies toward the good people of South Africa? What did Britain do when UB40 dedicated “Sing Our Own Song” to Black South Africa? What did America do when Eddie Grant dedicated “Gimme Hope Joana” to Black South Africa? Taken together, what did America and Britain do when Alpha Blondy dedicated “Apartheid Is Nazism” to Black South Africa? The die-hard enemies of Black South Africa have no shame in the genes of their cultural psychology. These shameless enemies even had the nerve to openly castigate Mandela for expressing gratitude to courageous men, women, and countries which had fought on the side of Black South Africa, of goodness, against the evil system of Apartheid.

But not one to be intimidated by his enemies’ shameless and sanctimonious hypocrisy, he fought back hard, retorting: “No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do. Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi. They are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past (Max Forte, “Slouching Towards Sirte, NATO’s War on Libya and Africa,” pp. 142-143).” In fact, this is how intelligent, spiritually-enlightened, courageous, and moralistic leaders fight back.

Mandela seemed to be saying to the hypocritical West: “Were you not part of the same diabolical system which enslaved and killed my people with impunity and moral abandon, stole our land, put me (and others) in prison for 27 years, in fact, for fighting against a system whose crimes you will not permit the people of Africa to institute against the people of the West, primarily white folks? Why should your enemies be our enemies? What did you do when Adolf Hitler attempted to impose the Apartheid of Nazism on the Europe? Didn’t you, Britain’s Winston Churchill and America’s Franklin D. Roosevelt, collaborate with Josef Stalin, your archenemy, to counter the hegemony of Nazism?

Didn’t Hitler and Nazism appropriate the idea of “concentration camp” from the British who had used it on the Boers in South Africa? Didn’t Hitler and Nazism appropriate the idea of eugenics from the Americans who had used it on African Americans (See Edwin Black’s “Hitler’s Debt To America”)? Didn’t Prescott Bush, George W. Bush’s grandfather, play a role in Hitler’s rise to political power, as Ben Aris meticulously details in his Guardian piece “How Bush’s Grandfather Helped Hitler’s Rise To Power”? Didn’t you collaborate with as well as instigate Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini against each other, even secretly selling arms to Hussein and Khomeini which they used against each other during their 8-year war?

Didn’t you sell arms to the Apartheid government while you received South Africa’s uranium (and gold, diamond, etc) to build your bombs in order to contain the former USSR―during George Kennan’s Cold War? Wasn’t Kaddafi a better leader than Hitler and Stalin? Didn’t you collaborate with the enemies of Africa―Akwasi Afrifa, Idi Amin, JB Danquah, Mobuto Sese Seko, Charles Taylor, and Chief Mangosutho Buthelezi? Why call another fellow an enemy when you are an enemy yourself? Is one enemy better than the other enemy? Which enemy should the people of South Africa choose over the other enemy? Mandela still awaits the answers!

But that is not all. Didn’t the founder of TransAfrica, Randall Robinson, the same man whose hunger strike would force the then-President Bill Clinton to restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the Haitian presidency and whose political activism and social acumen would push Ronald Reagan to force the Nationalist government of P.W. Botha to begin negotiations with the ANC—a project which eventually culminated in the death of Apartheid—only for White America to undermine his meeting Mandela in person after the latter’s release from prison and his subsequent tour of America?

A petition drawn by Adam Tomlinson, of Chesterfield, UK, and titled, “The British Government: Ban David Cameron from Nelson Mandela’s State Funeral,” reads: “In light of the sad loss of Nelson Mandela, we the British people during this sad time feel it is inappropriate for David Cameron to attend the state funeral of Nelson Mandela due to his and the Tory party’s outright contempt and hypocrisy they have collectively shown in previous years against Nelson Mandela’s struggles for justice and equality. We the British people don’t feel that it’s appropriate that David Cameron represent the views and feelings of the majority during this sad time and we ask him to stay away.”

Can David Cameron and the other long-time hypocritical enemies of the ANC, the good people of South Africa, and Mandela shed real tears for the great man during this solemn moment in the life of Africa and of the world? We wait to see!

We shall return…

Francis Kwarteng

http://vibeghana.com/2013/12/09/stop-shedding-crocodile-tears-for-nelson-mandela-part-ll/