Mandela

[JOHNNYAITCH]

You'll still find minutes' silences observed for someone non contentious, like for instance Stan Matthews or maybe someone who died in Afghanistan.

 

There are a lot of people (not me) who find deaths in Afghanistan (I assume you mean a soldier) contentious, even if they do join in a minutes applause/silence

 

Where there's any risk of contention they change it to a minute's applause.

 

And let thsoe unwilling to show respect win?

 

It's a fine line though

[paultvale]

Ergo to criticise Mandela means one must be Eugene Terreblanche all of a sudden!

It all has to be black and white to some and they can`t conceive the idea of there being grey areas and a middle ground.

[Birdy]

Not at all! I have no respect for any paramilitary or terrorist groups of any ilk,hence my post on the evils of the ANC.

Yet because someone posted a picture of Republican terrorists and I made my feelings about them known,Birdy equates that to support for their Loyalist counterparts.Stranger logic there!

The same logic that some may use to suggest that because I berate ANC terrorism,that I am somehow a supporter of their enemy Apartheid.Had it been a photo of Johnny Adair with Mandela,my comment would have been the same.

My assumption was not base on your posts on this thread.

 

Could you please answer the question I asked earlier in the thread whether you would have rolled over and done nothing if Hitler had been successful in invading this country? I would very much like to hear if you would have disapproved of any physical resistance and would have accepted your subservient position?

 

The armed struggle under the leadership of Mandela was aimed at the energy, military and political infrastructure, not civilian.

 

When he was jailed in 1963 he had no communication with the outside so cannot see how he was responsible for another leadership or splinter groups? Have you read any books Mandela?

[JOHNNYAITCH]

Mandela did what was right for the majority not the powerful and wealthy minority.

 

We're back to where we have been berfore,...are you giving up your wealth for the benefit of the majority? In this world on the whole you are part of the powerful and wealthy minority (as indeed am I)

 

It amazes me to read wealthy people telling other wealthy people that they should give up their wealth when they don't do so themselves

 

 

People really need to read in depth about his life and the way he conducted himself.

[JOHNNYAITCH]

The armed struggle under the leadership of Mandela was aimed at the energy, military and political infrastructure, not civilian.

 

That is not entirely true plus he refused to renounce violence

 

Also interestingly Amnesty refused to take his case stating “[the] movement recorded that it could not give the name of ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ to anyone associated with violence, even though as in ‘conventional warfare’ a degree of restraint may be exercised.”

 

When he was jailed in 1963 he had no communication with the outside so cannot see how he was responsible for another leadership or splinter groups?

 

That is incorrect..this from the Long Walkto Freedom

 

"Communication with the outside world was accomplished in two ways: through prisoners whose sentences were completed and who were leaving the island, and through contact with visitors. Prisoners who were leaving would smuggle out letters in their clothes or baggage. With outside visitors, the situation was even more dangerous, because the risks were also borne by the visitor. When lawyers visited us, warders were not permitted in the room and we would sometimes pass a letter to the lawyer to be taken out. Lawyers were not searched. In these meetings, we could also communicate by writing as we had during the Rivonia Trial. Because the room was bugged, we might say, "Please tell . . ." and then pause and write "O.T.," meaning Oliver Tambo, on a piece of paper, "that we approve of his plan to cut down the size of the . . ." and then write, "National Executive.""

 

It is naive in the extreme to think that he was unable to communicate with the outside world

 

Have you read any books Mandela?

 

In my case, several some full of justifiable praise..some not so. I like to get a balanced view

[paultvale]

 

Could you please answer the question I asked earlier in the thread whether you would have rolled over and done nothing if Hitler had been successful in invading this country? I would very much like to hear if you would have disapproved of any physical resistance and would have accepted your subservient position?

 

 

I have always found that a fanciful concept that would never have happened and if it had they certainly wouldn`t have occupied here for the 25 years or so until I was born,without the Allies,Yanks or whoever slinging them out.

For the sake of argument if it had happened.

Then I guess I would have got on with my life in the society I was born into,in the same way that I have without the desire to wreak havoc on the Romans,Danes,Saxons,Normans etc etc that had all invaded here too.

[JOHNNYAITCH]

Could you please answer the question I asked earlier in the thread whether you would have rolled over and done nothing if Hitler had been successful in invading this country? I would very much like to hear if you would have disapproved

of any physical resistance and would have accepted your subservient position?

 

Being naughty here.... what would you have done had Mandela invaded this country?

[Birdy]

I have always found that a fanciful concept that would never have happened and if it had they certainly wouldn`t have occupied here for the 25 years or so until I was born,without the Allies,Yanks or whoever slinging them out.

For the sake of argument if it had happened.

Then I guess I would have got on with my life in the society I was born into,in the same way that I have without the desire to wreak havoc on the Romans,Danes,Saxons,Normans etc etc that had all invaded here too.

Of course you would have!

[JOHNNYAITCH]

I have always found that a fanciful concept that would never have happened and if it had they certainly wouldn`t have occupied here for the 25 years or so until I was born,without the Allies,Yanks or whoever slinging them out.

For the sake of argument if it had happened.

Then I guess I would have got on with my life in the society I was born into,in the same way that I have without the desire to wreak havoc on the Romans,Danes,Saxons,Normans etc etc that had all invaded here too.

 

Might be wrong but I think he meant had you been an adult at the time of the Hitler invasion what would you have done...would you have fought the occupier or not?

 

I think and again I might be wrong an attempt is being made to draw a parallel with the ruling whites in SA and what would have been the ruling Nazis in an occupied Britain

[paultvale]

In that case I`d have been in the forces and either fighting them from within or without,or imprisoned,or dead or as some might have it recruited to the UVF plotting unholy war the Nazi rulers.

[paultvale]

Mandela wasn`t born either when the Dutch,Boers and British carved up his beloved Country

[Birdy]

Mandela wasn`t born either when the Dutch,Boers and British carved up his beloved Country

Struggling to understand why that has any baring?

[paultvale]

Struggling to understand why that has any baring?

 

Because Johnny suggested you meant I was to imagine that I was an adult during the Nazi occupation here.So I`ve answered to both scenarios,as an unborn as Mandela was and then if I had been an adult.

[JOHNNYAITCH]

Mandela wasn`t born either when the Dutch,Boers and British carved up his beloved Country

 

But he was born into a nation ruled by a minority where the majority were oppressed on racial lines' the 'occupiers' were still in control. it wasn't an occupation in the same way as had the Nazis invaded but say the Nazis had put those of German origins in charge and oppressed those of native British origins then I'm pretty cionfident that the native Brits would have fought back by the use of violenece and other means for generations until they gained control for the majority and equality..hopefully as per Mandela that would have included equality for those derived form the oppressors, possibly his greatest achievement

[Birdy]

Because Johnny suggested you meant I was to imagine that I was an adult during the Nazi occupation here.So I`ve answered to both scenarios,as an unborn as Mandela was and then if I had been an adult.

Sorry, don't read JA posts. I was replying to you and not him as much as he likes to answer other peoples questions for them.

 

Let me get this straight. As an adult you would be happy to live under an oppressive foreign rule in your own country even though you had little rights (which would be slowly taken away). You would be happy for your daughter to have no education and no future, your family to have a shed as a home and your friends to be beaten and murdered without due justice. You would also be happy with this minority foreign rule to own all the nations assets and resources for the benefit of that minority. If you would be happy with that you're telling fibs, drunk or nuts.