Nelson Mandela 7/18/1818 – 12/5/13
To paraphrase Winston Churchill: Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to
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4 comments:
Mr. Mandela's grandson, Kweku, and son-in-law, Isaac Amuah, came to a Halloween party we hosted at our school/house ... from the days when his daughter, Maki, was a student at UMass/Amherst.
http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2012/aug/26/kweku-mandela-africa-rising-interview
Icky
Larry, two wrongs don't make a right. I don't know how much was Mandella himself and how much was beyond his control, but when you talk of things like taking a gasoline-soaked tire, placing it around the neck of a bound captive, and lighting it on fire -- that is not something that Dr. King would have done, that is not something that Ghandi would have done -- both men would have been horrified to have it done in their behalf.
Is South Africa better today than it was then? Rape is pandemic, as is violence in general, and if you think in terms of a Black South African who is not an ANC member, are you better off now than you were then? I honestly don't know -- but I do know that some would argue that, at least for women, the vastly greater likelyhood of rape way outweighs any benefit of "freedom."
And then we have Magabe in what used to be Rhodesia -- where land was confiscated and mismanaged to the point where the country isn't far from mass starvation, and the people have exchanged one despot for another.
So too in South Africa, which I would not call a "free" country -- to the average South African, the only real difference is that those in the new autocratic regime have darker skin than those in the old -- remember that "race" to an African is not skin color but other identifiable-to-them physical characteristics. (Remember Rwanda?) And remember that race is nothing but a social construct anyway...
Even though he did plagiarize his doctoral dissertation and cheat on his wife -- two things I hold against him -- I can (and do) respect Dr. King. From everything I've seen & heard (and I had ANC grad students in my MEd program -- and I tend toward intuitive leaps -- Nelson Mandella doesn't deserve to be considered in the same realm.
"Necklacing" -- IMHO, that's up there with the use of poison gas in terms of so-called "crimes against humanity." What's next, the Ide Amin Fan Club?
"Even though he did plagiarize his doctoral dissertation and cheat on his wife -- two things I hold against him"
You hold plagiarism against him, do you, Ed? So if we were to comb through the doctoral dissertation of one Dr. Ed Cutting, MEd, CAGS, Ed.D (and CDL), could we expect to would find nothing whatsoever that had been lifted from elsewhere without attribution?
Your comment at this link is absolutely the only thing you've ever plagiarized, right?
http://onlyintherepublicofamherst.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-pair-no-more.html
"who do you think had a greater impact on our America in the 20th century, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher or Nelson Mandela?"
Read more at http://allenbwest.com/2013/12/mandela-vs-thatcher-deserves-flags-half-mast/#dTCXsDawR8WiiVHj.99
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