Nelson Mandela has died
Published:
December 6, 2013 at 12:50am
It’s hard to believe or even remember now that apartheid and more than half of Europe being locked behind the Iron Curtain were taken for granted as facts of life that we had to live with.
In the late 1980s, with hundreds of millions of our fellow Europeans imprisoned by Communism and cut off from the rest of us, what did free Europeans do? Demonstrate to ‘free Mandela’. This at a time when people were being shot to death as they tried to flee across the Berlin wall. The 1980s were peculiar. We took European communism, which now seems incredible now, as cast in stone. But then freeing one man from Robben Island became a rallying cause and the man himself became a symbol and an icon.
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We were pretty much cut off from the free world – and we weren’t even behind the iron curtain.
” …what did free Europeans do? Demonstrate to ‘free Mandela’.”
What did some of the Maltese do? Venerate the Maltese Mugabe.
While the iron-curtain has fallen and South Africa has made giant steps in terms of equality, the Maltese-Mugabe spirit still guides the odd half of this very divided and weird nation.
I have spent the last few hours watching BBC, CBC and CNN coverage of Mandela.
All the people interviewed in England, Canada and the U.S. talked about what he meant for them, not about their country.
As I write this there are 2 comments on this post and both have brought the story back to Malta.
I hope that this isn’t going to become another example of how everything has to be about Malta.
I grew up fascinated by this man and it had nothing to do with what was going on in Malta. Nothing.
On a very simple level he walked out of jail after 27 years and did not look for revenge but reconciliation. What he achieved, the way he was, the life he lived is something we can all learn from.
And if there has to be a connection to Malta, it should be a lesson to stop being so self-centred and believing Malta is the centre of the universe. I’m sorry, it’s been an emotional night.
Nelson Mandela , a man who suffered in jail the best part of his life to free his country and install democratic governance.
Joseph Muscat, a man who suffers seeing his country enjoying the democratic system of Europe and being part of it, but enjoys inviting and welcoming communist lackeys who run their country with an iron fist and jail their rivals.
May you burn in hell, the lot of you.
‘May you burn in hell, the lot of you.’ Tut tut. Such a charitable sentiment; that is, if the place exists.
There are quite a few lessons that Joseph Muscat and his racist posse could learn from this great man.
Perhaps now that he has passed away and has hit the headlines once again, they might read a synopisis of his life from which they might also read about the end of apartheid.
They may then realise that the feeling of racism fanned by Muscat and Mallia that has led to attempted push backs and unnecessary loss of life is a sentiment that has long since been out of fashion in the modern world.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519119/Nelson-Mandela-biography-Not-saint-truly-great-man.html
What a great man a a father for all the world, may he rest in peace.
Yet another family photo opportunity:
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-12-06/news/pm-planning-to-attend-mandela-funeral-3395420166/
‘I’ meaning him, wife, enfantas, bodyguards, servants of the Royal household, ministers…
Yes, the same can be said of so many things. Sometimes it really does feel like general public sentiment is manipulated like a puppet is manipulated by its strings.
When I see the outrageous ‘man-made’ climate propaganda (because that’s what it is) I feel similar to how I feel about people’s attitude and inconsistency as you pointed out above. On the one hand all the real scientific bodies say that there is no conclusive proof that it is man-made, nor that temperatures are actually rising consistently around the world and on the other governments across the West — in an effort to placate an ever-more hysterical public — spends literally hundreds of billions in supposedly (often only symbolically) environmentally-friendly technology.
All this whilst the worst economic and moral crisis is hitting hard at the stomachs of westerners like never before. It is hard for the mostly obese well-off spoilt Maltese to understand this point, but trust me, much of the rest of Europe is really struggling.
Also, human rights are being violated, people killed and tortured on ethnic and ideological grounds in China yet we keep sending all our industry and essentially gift them with our technologies and know-how. Hardly anyone says a word, or if they do they continue to buy Made in China without a care in the world.
Mandela, or Madiba, was a great man. I admire him immensely, not just for his struggle for equality, but for the way he dealt with the initially post-apartheid years through reconciliation. The temptation to exact revenge would have been great, but the great leader did not give in to pressure nor hatred. RIP Madiba, long live your legacy.
Why is everyone speaking personally to Mandela as if he were their own grandfather? He was a Xhosa prince. I’d have been mongrelised riff-raff to him.
Ironically the same PM who instigated racism by his “Push Back” strategy, is now full of praise for the true champion of equality between races. Double-face.
Not double-faced at all. It’s just that my friend’s friend is my friend. Gaddafi was one of Mandela’s BFFs.
Not trying to spoil the atmos. or anything, but some things just need to be pointed out.
Gaddafi wasn’t very selective in his friendships. As long as you were fighting colonialism, you were his buddy. Some of his buddies turned out to be admirable and ionic leaders. Others were just poison dwarves.
That has to be pointed out too.
Mandela will be remembered for fighting racism and inequality and ending apartheid in South Africa.
But alas 20 years on and South Africa under the ANC has been reduced from a top world economic country performer to the 22nd place. Public health and education services have been severely depleted whilst pulic sector corruption has shot up dramatically.
White farmers have fled the country and the country lost its rich agricultural legacy.
The PN in government should have learnt a lesson from this great statesman.
Post-apartheid, instead of vindictiveness and vendettas, Nelson Mandela constituted a board of investigation called the Truth and Reconciliation Commisssion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_(South_Africa).
Instead we had criminal policemen given promotions, incompetent bureaucrats placed in high-up places and and competent state employees demoted or removed etc.
This way, the public in general would have discovered that abuses that happened in the past were not to be repeated. And it would not have allowed the Labour Party to rewrite its history and pretend that none of those things happened.
Rest in piece, Nelson Mandela.
His body was imprisoned, but not his soul.
If he couldn’t hate those who kept him in prison for so many years I doubt he would have treated Baxxter like riff raff.
He was a great man, something we’re not very familiar with but we could at least recognise it.
Call me a hardened cynic, but I have met so many great, humble, famous men who turn out to be total c*nts in private that I no longer believe in the fundamental goodness of great men.
[Daphne – Consider yourself lucky you’re not a woman, H.P., because then your opinion would fall even further when the object of public worship makes a lurid private pass. Even the great and the good are not averse to leering at breasts and making inappropriate remarks. And I imagine gay men have the same experience. I am not suggesting that all the great and the good are men, but it’s only men who behave like that.]
Great men need boobies too.
[Daphne – Some of them also need social skills.]
Please do elaborate. Are you referring to Mandela here or to your fellow guest at the dinner table?
And yes, great men need quim too, or they wouldn’t be great at all. History has yet to produce a genius from among the singlies. Look at Jesus Christ. Spent a life of chastity and had to end it at 33 because he couldn’t take any more of it.
HP; we don’t really know about JC. He may well have been married. Which, of course, could also have been a reason to embrace the end.
Best role model for those who want to take power away from minorities.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pro-life-leaders-urge-caution-while-pope-and-bishops-praise-controversial-n