Soca Warriors Online Discussion Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: asylumseeker on December 05, 2013, 04:03:29 PM
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...
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:'(
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
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Celebration start... well done! :beermug:
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No words can really do justice in describing Mandela's impact on the world. Rest in peace, and take your place among the Giants of history.
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YNWA...
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c311/Aikibro/MandelaLFC2.jpg)[/URL]
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RIP to one of the giants of history.
I remember watching his release from jail live on CNN like it was yesterday.
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Grimm01, I remember watching his release from jail on CNN as well; I was too young to appreciate the full significance of the release, but I knew something momentus was going on at the time.
RIP to one of the great global icons, his legacy shall span many, many decades to come
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Nelson Mandela Dies At 95
http://www.youtube.com/v/unobY1Z2ACI
Jeremy Schaap reflects on the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela.
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I remember his release vividly... his very first stop in the United States was New York City... and specifically Brooklyn, and my school, Boys and Girls High School. I was a senior at the time and had the pleasure of being interviewed by Gordon Elliott of FOX' Good Day New York.
The Mandela Visit; Mandela Gets an Emotional New York City Welcome (New York Times)
By JOHN KIFNER
Published: June 21, 1990
Nelson Mandela, the living symbol of resistance to South African apartheid, swept tired but triumphant yesterday into an emotional New York welcome.
During Mr. Mandela's first hours in the United States at the start of an eight-city visit, tens of thousands of people in the black Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York and Fort Greene lined the sidewalks, wildly cheering the honored guest's motorcade and brandishing clenched fists.
In lower Manhattan huge clumps of computer printouts tumbled to the streets of the financial district in place of ticker tape, made obsolete by electronics, in the city's traditional hero's greeting.
A Compelling Moment
''Apartheid is doomed,'' Mr. Mandela said at the end of brief, graceful remarks at a City Hall welcoming ceremony. ''South Africa will be free. The struggle continues.'' For the city's blacks it was a particularly compelling moment.
''I felt a blessing from God that I could be part of this,'' said Taraja Samuel, an administrator with the city's Board of Education, who took her 15-year-old son Taiye to the City Hall ceremony. ''I came of age in the 1960's, but the regret of my life is I never met Dr. King or Malcolm. I told my son today to be in the presence of Nelson Mandela was an honor.
''This makes me able to go back to the board, despite all the problems, and know that I can make a difference,'' she said. ''This man is an inspiration.''
Huge Security Operation
As Mr. Mandela praised David N. Dinkins as New York's first black Mayor, Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch, who managed Mr. Dinkins's campaign and played a major role in organizing Mr. Mandela's visit, wept in the row behind them.
The police estimated that 750,000 people saw Mr. Mandela at one point or another - 50,000 in Queens at Kennedy International Airport and along the route, 100,000 as he passed through Brooklyn, 400,000 along the ticker-tape parade and 200,000 in the ceremony at City Hall. Hundreds of thousands more saw the events broadcast live on local television.
Police helicopters flew overhead, and Mr. Mandela's 40-car motorcade bristling with police and State Department security officers was led by two dozen police motorcycles. As part of a huge security operation, traffic was frozen as the motorcade passed.
Concern About Health
As the day progressed, there was increasing concern for the health of Mr. Mandela, the deputy president of the African National Congress, who will turn 72 years of age next month and was released less than five months ago after 27 years in prison. He is in the midst of a six-week, 14-nation tour and at the beginning of a hastily arranged visit to the United States, where he is seeking financial support and the continuation of economic sanctions against the white regime in South Africa.
Last night, an exhausted Mr. Mandela canceled several scheduled events, including meetings with black journalists and exiled South Africans, and even the scaled-down, intimate family meal at Gracie Mansion that had replaced plans for a 22-person dinner went by the boards.
Roger Wilkins, the national coordinator of the trip, told journalists last night that the Dinkinses were eating downstairs while Mr. Mandela remained in the guest suite upstairs.
After the City Hall ceremonies, Mr. Wilkins said: ''It was clear he reached the limit where he should not be pushed. The man is tired.''
Earlier, Zwelakhe Sisulu, Mr. Mandela's press secretary and the director of information of the African National Congress, told reporters that Mr. Mandela was ''quite tired after such a hectic day.''
Mr. Wilkins had said at the earlier news briefing: ''The fact that we express our concerns doesn't mean we have a sick man on our hands. It just means that we are being realistic about a very strenuous program for a 71-year-old man.''
Two Hours Late
Mr. Mandela arrived from Canada almost two hours behind schedule yesterday morning in order to get extra rest, and by the end of the day he was visibly worn.
As Mr. Mandela rode up Broadway, he was encased in an odd vehicle immediately dubbed the ''Mandelamobile.'' A small bulletproof glass shelter with a peaked roof was built atop a police flatbed truck. Spotlights fixed to the corners of the roof give it an uncanny resemblance to a prison watchtower.
But all the security was virtually swept aside at one point as hundreds of excited black teen-agers surrounded the motorcade when it left Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, running, whooping and cheering alongside the cars. State Department security officers paled and their eyes widened at the sight.
Issue of U.S. Sanctions
The major political goal of Mr. Mandela's trip is to keep economic sanctions on South Africa in hope of creating pressure for greater social change. African National Congress leaders say they fear that the limited reforms instituted by the Government of President F. W. de Klerk could be used to justify a lifting of sanctions.
President Bush, who opposed sanctions, told reporters somewhat wistfully yesterday that he is precluded from removing any of the sanctions. Under the law enacted in 1986 over the veto of President Ronald Reagan, the sanctions may not be lifted until a series of specific conditions are met, and the Bush Administration acknowledges that has not yet happened.
''I can't lift the sanctions under existing U.S. law,'' Mr. Bush said at a news conference in Huntsville, Ala. But he said he intended to take the issue up with Mr. Mandela when they meet at the White House on Monday.
Show of Support
''I look forward to talking to Mr. Mandela about this,'' the President said. ''There are black leaders in South Africa that disagree with him on this question of sanctions.''
The President added that his Administration was looking for ways to demonstrate its support of Mr. de Klerk's Government.
''I'd like to find a way to show Mr. de Klerk that we, the United States, are grateful for this new approach that is having South Africa evolve to a much more open society and hopefully one day to one which is color blind in terms of participation in the political process,'' he said.
High School Visit Goes Forward
Mr. Mandela's red and white plane, a Canadian military transport, touched down just after 11:30 A.M. at Kennedy, A.M., where several hundred elected officials, community advocates, African National Congress members and supporters and journalists had been waiting for hours, most of them, it seemed, talking on cellular telephones.
Mr. Wilkins, the writer and educator who is running the American trip, called in the middle of the night, a senior aide to Mr. Dinkins said, to tell Harry Belafonte, the singer who is one of the main organizers here, that Mr. Mandela was tired and needed more rest. Mr. Wilkins said the African National Congress wanted to cancel the visit to Boys and Girls High School, the mayoral aide said, but Mr. Lynch, the Deputy Mayor, insisted that it go forward.
But Mr. Mandela appeared almost radiant as he stepped from the hatch of the airplane, a tall figure in a conservative gray suit, blue shirt and dark-patterned tie. He would soon be wearing a gold ''big apple'' pin in his lapel. Behind him, Winnie Mandela, wearing purple and white traditional African dress with a matching head wrap, raised a clenched fist.
'Child at Christmas'
''I saw astounded people; I saw euphoric people,'' Mr. Wilkins said at the end of the day. ''I saw a nearly 72-year-old man tired from a very emotional day. But when I was running by that security vehicle, I looked up, and the smile on his face was like a child at Christmas.''
A receiving line of about 50 dignitaries, including the Mayor and his wife, Joyce, and Govs. Mario M. Cuomo of New York and Jim Florio of New Jersey, was stretched along a red carpet to a speakers stand where the African National Congress's black, green and yellow flag stood along with city, state and American flags.
But Mr. Mandela first stooped down, his hands on his knees, and gave his undivided attention to two young girls, members of the African National Congress, who tied scarves in the group's colors, bandana style, around his and his wife's necks in greeting.
Then, moving with the dignified, almost regal bearing - he is a hereditary tribal chief - that he would maintain, Mr. Mandela took 10 minutes to work his way through the receiving line and then swept past the speakers stand to greet the crowd of several hundred supporters.
'Walk Together'
''It is a source of tremendous joy and strength for us, my wife, our delegation, to be received with such a rousing welcome by the people of the city,'' he said in brief remarks after being welcomed by the Mayor and both Governors.
''Join us in the international actions we are taking. The only way we can walk together on this difficult road is for you to insure that sanctions are applied,'' he added in what he said would be his main message throughout his visit.
Roadside crowds gradually swelled as Mr. Mandela's motorcade raced from Queens into predominantly black sections of Brooklyn, with schoolchildren neatly lined behind banners. People waved portraits of Mr. Mandela and posters or makeshift signs welcoming him.
But in the predominantly white communities of Howard Beach and Ozone Park, Queens, there were a few rude gestures, and one man with a video camera held his hand in front of the lens with a finger raised, so that the motorcade became the background for an obscene gesture.
Some 3,000 people, a predominantly black crowd, were waiting on the athletic field of Boys and Girls High on Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant when the motorcade arrived shortly after one o'clock. At times they seemed to be a sea of yellow signs that said ''Free South Africa,'' red-black-and- green liberation flags, dazzling multicolor headdresses of African and Caribbean design and T-shirts with Mr. Mandela's face.
''Mandela, Mandela,'' the crowd cheered, surging forward in the muggy sunlight as Mr. Mandela and his wife climbed the makeshift stage of an 18-wheel truck. ''Keep the pressure on.''
''We in South Africa have always known that we have loyal friends among the people of New York, but we have no idea that we were perceived with such love and warmth,'' Mr. Mandela said in a slow, deliberate voice, each word punching through the public address system. With little further ado, he began into an appeal to raise money to build schools in South Africa.
As the motorcade left, many in the crowd raced out of the schoolyard and into the streets, slowing the pace to a crawl. Many raced along with the cars on foot or on bicycles until they could speed up.
The sidewalk crowds swelled as the motorcade moved through Bedford-Stuyvesant, with welcoming banners like ''Forward to Victory'' stretched across Fulton Street.
The Parade Begins
Mr. Mandela paused briefly for lunch at the Coast Guard Station at the Battery and an almost obligatory photo opportunity with the Statue of Liberty in the background. Then he climbed into the odd-looking Mandelamobile for the ticker-tape parade.
As 3 P.M. approached, the crowd was beginning to thin along Broadway. People looked at their watches, stood on tiptoes and, where space and dress allowed, slumped to the curb to rest. Executives kicked their wingtips at the paper underfoot and secretaries moaned for their Nikes.
Then, in a wail of sirens and a shower of saved-up confetti, the motorcade appeared.
The canyon of tall buildings presented a strange sight. Instead of the familiar ticker tape of parades past, rectangles of paper floated down and the police and sanitation workers lining the streets had to kick through thick wads of computer printouts.
''It was worth waiting for,'' Henrietta Wilson, an officer's assistant at Chemical Bank, said as she rushed back toward the Battery to work. ''That was history.''
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/21/nyregion/the-mandela-visit-mandela-gets-an-emotional-new-york-city-welcome.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
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Amandla!!!!
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I cut my political teeth during the apartheid era and the struggle to end it. I was jailed for tethering myself (along with others) to symbolic shanties on the campus of Johns Hopkins University back in the mid eighties. I spent a night in jail. It was nothing compared to the 27 years that Nelson Mandela spent behind bars. You have left a hugh void, but taught us so much. you will be missed. Hamba kahle tata.
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Amandla!!!!
awethu
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This is one man who could've gone in any country and be respected and loved.
P.S. I'm trying to remember the name of the song that the calypsonians got together and sung to raise aid for Africa. Anyone knows the name?
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This is one man who could've gone in any country and be respected and loved.
P.S. I'm trying to remember the name of the song that the calypsonians got together and sung to raise aid for Africa. Anyone knows the name?
I believe you are talking about Now is the Time.
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RIP to one of the giants of history.
I remember watching his release from jail live on CNN like it was yesterday.
I was a 1st year UWI student on Mary Seacole Hall we raised a key knock some pots on J Block to announce Mandela was free. I was able to get close to the rope so I was to get a good look at him when he came to TNT.
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This is one man who could've gone in any country and be respected and loved.
P.S. I'm trying to remember the name of the song that the calypsonians got together and sung to raise aid for Africa. Anyone knows the name?
I believe you are talking about Now is the Time.
thanks dude
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Nelson Mandela was on the US terrorist watch list up until 2008 ??? :cursing:
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This morning I was listening to talk radio and they were comparing Mandela to MLK Jr. And they said that Mandela was allowed to live to a ripe old age, but MLK Jr. was cut down in his prime.
You think if Mandela was in the US he would have lived to do all the amazing and magnificent things that he did?
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This death really bothering me as the world may never see such a person again (at least not in my lifetime). all these celebrities die and people morn them, but I never got caught up in those thing. I love Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson could do no wrong, yet even when they died I took those in stride, but this leaves an empty feeling. not to sure why or why so much. :'(
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This morning I was listening to talk radio and they were comparing Mandela to MLK Jr. And they said that Mandela was allowed to live to a ripe old age, but MLK Jr. was cut down in his prime.
You think if Mandela was in the US he would have lived to do all the amazing and magnificent things that he did?
Hardly likely. Somebody woulda try tuh out he light early o'clock.
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This death really bothering me as the world may never see such a person again (at least not in my lifetime). all these celebrities die and people morn them, but I never got caught up in those thing. I love Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson could do no wrong, yet even when they died I took those in stride, but this leaves an empty feeling. not to sure why or why so much. :'(
I too was depressed and sad at first but then I was listening to BBC news and the reaction of South Africans toyi toying just served as a reminder that in both life and death he will always be transcendent
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Posted this last night on FB and it's worth mentioning here too...
I was not blessed to meet Nelson Mandela in person and so I don't have any witty or insightful stories to share. I do have a very cherished memory however. Upon his release from prison in 1990, Madiba made the United States his very first destination, landing at John F. Kennedy lnternational airport. Through some political connections, it was decided that Mandela's first stop would be in Brooklyn New York, and at my high school specifically. Myself and two other classmates were selected by my late principal to be interviewed live by Gordon Elliot of Fox's Good Day New York.
Later on that day Mr. Mandela made his historic stop at my school greeted by a throng of 3000+ people crammed on to our football field. Among the dignitaries in attendance were Gov. Mario Cuomo and Mayor David Dinkins... along with many faceless young men and women who had little idea ofwhat lay before them, concerned mainly with survival on the streets of Bed-Stuy.
I was a high school senior at the time, and even though I did not know where my future lay, I knew enough to know that I would not fall victim to the streets lest it should break my mother's heart. My only desire therefore was to make her proud to let her know that all of her sacrifice was not in vain.
After that fateful day however, when Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in captivity, and could have gone anywhere in the world after being released, but who chose to come to the United States and to New York City, and to MY high school, a school of 4000 primarily black and Latino kids- I realized then the importance of reaching back and inspiring those most in need of inspiration.
I realized then that my goals though sincere, were perhaps too modest, that there was more that I should be aspiring to. That he would take time to come to our neighborhood and grace us with the honor of being his first hosts outside of captivity in South Africa when many other nations would've been happy to fete him in pomp and ceremony, that spoke of the depth of his character.
Character, honor and grace are more important than any office or social position. Dignity when confronted with life's challenges, being resolute in the face of despair, humility in the face of adulation, and an unshakable belief in who you are as an individual, no matter the external circumstances swirling about you. That was the lesson I took from his visit that day. It was a lesson, perhaps unintended on his part, but one that has stayed with me even to this day. God bless you good sir, and well done. May you find rest and comfort as you reunite with the ancestors, safe in the knowledge that your incomparable legacy lives on.
Let us all not lose sight of the potential for greatness within each of us, and our unique ability to inspire others. Nelson Mandela has transitioned to a higher calling, but the legacy he left with us must be embraced and nurtured in each of our own hearts. His life was but a reminder of the inherent nobility that lies within us all, if only we choose to recognize and embrace it's beckoning.
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"Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination."
http://www.youtube.com/v/5lvHnYQsTBU
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A modern hero.
I never got to see Ghandi or MLK in action. But I did get to Mandela.
Like millions around the world, I was in awe of his humility and magnanimous nature.
I was well aware that at his age, I was privileged to see one of the last great 20th Century icons.
RIP Mr. Mandela. If only there were more like you.
VB
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Bloomberg just announced that my old high school will now be renamed The Nelson Mandela High School for Social Justice (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/high-school-named-nelson-mandela-open-brooklyn-article-1.1539837)...
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I watched an ESPN 30 for 30 episode last night entitled "The 16th Man" narrated by Morgan Freeman. It's about the SA ruby team and how Mandella forgave them and what they stood for and became one of their biggest fans. Very touching!
The moral of the story is how sport has the power to change the world.
http://www.youtube.com/v/MePCZ_hw9lM
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Invictus was a surprisingly good movie... easily downplayed and overlooked is what an important role his gesture of supporting the Springboks (traditionally only followed by whites) played in reuniting a still-healing country :beermug:
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Remembering The Religious Right's Attacks On Nelson Mandela (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/remembering-religious-rights-attacks-nelson-mandela#sthash.BNntQV0w.dpuf)
The news today of Nelson Mandela’s passing is also time to reflect on the complicated relationship between Mandela and his anti-apartheid African National Congress (ANC) with the US, which did not always support the anti-apartheid struggle. In fact, American conservatives lobbied the federal government in the 1980s to withhold support from the anti-apartheid movement.
President Reagan added the ANC to the US terrorism watch list, a designation not removed until 2008, and unsuccessfully vetoed sanctions against the apartheid regime. Many Republican lawmakers did break with the Reagan administration’s stance, but “all 21 [Senate] votes to sustain the veto were cast by Republicans.”
Mandela faced criticism from Republican leaders including Dick Cheney, who described Mandela’s ANC as a “terrorist organization,” and Jesse Helms, who “turned his back during Mandela’s visit to the U.S. Capitol.” Even in 1998, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly lumped Mandela together with notorious dictators.
The late Jerry Falwell urged [PDF] his supporters to write their congressmen and senators to tell them to oppose sanctions against the apartheid regime. “The liberal media has for too long suppressed the other side of the story in South Africa,” he said. “It is very important that we stay close enough to South Africa so that it does not fall prey to the clutches of Communism.”
“South Africa is torn by civil unrest, instigated primarily by Communist-sponsored people who are capitalizing on the many legitimate grievances created by apartheid, unemployment and policy confrontations,” Falwell continued.
Finally, we should, if possible, invest in South Africa, because this inevitably improves the standard of living for nonwhites there.
Now is not the time to turn our backs on South Africa. The world has witnessed the Soviets capture nation after nation. They have been particularly aggressive in Africa. South Africa must not be the next victim!
David John Marley notes in Pat Robertson: An American Life that Robertson criticized the ANC because it was “led by communists and was hostile to Israel” and “far too radical an element to ever work with,” while “his campaign literature made similar claims for the need to support the white government.”
The televangelist regularly spoke ill of Mandela’s group and his Christian Broadcasting Network ran segments critical of sanctions against the apartheid government as Congress debated sanctions.
In 1986 The 700 Club did a series of reports on South Africa and the white government’s struggle against the African National Congress. While many socially liberal religious leaders decried the apartheid regime, Robertson openly supported it because he felt that it was a bastion against communism. For Robertson, everything else was secondary to defeating what he saw as the enemies of God. Robertson sent a copy of The 700 Club program to Freedom Council’s Dick Thompson to have it forwarded to Pat Buchanan, who in turn promised to show it to the president. Reagan’s attitude toward South Africa was one of his most controversial foreign policy stands, and Robertson was one of Reagan’s few allies on the policy.
Sam Kleiner mentions that now-Sen. Jeff Flake, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff were also active in lobbying against the anti-apartheid movement:
Jack Abramoff, now a disgraced former lobbyist convicted of fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion, got much of his start from his work with South Africa. Abramoff visited the country following his term as National Chair of the College Republicans in 1983 and met with pro-apartheid student groups linked to the South Africa’s Bureau of Security Services. In 1986, he opened the International Freedom Foundation. Ostensibly a think tank, it was later revealed as a front group for the South African Army as part of “Operation Babushka” meant to undermine Nelson Mandela’s international approval. The group had over “30 young ideologues in offices on G Street in Washington, Johannesburg, London and Brussels” working on propaganda in support of the South African government.
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Like Abramoff, GOP tax guru Grover Norquist became enamored with the conflict in South Africa and went there to extend his support. Norquist ran College Republicans from 1981 to 1983 and went to South Africa in 1985 for a “Youth for Freedom Conference” sponsored by South African businesses. While other college students, such as Barack Obama, had been active in anti-apartheid work, this conference was seeking to bring American and South African conservatives together to end that movement. In his speech there, Norquist said, “The left has no other issue [but apartheid] on campus. Economic issues are losers for them. There are no sexy Soviet colonies anymore.” A few months after the conference, Norquist went to Angola to work with Jonas Savimbi, the rebel leader that Abramoff valorized in his film. Norquist became a ghost-writer for Savimbi’s essay in Policy Review. When he returned to Washington, he was greeted in conservative circles as a “freedom fighter,” and he proudly placed an “I’d rather be killing commies” bumper sticker on his brief case.
A few years later and much further along in the anti-apartheid movement, a young Jeff Flake (now a senator from Arizona) became active in lobbying for South African mining interests in the late 1980s and early ’90s, after returning from his Mormon mission to South Africa. As a graduate student at Brigham Young University, he testified against an anti-apartheid resolution in the Utah State Senate and then became a lobbyist in Washington for Smoak, Shipley and Henry, a lobbying firm specializing in representing the South African mining industry. Flake went on to personally represent the Rossing Uranium plant in Namibia, which had been a major target of anti-apartheid activists for its discriminatory and unsafe practices.
Decades later, these Republican leaders would prefer not to have their adventures in South Africa mentioned. While Abramoff went down in a corruption scandal, Norquist went on to remake himself into a libertarian anti-tax activist, and Flake moved back to Arizona. The anti-communism that motivated the Republican allegiance to South Africa fizzled with the end of the Cold War, but the history of the Republican entanglement with South Africa remains one of the party’s darker episodes.
President Obama can proudly talk about how his first political act was in response to apartheid. While a few Republicans stood against apartheid, much of the Republican Party has nothing to offer about its position at the time but silence. I wouldn’t expect any reflections on apartheid from Abramoff, Flake or Norquist anytime soon.
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This death really bothering me as the world may never see such a person again (at least not in my lifetime). all these celebrities die and people morn them, but I never got caught up in those thing. I love Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson could do no wrong, yet even when they died I took those in stride, but this leaves an empty feeling. not to sure why or why so much. :'(
I can definitely relate to this sentiment.
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This morning I was listening to talk radio and they were comparing Mandela to MLK Jr. And they said that Mandela was allowed to live to a ripe old age, but MLK Jr. was cut down in his prime.
You think if Mandela was in the US he would have lived to do all the amazing and magnificent things that he did?
Hardly likely. Somebody woulda try tuh out he light early o'clock.
Somebody? Yuh mean the powers that be!
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Watch this video to the top of the page in this link. (http://blog.flickr.net/en)
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(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/12/05/article-2519099-19E20BF600000578-889_964x642.jpg)
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Moments that take your breath away, sure Brian cherishes that experience, amazing....
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DECEMBER 9TH, 2013
GALATASARAY PAIR FACE PUNISHMENT FOR NELSON MANDELA TRIBUTE
BY THOMAS HAUTMANN (FOX Sports)
(http://dvsl3w2q45hb8.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Drogba-Eboue.jpg)
Seriously, what is wrong with the world?
Galatasaray’s Didier Drogba and teammate Emmanuel Eboue both face punishment from the Turkish FA for paying homage to Nelson Mandela after Friday’s 2-0 win over Elazigspor.
One night after Mandela’s death, Drogba revealed a shirt with the message “Thank You Madiba,” (Madiba is Mandela’s clan name) while Eboue’s undershirt read “Rest In Peace Nelson Mandela.” Both players of course are African, and this was a show of their appreciation for one of the most important civil rights leaders in world history.
However, the Turkish FA deemed the messages to be the kind of “political expressions” they are currently trying to discourage players and fans from making at games. And despite the fact Drogba and Eboue’s messages were a tribute rather than a manifesto, the pair has been summoned to appear before the Turkish Professional Football Discipline Committee because they had not asked for permission first.
In response, Drogba took to Instagram with this message:
I’d be very interested to see your comments on this…but I’m sorry if I had to I would do it again and again.Nor because of political beliefs but because this man inspired me,a country, a continent, the world!!!!! Thanks again Madiba
http://blog.foxsoccer.com/post/69504556654/galatasaray-pair-face-punishment-for-nelson-mandela?cmpid=tsmfb%3Afscom%3Afoxsoccer
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(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/12/05/article-2519099-19E20BF600000578-889_964x642.jpg)
Have or Has ???
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Moments that take your breath away, sure Brian cherishes that experience, amazing....
Indeed!!! Very proud Mr. Mandela managed to make his way to we small rock in the caribbean
Although the reason they coerce the ailing man to make that long trip does still kinda irk mih
What a life though eh? Born as a simple country boy and at the end of yuh journey,, damn near every world leader on the globe past AND present flying in to pay their respects
Ribbit, Lara get he educate in Fatima...yuh cyah expeck more :devil:
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Moments that take your breath away, sure Brian cherishes that experience, amazing....
Indeed!!! Very proud Mr. Mandela managed to make his way to we small rock in the caribbean
Although the reason they coerce the ailing man to make that long trip does still kinda irk mih
What a life though eh? Born as a simple country boy and at the end of yuh journey,, damn near every world leader on the globe past AND present flying in to pay their respects
Ribbit, Lara get he educate in Fatima...yuh cyah expeck more :devil:
A lot of stories now coming out about his time in prison and his interaction with his jailors and him changing their lives.
Also the cowboy Ronald Reagan deeming him a terrorist because ANC was getting help from Cuba and Russia. Reagan maintaining that Aparthied SA was a friend because they opposed CUBA and Russia.
That man went through real thing and was able to bury any bitterness. How many people can do the same or would have done the same ?
And Ribbit and Dutty that " have" makes the bat legitimate
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ba0HyuECAAAREVp.jpg:large)
Clarence's first tweet in 9 months.
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(http://oroszvilag.hu/userfiles/RuudGullitStopApartheid.jpg)
“I am also an anti-apartheid supporter and I dedicated my World and European Footballer of the Year award to Nelson Mandela, the imprisoned ANC leader.” - Ruud Gullit
“I admired Nelson Mandela for many reasons, but not necessarily just because I’m black. My mother is white, I am her son, and I’ve met a lot of white people I ‘ve admired too. - Ruud Gullit
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“Like many youths in my township, Ga-Rankuwa (30km north-west of Pretoria)…. Soccer was a major part of my growing up. At the time, however, little did I know how big a role soccer would play in influencing the person that I would become. My passion for this game kept me away from undesirable extra-mural activities such as drinking and smoking, and turned me into an avid reader of soccer magazines such as Shoot, an English soccer magazine imported from Britain through the Central News Agencies (CNA). So soccer not only kept me out of trouble but it inspired me to want to be somebody one day. And what I wanted was to become a soccer player of the professional standards one read of about the teams in the English Premier Soccer clubs, such as Manchester United Football Club (MUFC). Bryan Robson, who captained MUFC and England in the eighties and early nineties for about a decade was my role model. I wanted to be him. And I knew that, as MUFC player, it would be obvious for me to be a Bafana-Bafana (South African National Soccer) team member. In fact, at the time when this dream was burning so deep inside me Bafana-Bafana was not yet born because of the Apartheid policies which made a beloved country to be isolated from global challenges of almost all sorts.
It is largely as a result of this boyhood dream to be a professional soccer player that I am presenting this paper. I did not make it to MUFC, my compatriot, Quinton Fortune, Cape Town’s Cape Flats, made it to that Theatre of Dreams, Old Trafford. I did not fail to get there. I made a choice, or rather destiny chose for me to go somewhere else. Some place that when I was dreaming as a boy to go Manchester United never even occurred to my boyish mind that any one in her/his right mind would want to work there.
...
Role of Sports:
Sport played such an important part in the daily lives of Political Prisoners on Robben Island from the late 1960s when they won their negotiations with the Prison Authorities to allow them engage themselves in recreational activities. During the Apartheid era, sports divided the people of South Africa. Further, sports was used as weapon to fight apartheid South Africa through the Sports Boycott Campaigns. “Sport is one sector of our social life that has stood out in performing a unifying role in the years of transformation. Some of the most vividly remembered moments of celebration of our emergent new nationhood were those connected with the achievements of our national sporting teams. South Africans of all backgrounds and persuasions shared in the triumphs, such as the brave performances of our Protea cricket team, that famous World Cup victory of our Springboks rugby team [in 1995], or the glorious lifting of the African Nations Cup by Bafana-Bafana [in 1996], our national soccer team” (Nelson Mandela, Madiba’s Boys: The Stories of Lucas Radebe and Mark Fish, South Africa: New Africa Books, 2001, p.5)
I feel we can keep our deferred dream burning inside ourselves by using our love and passion for sports and particularly soccer for me, to research, write and tell our hidden histories. These histories were left---consciously and unconsciously---out of our formal education curricula, from pre-tertiary schooling to graduate and, astonishingly in some cases, also to postgraduate levels of study. "The tragedy of Africa, in racial and political terms [has been] concentrated in the southern tip of the continent - in South Africa, Namibia, and, in a special sense, Robben Island"(Oliver Reginald Tambo). Robben island history, particularly of political imprisonment, which sweeps about 40 years –1960 to 1991 – is, without doubt, one such untold chronicle(s). Soccer my dream deferred is, for me, a powerful vehicle to narrate, not only the accounts of anti-apartheid struggles. But perhaps more fundamentally for our generation, to write and re-write the histories of our birth country. Because it is certain that a lot of work still needs to be done to close this gap. And particularly by the African people themselves who “are desperately in need of access to histories about themselves---written in clear, unspecialized, demystifying language---that confirm their humanity and show a more balanced picture of [themselves] in South Africa. But also [they must be] convinced about the possibilities of conducting historical research from an African-centred perspective” (Atkins, Keletso E., The Moon Is Dead! Give Us Our Money! The Cultural Origins of an African Work Ethic, Natal, South Africa, 1843-1900).
Shula Marks is right "it is a curious irony that while probably more has been written about South Africa than about any other country in Africa, very little has been written by historians of South Africa about the history of the majority of its population" (Shula Marks, “Historians of South Africa”, in ed. J. D. Fage, Africa Discovers Her Past, London: Oxford University Press, 1970).
“Ruud Gullit: Soccer, Racism and Apartheid”
Introduction
I was introduced to RUUD GULLIT by my passionate reading of my favourite British soccer magazines, Shoot. At the time I did not know his name. It was this quotation that aroused my interest in him: “I am also an anti-apartheid supporter and I dedicated my World and European Footballer of the Year award to Nelson Mandela, the imprisoned ANC leader.”
The year was 1987. The quotation was inserted into a picture of a dreadlocked male singer with a microphone situated just in front of his mouth. His left hand was raised in the form of a fist, which had, over the years, came to represent and be associated with the ‘amandla ngawethu’ (‘power [belongs] to us’) signature and salutation of the African National Congress (ANC). Something about this singer caught my attention. It was not his dreadlocks: “I am aware that many people dislike the name “dreadlocks” because they assume it’s negative. I like, even enjoy, the word “dreadlocks” because whenever I use it I find myself in bemused dialogue with African ancestors on several continents æ those of our people who grew to dislike their own hair because its uniqueness was unappreciated by the flat-haired people who conquered them and who decreed their own physical characteristics the norm.”
But the writing in white and capital letters that was on the front of his black T-shirt: "STOP APARTHEID".
I found this a very bold and striking statement. I mean, having grown up under apartheid, there was no way I could avoid being struck by that pronouncement. Perhaps another reason I found it so powerful and influential was the fact that I, despite my burning desire to be a professional footballer, had undertaken a decision to go to an institution of higher learning, with history, and later on with political science, as my majors.
At the time of seeing that picture in 1987, I did not know who the dreadlocked person was. I just assumed he was a singer because of the manner of his posing and appearance in that photo. And mind you, I was knowledgeable, thanks to the Shoot magazines, about the British footballers, such as Bryan Robson, who was at the time both the captain of his club, MUFC, and his country, England.
Later on, after some years, I got to know the name behind the locks. Gradually I became aware of the man’s impact, not only on the football stadiums of the world, but of his thoughts and comments on what W.E.B. Du Bois considered the problem of the twentieth century, racism. I began asking myself why I did not know him, while I knew almost all of the British soccer players. I am going to argue here that part of the answer to that question can be found in the legacy of British colonialism. In his Address to the Joint Houses of Parliament of the United Kingdom, then - President Nelson Mandela focused on this British colonialism, in which he “gently but firmly reminded Britons yesterday that it was their colonisation in the 18th century that sowed the seeds of white supremacy in South Africa.”
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) fed South African citizens with soccer programs that highlighted English Premier Soccer League on a weekly basis, as if the rest of the footballing world did not exist. It seemed normal and I think we took it for granted that we did not know much about the other football-playing nations, particularly those that Britain did not colonise. Holland for instance, and in this case study for example, Ruud Gullit has a different cultural background to those of the English players. Ruud’s nationality is Dutch, and was the time 1987/1988 season, playing for AC Milan F.C. in the Italian Soccer League, passionately and commonly known as ‘Seria A.’
In 1995 I registered for a MA History Research degree at the University of Natal, Durban. That same year, Gullit made a transfer move that shocked the footballing world. He left the Italian League's Sampdoria Football Club for England's less famous and reputable London-based club, Chelsea F.C. He joined Chelsea as a player. And when their Manager, Glen Hoddle, was appointed to the head coach of the English team, Glen, with the support of Chelsea Football Club, recommended that Ruud be appointed as a Player-Manager. Gullit’s move to London was significant for me in that when Gullit relocated to England, suddenly I had access to the guy and information about him as if he had relocated to South Africa. The media, both print and electronic, provided more coverage about Ruud once he was in London than it was the case when he was in the Netherlands, his country of birth, or while he was playing football in Italy. 1996 saw the publication of his biography, Ruud Gullit: Portrait of A Genius, in England. I purchased it in Durban's Adams Bookshop early in January 1997, that its reading provided me with the much needed escape from the punishing aspect of struggling to write my MA thesis. I bought it because ever since I saw his 1987/88 “STOP APARTHEID” public stand, there was always this fascination within me for this unique footballer. For me, he seemed to stand out of the crowd of his footballing generation, and I was curious to learn more about his background. It was through reading that book that I realised that the 1987 photograph which introduced him to me was in fact the inception in my mind of that doctoral proposal paper. My aim had always been to find out what made Ruud, a footballer, make that courageous stand to support South Africa's struggle against apartheid and our struggle for freedom. I was not disappointed because the reasons were there in his biography, and here is just one that in my opinion is central.
"Gullit’s first confrontation with the hostilities against black people came when he was a 13-year-old schoolboy. With one of his friends, he had been hanging around in a big store. Like many naughty boys of that age, his friend had wanted to pinch a bar of chocolate. After approaching the shelf three or four times, his friend did not have the courage and Ruud decided to leave the shop. As they went through the door, a security man stopped them and took Ruud to the police. He was accused of shoplifting. The other boy was not even asked what he had been up to. Only Ruud Gullit was arrested - because he was black." The argument I am building here is that, from that tender age of 13, Gullit’s conscience was awakened to racial prejudice in his own society, which he said: “That was my first direct experience with racism, and I can tell you, it wasn’t an easy thing to cope with. It was a totally bemusing experience, and I think I grew up a bit quicker as a result of it. It was certainly a turning point for me, because I started to realise what the real world was all about.”
Here, I think, it is also worth reflecting on the composition of his national soccer squad. The Dutch team reached the finals of the World Cup in 1974 and 1978, but did not have a single black Dutch player in the squad. Consequently, in 1982 Ruud Gullit became the first black player to represent his country when he made his international debut on his 19th birthday. This was fundamentally important for, “n Ruud Gullit, black people in the Netherlands, and throughout Europe, had a successful sportsman to look up to. A star who was prepared to fight against Apartheid and to campaign for all the black people in the world.”
For that very reason, for many of us who were born under apartheid, the personality of Ruud Gullit has a very similar significance to that which Gullit himself, writing in 1996 attaches to that of Madiba: "Mandela means so much to me and to other young people in the world. He was arrested in 1962 which is the same year that I was born. It is hard to imagine that someone was in prison almost all the time that I was alive."
http://www.anthroglobe.info/docs/Racism-soccer-South%20Africat.htm
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waiz dis with obama shaking castro hand? which fella kill more people yuh tink? ah mean, with dem drone strikes, 'bama might be ahead of castro.
Moments that take your breath away, sure Brian cherishes that experience, amazing....
Indeed!!! Very proud Mr. Mandela managed to make his way to we small rock in the caribbean
Although the reason they coerce the ailing man to make that long trip does still kinda irk mih
What a life though eh? Born as a simple country boy and at the end of yuh journey,, damn near every world leader on the globe past AND present flying in to pay their respects
Ribbit, Lara get he educate in Fatima...yuh cyah expeck more :devil:
A lot of stories now coming out about his time in prison and his interaction with his jailors and him changing their lives.
Also the cowboy Ronald Reagan deeming him a terrorist because ANC was getting help from Cuba and Russia. Reagan maintaining that Aparthied SA was a friend because they opposed CUBA and Russia.
That man went through real thing and was able to bury any bitterness. How many people can do the same or would have done the same ?
And Ribbit and Dutty that " have" makes the bat legitimate
yeah, dat saying about politics and bedfellows. is a very ugly decision reagan and mags make to countenance apartheid. is like stalin in wwii or saudi arabia today. mandela was one of a kind. ah see bishop tutu on de stage.
a fella post that mandela come out of prison an atheist. is this true?
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(http://wired868.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/kamla-and-heads-of-state.jpg)
Ah bissessar
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Boyce: Pardon cricket rebels
Wed, December 11, 2013 - 12:02 AM
MINISTER OF HEALTH John Boyce has suggested a “proper” pardon for Barbadian cricketers who defied public opinion and took part in the rebel tours of racially divided South Africa in 1982 and 1983.
He said a pardon was in line with the work of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which had preached forgiveness and reconciliation for people who had perpetuated wrongs against society during the apartheid era.
Boyce said the commission operated on the premise that all people failed in one way or another.
He made the comments yesterday as the House of Assembly paid tribute to South African icon Nelson Mandela.
Boyce said that decades after the controversial tour of a country which was under an international sports ban because of its racial segregation policies, the former cricketers still needed to be properly pardoned, recognized and acknowledged.
He said the media should give them “a larger space” to tell their side of the story. He noted that some cricketers had said their presence in South Africa had been a positive influence on the moves to dismantle apartheid, but said other players needed to “have their day in court, so to speak”.
He listed among the sportsmen who had taken part in the tours: Sylvester Clarke, Alvin Greenidge, Collis King, Ezra Moseley, Franklyn Stephenson, Emmerson Trotman, Albert Padmore and Hartley Alleyne.
Also touring South Africa were Gregory Armstrong, who acted as coordinator/manager, and David Murray.
The South African rebel tours were a series of seven cricket tours staged by a number of teams between 1982 and 1990. They were organized and conducted despite the disapproval of national cricket boards and governments, as well as the International Cricket Conference and international organizations including the United Nations.
The tours were the subject of much controversy and remain a sensitive topic throughout the cricket-playing world.
England’s rebel team was banned for three years while Sri Lanka’s was banned for 25 years, but the West Indies players were banned for life. (TY)
http://www.nationnews.com/articles/view/boyce-pardon-cricket-rebels/
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A few comments regarding the above:
1. The "rebels" entered South Africa under the despicable designation "honorary white".
2. From a Trinbagonian perspective, one of the rebels was Bernard Julien.
3. West Indian participation in this lamentable chapter of sporting history occurred between 1982 and 1984, whereas the Aussies and the English were the ones who persisted through 1990.
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(http://wired868.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/kamla-and-heads-of-state.jpg)
Ah bissessar
Was trying to find this other than on somebody FB where I see it yesterday. Kamla have to be a spectacular dunce to wear that to a man memorial service. Just because she in Africa she feel the need to pappyshow sheself and dress up in African garb?? And some bright ass colors too when everybody else wearing something respectably subdued. She clearly more concerned with the trappings of the office rather than the responsible execution of the duties thereof.
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Mandela memorial sign language interpreter a 'fraud'
By Justine Gerardy (AFP) – 51 minutes ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iIw_WX73abjjxouoZmlnOTBkVFFQ?docId=2d7002c2-50dc-4ef8-ac26-8bf485c65f21
Cape Town — The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial was accused Wednesday of being a fake who merely flapped his arms around during speeches.
"He's a complete fraud," Cara Loening, director of Sign Language Education and Development in Cape Town told AFP.
"He wasn't even doing anything, There was not one sign there. Nothing. He was literally flapping his arms around."
The interpreter, who translated eulogies including those of US President Barack Obama and Mandela's grandchildren, looked as if he was "trying to swat a few flies away from his face and his head".
"The deaf community in South Africa are completely outraged and nobody knows who he is," said Loening.
"We can't find a name or anything. The organisations who have accredited interpreters do not know him at all."
The government said it had launched an investigation following the allegations, the results of which would be made public.
Minister Collins Chabane said at a news conference the government was "looking into this matter," but would be unable to conclude its investigations on Wednesday due to other pressing demands ahead of Mandela's funeral.
Attended by nearly 100 sitting and former heads of state, the speeches at Mandela's memorial on Tuesday were supposed to be interpreted into sign language for deaf viewers.
The on-stage interpreter's signing appeared at odds with that of the public broadcaster's signer, who was shown on a small insert box on SABC television screens.
Delphin Hlungwane, a spokeswoman for the Deaf Federation of South Africa, said the man picked for the job was "just gesturing in the air".
"He didn't interpret at all, he had zero percent accuracy," she said.
"International people were watching it as well and they all said he was not using any kind of sign language. They all said they don't understand him," said Hlungwane.
Loening said her organisation was getting mails from around the world "wondering what on earth this man was doing there".
"It's a real embarrassment. It's complete disrespect for the deaf community and for what Nelson Mandela stood for and the support which he gave toward the deaf community."
Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved.
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Mandela memorial sign language interpreter a 'fraud'
By Justine Gerardy (AFP) – 51 minutes ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iIw_WX73abjjxouoZmlnOTBkVFFQ?docId=2d7002c2-50dc-4ef8-ac26-8bf485c65f21
Cape Town — The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial was accused Wednesday of being a fake who merely flapped his arms around during speeches.
"He's a complete fraud," Cara Loening, director of Sign Language Education and Development in Cape Town told AFP.
"He wasn't even doing anything, There was not one sign there. Nothing. He was literally flapping his arms around."
The interpreter, who translated eulogies including those of US President Barack Obama and Mandela's grandchildren, looked as if he was "trying to swat a few flies away from his face and his head".
"The deaf community in South Africa are completely outraged and nobody knows who he is," said Loening.
"We can't find a name or anything. The organisations who have accredited interpreters do not know him at all."
The government said it had launched an investigation following the allegations, the results of which would be made public.
Minister Collins Chabane said at a news conference the government was "looking into this matter," but would be unable to conclude its investigations on Wednesday due to other pressing demands ahead of Mandela's funeral.
Attended by nearly 100 sitting and former heads of state, the speeches at Mandela's memorial on Tuesday were supposed to be interpreted into sign language for deaf viewers.
The on-stage interpreter's signing appeared at odds with that of the public broadcaster's signer, who was shown on a small insert box on SABC television screens.
Delphin Hlungwane, a spokeswoman for the Deaf Federation of South Africa, said the man picked for the job was "just gesturing in the air".
"He didn't interpret at all, he had zero percent accuracy," she said.
"International people were watching it as well and they all said he was not using any kind of sign language. They all said they don't understand him," said Hlungwane.
Loening said her organisation was getting mails from around the world "wondering what on earth this man was doing there".
"It's a real embarrassment. It's complete disrespect for the deaf community and for what Nelson Mandela stood for and the support which he gave toward the deaf community."
Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved.
that fella was standing right next to obama as well. dis is a security fail.
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Supposedly the Crips and Bloods upset about it too...
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(http://wired868.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/kamla-and-heads-of-state.jpg)
Ah bissessar
Was trying to find this other than on somebody FB where I see it yesterday. Kamla have to be a spectacular dunce to wear that to a man memorial service. Just because she in Africa she feel the need to pappyshow sheself and dress up in African garb?? And some bright ass colors too when everybody else wearing something respectably subdued. She clearly more concerned with the trappings of the office rather than the responsible execution of the duties thereof.
Ah doh even know where to start with that picture...this is a woman who is entrusted with the nation's welfare and she she can't even make a prudent decision on what to wear at a memorial service
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She doing women a real disservice with her performance in office. Normally her gender wouldn't merit mention, but given how much play it got when she was first elected... and how she herself feted and continued to fete the occasion, her performance real shameful.
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That just sums up how politicians and how they view themselves in the world. They are so out of touch with the outside world that it is painful. This is easily on par with her going to India and trying to touch the elder's feet. Sickening bunch of people we have who call themselves our leaders. How condescending is it that she chose to dress like that. Let's not even begin to speak about the fact that she is wearing west african clothing at a funeral in South Africa. Sad state of affairs.
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Congo, your point is fair, but I don't see the issue with West African attire. The vast majority of the diaspora is of West African descent. So at least she got something "right". Look at this point , just let Kamla be Kamla. Tell me how many AfroTT women of prominence will wear na African outfit or a Sari. Just let the woman be.
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Congo, your point is fair, but I don't see the issue with West African attire. The vast majority of the diaspora is of West African descent. So at least she got something "right". Look at this point , just let Kamla be Kamla. Tell me how many AfroTT women of prominence will wear na African outfit or a Sari. Just let the woman be.
Deeks nah... Kamla can be Kamla when Kamla on Kamla time. Kamla went there as Prime Minister and was more interested in putting on a fashion spectacle. First off... why did she feel the need to wear a traditional 'African' dress? Is that attire specific to S. Africa, the nation she was visiting? Or does any "African" garb suffice? Did it have any particular resonance with the late Mandela? Or she just trying to be 'in thing'? When you consider the attire of the other women dignitaries who attended, Kamla sticks out like a sore thumb. Style aside, the colors also fail, given the purpose of the occasion.
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Mandela and the Question of Violence
One should never lose sight of why America preaches nonviolence to some people while urging other people to arms.
TA-NEHISI COATES
DEC 11 2013, 3:11 PM ET
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/mandela-and-the-question-of-violence/282255/
I was right to be wrong, while you and your kind were wrong to be right.
—Pierre Courtade
I have the misfortune of being near the end of Tony Judt's Postwar at a moment when of the great figures of our history, Nelson Mandela, has passed. Judt's gaze is relentless. He rejects all grand narratives, skewers Utopianism (mostly in the form of Communism), and eschews the notion that history has definite shape and form. States are mostly amoral. In one breath he will write admiringly of the Nordic countries. In the next he will detail their descent into eugenics in the mid-20th century.
This is what I mean when I say that Judt has an atheist view of history. God does not care about history, and history does not care about humans. There is no triumphalism, in Postwar, about Western values and democracy. What you see is a continent at war with itself. The upholding of democratic values is a constant struggle, often lost—in the colonies, in the Eastern bloc, in Greece, in Portugal, in Spain. Even among the great Western powers there is the sense that no one is immune to the virus of authoritarianism.
There is great humility in Judt's portrait of Europe, a humility that is largely absent from the portrait of the West foisted upon the darker peoples of the world. Non-African writers love to congratulate Nelson Mandela on not becoming another "Mugabe," as though despotism is something Africans are uniquely tempted toward; as though colonialism was not, itself, a form of kleptocratic despotism. I too am happy that Mandela did not become another Mugabe. I am happier still that he did not become—as far as these analogical games go—another Leopold.
This Western arrogance is as broad as it is insidious. There was a well-reported piece in the Times a few days ago on the disappointment that's followed Mandela's presidency. A similar note has been sounded in seemingly every obit and article concerning Mandela's death. It's not so much that these stories shouldn't be written, it's that they shouldn't treated the subject as though a man were biting a dog. That people are shocked that South Africa, almost 20 years out of apartheid, is struggling with fairness and democracy, reflects a particular ignorance, a particular blindness, and a peculiar lack of humility, about our own struggles.
On the great issue of the day, the generations that followed George Washington offered not just disappointment but betrayal. "The unfortunate condition of the people whose labors I in part employed," Washington wrote, "has been the only unavoidable subject of regret." Americans did not simply tolerate this "unfortunate condition," they turned it into the cornerstone of the American economic system. By 1860, 60 percent of all American exports came from cotton produced by slave labor. "Property in man" was, according to Yale historian David Blight, worth some $3.5 billion more than "all of America's manufacturing, all of the railroads, all of the productive capacity of the United States put together."
In short order, Washington's slaveholding descendants went from evincing skepticism about slavery to calling it "a positive good" and "a great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." And they did this while plundering and raiding this continent's aboriginal population. For at least its first 100 years, or perhaps longer, this country was a disappointment, an experiment which—by its own standards of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness—failed miserably. America is not unique. It is the product of imperfect humans. As is South Africa. That people turn to the country of Nelson Mandela and wonder why it hasn't magically transformed itself into a perpetual font of milk and honey is a symptom of our blindness to our common humanity.
Nowhere is that blindness more apparent then in the constant, puerile need to critique Mandela's turn toward violence. The impulse is old. "Why Won't Mandela Renounce Violence?" asked a New York Times column in 1990. Is that what we said to Savimbi? To Mobutu?
Malcolm X understood:
If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
Martin Luther King Jr. agreed:
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems ... But, they asked, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.
As did Mandela. Offered the chance to be free by the avowed white supremacist P.W. Botha if he would renounce violence, Mandela replied, “Let him renounce violence.” Americans should understand this. Violent resistance to tyranny, violent defense of one's body, is not simply a political strategy in our country, it is taken as a basic human right. Our own revolution was purchased with the blood of 22,000 nascent American dead. Dissenters were tarred and feathered. American independence and American power has never rested on nonviolence, but on the willingness to do great—at times existential—violence.
Perhaps we would argue that Malcolm X, Mandela, and King were wrong, and that states should be immune to ethics of nonviolence. But even our rhetoric toward freedom movements which employ violence is inconsistent. Mandela and the ANC were "terrorists." The Hungarian revolutionaries of 1956, the Northern Alliance opposing the Taliban, the Libyans opposing Gaddafi were "freedom fighters." Thomas Friedman hopes for an "Arab Mandela" one moment, while the next telling those same Arabs to "suck on this." The point here is not that nonviolence is bunk, but that it is is bunk when invoked by those who rule by the gun.
In the shadow of our conversation, one sees a constant, indefatigable specter which has dogged us from birth. For the most of American history, very few of our institutions believed that black people were entitled to the rights of other Americans. Included in this is the right of self-defense. Nonviolence worked because it conceded that right in the pursuit of other rights. But one should never lose sight of the precise reasons why America preaches nonviolence to some people while urging other people to arms.
Jimmy Baldwin knew:
The real reason that nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes—I am not speaking now of its racial value, another matter altogether—is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened. One wishes they would say so more often.
The questions which dog us about Mandela's legacy, his relationship to other African autocrats, the great imperfections which remain in his country, and his insistence on the right of self-defense ultimately say more about us than they do about Mandela. "I cannot sell my birthright," Mandela responded to calls for him to renounce violence. "Nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free."
This is a universal appeal, and our inability to see such universality in those who are black, or in those who oppose our stated interests, reveal the borders of all our grand talk about democratic values. That is the next frontier. A serious embrace of universality. A rejection of selective morality.
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Mandela memorial sign language interpreter a 'fraud'
By Justine Gerardy (AFP) – 51 minutes ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iIw_WX73abjjxouoZmlnOTBkVFFQ?docId=2d7002c2-50dc-4ef8-ac26-8bf485c65f21
Cape Town — The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial was accused Wednesday of being a fake who merely flapped his arms around during speeches.
"He's a complete fraud," Cara Loening, director of Sign Language Education and Development in Cape Town told AFP.
"He wasn't even doing anything, There was not one sign there. Nothing. He was literally flapping his arms around."
The interpreter, who translated eulogies including those of US President Barack Obama and Mandela's grandchildren, looked as if he was "trying to swat a few flies away from his face and his head".
"The deaf community in South Africa are completely outraged and nobody knows who he is," said Loening.
"We can't find a name or anything. The organisations who have accredited interpreters do not know him at all."
The government said it had launched an investigation following the allegations, the results of which would be made public.
Minister Collins Chabane said at a news conference the government was "looking into this matter," but would be unable to conclude its investigations on Wednesday due to other pressing demands ahead of Mandela's funeral.
Attended by nearly 100 sitting and former heads of state, the speeches at Mandela's memorial on Tuesday were supposed to be interpreted into sign language for deaf viewers.
The on-stage interpreter's signing appeared at odds with that of the public broadcaster's signer, who was shown on a small insert box on SABC television screens.
Delphin Hlungwane, a spokeswoman for the Deaf Federation of South Africa, said the man picked for the job was "just gesturing in the air".
"He didn't interpret at all, he had zero percent accuracy," she said.
"International people were watching it as well and they all said he was not using any kind of sign language. They all said they don't understand him," said Hlungwane.
Loening said her organisation was getting mails from around the world "wondering what on earth this man was doing there".
"It's a real embarrassment. It's complete disrespect for the deaf community and for what Nelson Mandela stood for and the support which he gave toward the deaf community."
Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved.
that fella was standing right next to obama as well. dis is a security fail.
apparently this fella did the sign language at a previous speech given by zuma. :rotfl: :rotfl:
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Mandela and the Question of Violence
One should never lose sight of why America preaches nonviolence to some people while urging other people to arms.
TA-NEHISI COATES
DEC 11 2013, 3:11 PM ET
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/mandela-and-the-question-of-violence/282255/
I was right to be wrong, while you and your kind were wrong to be right.
—Pierre Courtade
I have the misfortune of being near the end of Tony Judt's Postwar at a moment when of the great figures of our history, Nelson Mandela, has passed. Judt's gaze is relentless. He rejects all grand narratives, skewers Utopianism (mostly in the form of Communism), and eschews the notion that history has definite shape and form. States are mostly amoral. In one breath he will write admiringly of the Nordic countries. In the next he will detail their descent into eugenics in the mid-20th century.
This is what I mean when I say that Judt has an atheist view of history. God does not care about history, and history does not care about humans. There is no triumphalism, in Postwar, about Western values and democracy. What you see is a continent at war with itself. The upholding of democratic values is a constant struggle, often lost—in the colonies, in the Eastern bloc, in Greece, in Portugal, in Spain. Even among the great Western powers there is the sense that no one is immune to the virus of authoritarianism.
There is great humility in Judt's portrait of Europe, a humility that is largely absent from the portrait of the West foisted upon the darker peoples of the world. Non-African writers love to congratulate Nelson Mandela on not becoming another "Mugabe," as though despotism is something Africans are uniquely tempted toward; as though colonialism was not, itself, a form of kleptocratic despotism. I too am happy that Mandela did not become another Mugabe. I am happier still that he did not become—as far as these analogical games go—another Leopold.
This Western arrogance is as broad as it is insidious. There was a well-reported piece in the Times a few days ago on the disappointment that's followed Mandela's presidency. A similar note has been sounded in seemingly every obit and article concerning Mandela's death. It's not so much that these stories shouldn't be written, it's that they shouldn't treated the subject as though a man were biting a dog. That people are shocked that South Africa, almost 20 years out of apartheid, is struggling with fairness and democracy, reflects a particular ignorance, a particular blindness, and a peculiar lack of humility, about our own struggles.
On the great issue of the day, the generations that followed George Washington offered not just disappointment but betrayal. "The unfortunate condition of the people whose labors I in part employed," Washington wrote, "has been the only unavoidable subject of regret." Americans did not simply tolerate this "unfortunate condition," they turned it into the cornerstone of the American economic system. By 1860, 60 percent of all American exports came from cotton produced by slave labor. "Property in man" was, according to Yale historian David Blight, worth some $3.5 billion more than "all of America's manufacturing, all of the railroads, all of the productive capacity of the United States put together."
In short order, Washington's slaveholding descendants went from evincing skepticism about slavery to calling it "a positive good" and "a great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." And they did this while plundering and raiding this continent's aboriginal population. For at least its first 100 years, or perhaps longer, this country was a disappointment, an experiment which—by its own standards of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness—failed miserably. America is not unique. It is the product of imperfect humans. As is South Africa. That people turn to the country of Nelson Mandela and wonder why it hasn't magically transformed itself into a perpetual font of milk and honey is a symptom of our blindness to our common humanity.
Nowhere is that blindness more apparent then in the constant, puerile need to critique Mandela's turn toward violence. The impulse is old. "Why Won't Mandela Renounce Violence?" asked a New York Times column in 1990. Is that what we said to Savimbi? To Mobutu?
Malcolm X understood:
If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
Martin Luther King Jr. agreed:
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems ... But, they asked, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.
As did Mandela. Offered the chance to be free by the avowed white supremacist P.W. Botha if he would renounce violence, Mandela replied, “Let him renounce violence.” Americans should understand this. Violent resistance to tyranny, violent defense of one's body, is not simply a political strategy in our country, it is taken as a basic human right. Our own revolution was purchased with the blood of 22,000 nascent American dead. Dissenters were tarred and feathered. American independence and American power has never rested on nonviolence, but on the willingness to do great—at times existential—violence.
Perhaps we would argue that Malcolm X, Mandela, and King were wrong, and that states should be immune to ethics of nonviolence. But even our rhetoric toward freedom movements which employ violence is inconsistent. Mandela and the ANC were "terrorists." The Hungarian revolutionaries of 1956, the Northern Alliance opposing the Taliban, the Libyans opposing Gaddafi were "freedom fighters." Thomas Friedman hopes for an "Arab Mandela" one moment, while the next telling those same Arabs to "suck on this." The point here is not that nonviolence is bunk, but that it is is bunk when invoked by those who rule by the gun.
In the shadow of our conversation, one sees a constant, indefatigable specter which has dogged us from birth. For the most of American history, very few of our institutions believed that black people were entitled to the rights of other Americans. Included in this is the right of self-defense. Nonviolence worked because it conceded that right in the pursuit of other rights. But one should never lose sight of the precise reasons why America preaches nonviolence to some people while urging other people to arms.
Jimmy Baldwin knew:
The real reason that nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes—I am not speaking now of its racial value, another matter altogether—is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened. One wishes they would say so more often.
The questions which dog us about Mandela's legacy, his relationship to other African autocrats, the great imperfections which remain in his country, and his insistence on the right of self-defense ultimately say more about us than they do about Mandela. "I cannot sell my birthright," Mandela responded to calls for him to renounce violence. "Nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free."
This is a universal appeal, and our inability to see such universality in those who are black, or in those who oppose our stated interests, reveal the borders of all our grand talk about democratic values. That is the next frontier. A serious embrace of universality. A rejection of selective morality.
it is an empirical fact that post-colonial africa has had some of the worst leaders/governance out of any region. comparing mugabe to leopold - wtf?! leopold wasn't killing he own - mugabe is.
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it is an empirical fact that post-colonial africa has had some of the worst leaders/governance out of any region. comparing mugabe to leopold - wtf?! leopold wasn't killing he own - mugabe is.
I think you might want to read that paragraph again. Your understanding of it seems muddled. The comparison is between a petty despot, and a genocidai tyrant. Regardless, am I more dead if one of my own kills me rather than a foreigner?
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it is an empirical fact that post-colonial africa has had some of the worst leaders/governance out of any region. comparing mugabe to leopold - wtf?! leopold wasn't killing he own - mugabe is.
as a corollary Bitter's point, this notion of killing 'your his people' is a tired neocon refrain steeped in tribalism/racism. and is often used an an excuse to launch than an aggressive action against self-same people.
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She doing women a real disservice with her performance in office. Normally her gender wouldn't merit mention, but given how much play it got when she was first elected... and how she herself feted and continued to fete the occasion, her performance real shameful.
*sigh* as a woman, ah real shame......
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PRAGUE (AP) — Many world leaders have said they wouldn't miss Nelson Mandela's funeral for anything, but Czech Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok isn't among them.
Rusnok's conversation with Defense Minister Vlastimil Picek in parliament on Friday was broadcast by the Czech public television news channel.
When Picek reminded him that President Milos Zeman might be unable to fly because of a knee injury, Rusnok reacted with a vulgar term.
Addressing his companion by the Czech equivalent of "dude," Rusnok said: "I'm dreading that I will have to go."
He complained that he had other plans — a lunch and a dinner— and that a South Africa trip would be too long.
The recording became widely popular in local media Saturday and on the Internet.
CZECH PREMIER NOT HAPPY TO ATTEND MANDELA FUNERAL
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/czech-premier-not-happy-attend-mandela-funeral
"I apologize for those words," Rusnok said in a statement sent to The Associated Press by his spokeswoman Jana Jaburkova on Saturday. "It wasn't right to use such terms in connection with the death of Nelson Mandela."
Rusnok said it would be difficult for him to find time for unexpected events in his busy December schedule. He said it will be decided in the next few days who will represent the Czech Republic at Mandela's Dec. 15 funeral.
Mandela visited Prague in 1992 to meet with then-President Vaclav Havel who had led the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ended 40 years of communism in his country. The two leaders had both spent years in prison for opposing repressive regimes before becoming presidents. They reportedly became good friends.
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America does not rule by the gun, though it has at times in its history. Malcolm X and MLK also got it wrong... there is folly in absolutes, so positing a nuanced position is not the same as hypocrisy as they suggest.
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America does not rule by the gun, though it has at times in its history. Malcolm X and MLK also got it wrong... there is folly in absolutes, so positing a nuanced position is not the same as hypocrisy as they suggest.
What does America rule by?
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What does America rule by?
Ask yourself that.
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it is an empirical fact that post-colonial africa has had some of the worst leaders/governance out of any region. comparing mugabe to leopold - wtf?! leopold wasn't killing he own - mugabe is.
I think you might want to read that paragraph again. Your understanding of it seems muddled. The comparison is between a petty despot, and a genocidai tyrant. Regardless, am I more dead if one of my own kills me rather than a foreigner?
i disagree with the writer's claim that colonialism and despotism are somehow comparable. he's stretching here, trying to link the two but they are different. which is why this comparison between mugabe and leopold is :bs:. it only work if you can't appreciate the difference between a colonial venture and a despotic regime. i'm guessing you see them as similar.
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Also, not making any excuses for the African despots who screwed up bigtime. But many off them were working hand in glove with the former colonial masters. It was in many cases, he might be a dictator, by he serve our interest, i.e Mobutu, Savimbi, Sadat and his predecessor. The French has their hands in almost all the Afro-francophone business. That is why the President of Rwanda don't want nothing to do with them. They had a hand in Cote D'Ivoire debacle. Then their are issues in Chad, Niger, Burkina. I may have a french last name, but I don't trust Francois from Paris.
Then comparing African leader to Hitler is a way of trying to say, " you see..... black leaders are just as bad, or worse" It is THE way of absolving themselves of their past actions in the colonies.
One of the ironies of colonialism and post independence is the rule of law and order. When the Brits, French, Portuguese ruled, they governed with an iron fist to stifle dissent and criminal behaviour. When they left the new govts tended to relax the rule of law because of the "heavy handed " use by "massa". But in my opinion, this is where law and order tended to fall apart. To me criminal activity increased in almost all the countries. Most government were unable to deal with it.
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America does not rule by the gun, though it has at times in its history. Malcolm X and MLK also got it wrong... there is folly in absolutes, so positing a nuanced position is not the same as hypocrisy as they suggest.
What does America rule by?
Drone strike
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it is an empirical fact that post-colonial africa has had some of the worst leaders/governance out of any region. comparing mugabe to leopold - wtf?! leopold wasn't killing he own - mugabe is.
The very word empirical means that there is not enough information to make a sound judgement. Many of post colonial Africa's leaders were trained or propped up by western colonial interests to protect access to wealth.
You must dig deeper into the history of fellas like Idi Amin, Mobutu Seseko and even Mugabe in the early days. Things will make more sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30Wgxl85wms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30Wgxl85wms)
Look the short version...:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ46gIxo4CM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ46gIxo4CM)
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America does not rule by the gun, though it has at times in its history. Malcolm X and MLK also got it wrong... there is folly in absolutes, so positing a nuanced position is not the same as hypocrisy as they suggest.
So is the gun just in the holster or hidden behind the trenchcoat ?
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So is the gun just in the holster or hidden behind the trenchcoat ?
There have been times in American history where that has been the case, the Spanish-American war ('gunboat diplomacy', Roosevelt's "Big Stick" policy etc.), the Bay of Pigs fiasco and you could add Iraq to that list if you want. For the most part however America rules more from a bully pulpit, which is a far different thing from ruling by the gun. Usually America uses economic or diplomatic pressure to get its way, but the US doesn't rule by telling other countries around the world "do what we say or we will bomb/attack you" that is the equivalent of ruling "by the gun" and that is nonsense. Same for comparing military action abroad with armed violence at home.
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A funeral for Mandela, and no Desmond Tutu. Too raw for the palate. Dat ain't right!
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A funeral for Mandela, and no Desmond Tutu. Too raw for the palate. Dat ain't right!
ah hear desmond tutu excuse heself from de proceedings. and then he change he mind and attend the funeral. tuttle-bey.
it is an empirical fact that post-colonial africa has had some of the worst leaders/governance out of any region. comparing mugabe to leopold - wtf?! leopold wasn't killing he own - mugabe is.
The very word empirical means that there is not enough information to make a sound judgement. Many of post colonial Africa's leaders were trained or propped up by western colonial interests to protect access to wealth.
You must dig deeper into the history of fellas like Idi Amin, Mobutu Seseko and even Mugabe in the early days. Things will make more sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30Wgxl85wms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30Wgxl85wms)
Look the short version...:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ46gIxo4CM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ46gIxo4CM)
what dictionary yuh use dey? ??? 80% of de strongmen from post-colonial africa were predatory dictators. still, they had a few that were "benevolent" - like the fella from tanzania. which pose de question, if it was de white man pulling de strings why any of them was benevolent at all? the reason is de premise is :bs: to start.
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they had a few that were "benevolent" - like the fella from tanzania.
Julius Nyrere.
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Lawd! ah know mash up thread does be par for de course in here
But oh gorm, is de man death thread allyuh decide to paint with ah 3-coil steamer?
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Lawd! ah know mash up thread does be par for de course in here
But oh gorm, is de man death thread allyuh decide to paint with ah 3-coil steamer?
Selah!
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Good sense prevails in Turkey. Drogba and Eboue safe.
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So is the gun just in the holster or hidden behind the trenchcoat ?
There have been times in American history where that has been the case, the Spanish-American war ('gunboat diplomacy', Roosevelt's "Big Stick" policy etc.), the Bay of Pigs fiasco and you could add Iraq to that list if you want. For the most part however America rules more from a bully pulpit, which is a far different thing from ruling by the gun. Usually America uses economic or diplomatic pressure to get its way, but the US doesn't rule by telling other countries around the world "do what we say or we will bomb/attack you" that is the equivalent of ruling "by the gun" and that is nonsense. Same for comparing military action abroad with armed violence at home.
Gotta disagree - American armed intervention, be it through state-sponsored assassinations (such as in the DRC, executing the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba) or through the numerous invasions during the Cold War (Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, etc) or through sponsored coup d'etats against democratically elected leaders (Guatemala, Chilé, Venezuela recently) has always been a central part of America's foreign policy. They care not for your politics, only that you support American interests, be they business or politics.
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(http://wired868.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/kamla-and-heads-of-state.jpg)
Ah bissessar
Was trying to find this other than on somebody FB where I see it yesterday. Kamla have to be a spectacular dunce to wear that to a man memorial service. Just because she in Africa she feel the need to pappyshow sheself and dress up in African garb?? And some bright ass colors too when everybody else wearing something respectably subdued. She clearly more concerned with the trappings of the office rather than the responsible execution of the duties thereof.
hahaha She really looking schupid in truth.
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Gotta disagree - American armed intervention, be it through state-sponsored assassinations (such as in the DRC, executing the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba) or through the numerous invasions during the Cold War (Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, etc) or through sponsored coup d'etats against democratically elected leaders (Guatemala, Chilé, Venezuela recently) has always been a central part of America's foreign policy. They care not for your politics, only that you support American interests, be they business or politics.
Exaggerate much? Of those incidents listed, only Grenada counts as an invasion. Both Korea and Vietnam were wars fought for the purpose of assisting allies. As for the claims of sponsored coup d'etats... you would have had a better chance arguing Iran, the DR, Cuba etc... which, in any event was already covered by my preface that "there have been times in American history..."
At any rate I don't think you appreciate what "ruling by the gun" means.
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Gotta disagree - American armed intervention, be it through state-sponsored assassinations (such as in the DRC, executing the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba) or through the numerous invasions during the Cold War (Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, etc) or through sponsored coup d'etats against democratically elected leaders (Guatemala, Chilé, Venezuela recently) has always been a central part of America's foreign policy. They care not for your politics, only that you support American interests, be they business or politics.
Exaggerate much? Of those incidents listed, only Grenada counts as an invasion. Both Korea and Vietnam were wars fought for the purpose of assisting allies. As for the claims of sponsored coup d'etats... you would have had a better chance arguing Iran, the DR, Cuba etc... which, in any event was already covered by my preface that "there have been times in American history..."
At any rate I don't think you appreciate what "ruling by the gun" means.
What do you mean by ruling by the gun? To me it represents compliance through state-backed violence.
American invasions/armed conflicts since WWII;
1947 - troops land to reinstate Greek monarchy in Greece
1950 - US puts down revolt in Puerto Rico
1950 - Korean War (it was to stop communism, not 'assisting allies' per se, who were cut-throat dictatorial ass-hats)
1950 - fleet prevents Chinese attacks on Taiwan (thus protecting the Western-backed losers of the Chinese civil war, the ROC)
1955 - military advisors land in Vietnam
1959 - Vietnam (again propping up ass-hat dictators to prevent spread of communism)
1962 - Marine Expeditionary forces land in Thailand to prevent communism spreading
1962 - Kennedy quarantines Cuba, Cuban missile crisis
1962 - America starts supporting/(bombing in 1968) Laos
1965 - America invades Dominican Republic, crushing popular uprising to reinstate democratically elected leader and placing CIA-favoured leader in his place
1970 - Cambodia (more anti-communism attacks)
1973 - America supports Israel during Yom Kippur War
1981 - "military training" in El Salvador
1983 - America invades Grenada
1986 - America strikes Libya in response to his supporting terrorist bombings
1987 - America retaliates by attacking Iranian oil platforms for an attack on an oil tanker (bunch of retaliations around this period)
1988 - Troops sent to Honduras after (socialist) Nicaragua threatens them
1988-90 - America deposes Manuel Noriega from Head of State of Panama, having been on the CIA payroll a decade earlier (who helped him rise to the position in the first place)
1989 - America helps defeat a coup attempt in the Philippines, for once preserving democracy
1990-1991 - Operation Desert Storm (First Gulf War)
1992-2003 - US/UK enforce no-fly zones over Iraq
1992-1995 - US troops sent to Somalia
1993-1995 - US enforces no-fly zone over Bosnia
1994-1995 - US troops restore democratically-elected Haitian President 3 years after coup
1995 - America bombs Bosnian Serb army
1996 - America protects Kurds in Kuwait
1998 - US/UK bomb Iraq
1999 - US/NATO bomb Serbia and Serb positions in Kosovo
2001 - Invasion of Afghanistan
2001 - "War on Terror" involves increased military presence in the Middle East, especially Yemen
2003 - Invasion of Iraq
2004 - Drone attacks in Pakistan start
2004 - US increases presence in Georgia, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen and Eritrea
2011 - US bombs Libya during civil war
Non-military 'rule by gun' - There's a truck load more but I got bored writing it all down
1950s - Due to threats to US control of Chilean resources, CIA character-assassinates and impedes leftist candidates in Presidential elections
1952 - First attempt by CIA to overthrow Guatemalan (democratically elected, but left-leaning) president in a coup d'etat
1953 - CIA sends death threats to leading communists in Guatemala
1954 - CIA overthrows Guatemalan President in coup d'état, installing a military junta
1958 - US supported Chilean government lowers tariffs, destroying domestic markets which are flooded with American products. US govenment increases funding ($130 mil) to prevent policy change. They interfere with Chilean elections for the next 7 years
1961 - CIA helps assassinate President of Dominican Republic
1964 - CIA sets up in Bolivia, helps launch coup d'état, gives $1,000,000 dollars (about $6.7 million today) to election campaign and aids in brutal suppression of opposition over the next 5 years
1964 - Aids coup d'état in Brazil, replaces democratically elected president with military dictatorship due to non-support of Bay of Pigs. Also character-assassinates president due to threat of nationalising the phone company of Brazil (who's CEO was friends with director of CIA)
1965 - President Johnson tries to justify invasion of Guatemala, fails
1966 - CIA takes steps to prevent Cheddi Jagan from winning election in Guyana (he finally wins, in 1992....)
1967 - CIA helps capture and kill Che Guevara
1970 - Leftist wins Chilean election, US Government funds everything possible to overthrow and discredit Allende, from bribing officials, supporting guerillas, cutting all aid, funding media, bribing labour unions and eventually a coup
1973 - Chilean coup, supported by CIA, brings Pinochet to power. US supports military regime while it brutalises and murders its own citizens. CIA even has a part in the death of 4 American citizens.
1980s - CIA helps fight opposition to dictatorial government, thwarts coup in 1983
1981 - Nixon sets CIA up in Nicaragua to fund the Contras, started disrupting government by blowing up bridges and other infrastructure, in order to undermine Saninistas (who were perceived to be communists, even Congress didn't think they were communists)
1983 - CIA starts assassinating Nicaraguan officials as part of psychological warfare, also dabbles in drug-trading
1984 - CIA sets up in Honduras, trains torturers
1984 - Congress prevents funding of Contras in Nicaragua, International Court of Justice demands US pay reparations, US refuses
1987 - CIA helps interrogate and torture "suspected leftists" in Honduras
1993 - CIA helps overthrow Elías, president of Guatemala (who had suspended the constitution and attempted a self-coup)
1995 - America/CIA implicated in Human Rights report on Honduras kidnapping, torture, and attempted murder of 6 student activists
here's a wiki page for wars involving US - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States
CIA wiki page has a box at the bottom, if you "show" the CIA box, you an see activities by geographical locale. There's a lot to get through
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As I said... you have no clue what 'ruling by the gun' means. And all yuh Wikipedia research didn't help yuh figure it out either.
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As I said... you have no clue what 'ruling by the gun' means. And all yuh Wikipedia research didn't help yuh figure it out either.
Being rude doesn't help - I stated what I understood as 'ruling by the gun' means, if you have a different definition then tell me what you mean and we can talk, rather than make sarcastic comments.
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Being rude doesn't help - I stated what I understood as 'ruling by the gun' means, if you have a different definition then tell me what you mean and we can talk, rather than make sarcastic comments.
There was nothing at all 'rude' about my comments... if it makes you feel better, next time I will post pictures of kittens, and bubbles... or maybe kittens in bubbles, to help make the message more palatable for your delicate tastes.
As for the substantive question... Ruling by the gun:
Ruling- and imposition of will or reign
by the gun- utilizing force, duress or threat thereof.
In the vast majority of situations you cite these were transnational disputes that descended into war. These have almost uniformly been entered into by the US at the behest of an ally. As such it was assistance to the allied party rather than the US unilaterally imposing its will on the situation. Whether you or anyone else agrees with the politics or faction supported by the US' involvement it's not the US that was ruling, nor the will of the US being imposed. Of course US interests were likely achieved by their involvement, but that's separate from the analysis involving any imposition of will.
Just to illustrate how pointless your prior post was... you cite "1999 - US/NATO bomb Serbia and Serb positions in Kosovo" and "1992-2003 - US/UK enforce no-fly zones over Iraq" as purported examples of the US ruling by the gun. These are just two in a long line of irrelevant, tangential entries offered in what is clearly a 'cut and paste' job. They add nothing but empty space to the discussion. Yet you take issue with my comment underscoring just that... a waste of everybody's time.
Other proffers are more relevant and compelling, such as the aforementioned Bay of Pigs, Lumumba assassination along with "1954 - CIA overthrows Guatemalan President in coup d'état, installing a military junta" and "1961 - CIA helps assassinate President of Dominican Republic."
But all that being said, none of these can conclusively be offered as examples of "the US ruling by the gun" seeing that many of them occurred some 30-40 plus years ago. It has already been conceded that many such PAST actions occurred. The same cannot be said about the present. Even Bush's misguided war, the most recent relevant example, is already 10 years and three presidential administrations removed.
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By your definition America certainly ruled by the gun during the Cold War, my examples clearly illustrate situations where American interests were forced on nations through use of force, be it by armed intervention, military support to adversaries, or CIA involvement in domestic affairs. Again you're sinking down to insults instead of being civil - your complete lack of manners is not an issue on my end mate - if you can't have a civil discussion you need to look at yourself rather than attack me.
In terms of the modern era, involvement in Pakistan, Yemen and Oman clearly shows in my view that America still continues to coerce nations to its will through use of violence and/or covert operations. Military backing of Israel continues the status quo in an internationally illegal occupation of Palestine (UN Security Council Resolution 478, International Court of Justice Ruling 9th July 2004), whilst the Snowden files show a willingness of the US Government to coerce, illegally tap, and otherwise covertly undermine regimes from both dictatorial and democratic spectrums.
Let me be clear - I'm not arguing that America is necessarily bad, certainly they're clearly better than Putin's 'Mafiocracy', China's One-state Oligarchy and a whole host of more undesirable nations, but to assume that America lives on goodwill is to ignore it's international relations history with the world. If you don't understand how America's past actions inform how nations, terrorist organisations, and individuals interpret and view America's current actions then I am suggesting that you might not be getting the whole picture. American foreign policy has historically, and currently, relied too much (in my opinion) on "hard power" (that being through covert operations and military action) than "soft power" (that gained through socio-cultural influence and diplomatic routes).
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This will be my last response.
The statement made in the MLK/Malcolm X quote was that America lives by the gun. Even if true then, it's demonstrably not true now, and acts of warfare where two nations are at war, is not a legitimate example of America living "by the gun", especially where the US was not the aggressor. This is what I disagreed with that then spawned the discussion. All this tangential talk about how America's past may inform how terrorists view the US today etc... I haven't the faintest clue what that has to do with the discussion. In rhetorical terms that would best be described as a 'red herring.'
At no point did I hint at or suggest... let alone state that "America lives on goodwill." That you would read what I state and derive that conclusion from my statements is a clear indictment of your comprehension. See, that is an insult. Everything else that preceded it, not an insult. Do with it what you will... moving on.
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Agreed, Merry Christmas :)
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Here's what has been neglected in the discourse regarding Kamla's attire at Madiba's memorial service.
(http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/incoming/article1757661.ece/RESIZED/Big/emancipation9.JPG)
(http://news.gov.tt/archive/files.php?file=EMANCIPATION_2_620655644.jpg)
(http://www.fascinatingnigeriamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Trinidada_tobago.jpg)
(http://rhodabharath.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/kamla_persad_bissessar_3_2.jpg?w=562)
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3GZLQSCVhJ8/UfkGTWwZrLI/AAAAAAAAp5A/xRVmUxaRlkU/s400/kameman.jpg)
There are others ... including a captivating pink.
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She doing women a real disservice with her performance in office. Normally her gender wouldn't merit mention, but given how much play it got when she was first elected... and how she herself feted and continued to fete the occasion, her performance real shameful.
*sigh* as a woman, ah real shame......
Browns, I'm surprised you agree with this assertion.
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Agreed, Merry Christmas :)
Merry Christmas :beermug:
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She doing women a real disservice with her performance in office. Normally her gender wouldn't merit mention, but given how much play it got when she was first elected... and how she herself feted and continued to fete the occasion, her performance real shameful.
*sigh* as a woman, ah real shame......
Browns, I'm surprised you agree with this assertion.
Why?? :-\
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Images and dress choices by the honourable Pm appears to me as nothing of substance. There is no merit in her actions to suggest that the wolf dress in sheep's clothing has a bite. To me it is merely propaganda - probable aim to appease an ethnic population at home. Very much like in the past few weeks one newspaper has kept publishing pictures,of her with kids almost daily- the propaganda machine around this government is unreal.
This is another example of actions that are filled with 'sound and fury signifying nothing'
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Why?? :-\
You have time.
A better question would be "Is her performance in office a credit to women?" This is how her election was hailed and how she has continued to champion it. Not even close.
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Why?? :-\
You have time.
A better question would be "Is her performance in office a credit to women?" This is how her election was hailed and how she has continued to champion it. Not even close.
Let's see how de fashion discussion turn out. It going good.
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She doing women a real disservice with her performance in office. Normally her gender wouldn't merit mention, but given how much play it got when she was first elected... and how she herself feted and continued to fete the occasion, her performance real shameful.
*sigh* as a woman, ah real shame......
Browns, I'm surprised you agree with this assertion.
Why?? :-\
Because it's nonsense.
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She doing women a real disservice with her performance in office. Normally her gender wouldn't merit mention, but given how much play it got when she was first elected... and how she herself feted and continued to fete the occasion, her performance real shameful.
*sigh* as a woman, ah real shame......
Browns, I'm surprised you agree with this assertion.
Why?? :-\
Because it's nonsense.
This is the worst PM ever to govern these twin island states. It doesn't help that she and her croonies from time to time try to play up some of the foolishness that is going on based on the fact that she is a woman.
I have a sneaky feeling Trinbagonians eh want another female PM anytime soon whether or not the person is far more competent than this clown.
I repeat..........mih shame, shame, shame.....
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I'll happily address this when time permits. Looking fwd to it.
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This is the worst PM ever to govern these twin island states. It doesn't help that she and her croonies from time to time try to play up some of the foolishness that is going on based on the fact that she is a woman.
I have a sneaky feeling Trinbagonians eh want another female PM anytime soon whether or not the person is far more competent than this clown.
I repeat..........mih shame, shame, shame.....
I guess we still waiting fuh Attentionseeker, as he's so aptly called, to find time to come back and address this. Either he eh have time (the volumes of posts in the last three weeks notwithstanding), or he can't substantiate his claim that it is "nonsense" and trying to slink aways. But then again... dis Week of Prayer (http://www.trinidadexpress.com/videos/NATIONAL-WEEK-OF-PRAYER--241912831.html) crime plan Kamla and dem might end up being ah masterstroke, if de good Lord actually decide to intervene.
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This is the worst PM ever to govern these twin island states. It doesn't help that she and her croonies from time to time try to play up some of the foolishness that is going on based on the fact that she is a woman.
I have a sneaky feeling Trinbagonians eh want another female PM anytime soon whether or not the person is far more competent than this clown.
I repeat..........mih shame, shame, shame.....
I guess we still waiting fuh Attentionseeker, as he's so aptly called, to find time to come back and address this. Either he eh have time (the volumes of posts in the last three weeks notwithstanding), or he can't substantiate his claim that it is "nonsense" and trying to slink aways. But then again... dis Week of Prayer (http://www.trinidadexpress.com/videos/NATIONAL-WEEK-OF-PRAYER--241912831.html) crime plan Kamla and dem might end up being ah masterstroke, if de good Lord actually decide to intervene.
Hmmmm, what a conceptually intriguing Bakesian contribution in light of this post:
Tirerais, from a Bakesian worldview, this exchange is the epitome of politeness. Be happy that he was not polite. ;)
Just Cool said something about you some months back and I'm starting to realize it's true... actually is a while now I realize it's true. For a grown ass man, with damn near adult, if not adult children, you love to engage in little gyul behavior. You forever throwing basket like ah little instigating-ass bitch. Is like you take over wherer West Coast leave off. Doh bother responding.
:whip: :whip: :whip: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
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That stated, the frame of my position was comfortably scribbled on a pad early January and placed securely in a briefcase. I stand by my assertions. I will prioritize the response.
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Hmmmm, what a conceptually intriguing Bakesian contribution in light of this post:
Tirerais, from a Bakesian worldview, this exchange is the epitome of politeness. Be happy that he was not polite. ;)
Just Cool said something about you some months back and I'm starting to realize it's true... actually is a while now I realize it's true. For a grown ass man, with damn near adult, if not adult children, you love to engage in little gyul behavior. You forever throwing basket like ah little instigating-ass bitch. Is like you take over wherer West Coast leave off. Doh bother responding.
:whip: :whip: :whip: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Boy you have to be ah bigger dunce than even I was willing to give you credit for. I am not instigating anything, I am indirectly calling you out fuh talking shit and not backing it up. Your disagreement essentially is with something I said, though you chose not to address me directly. I disagree with your "disagreement" and up until now I chose to not address you directly, responding in kind. There is no parallel whatsoever to the referenced situation. Your average teenager would be able to tell the difference... not surprisingly you suffering for comprehension.
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Ah see yuh eager for more licks. I'll be happy to oblige, but not on this thread. One of the considerations in my reticence has been relocating this discussion to the KPB thread. That way, the proceedings can move fwd unfettered ... informed by my reasoning and your lack of decorum, not to mention mentally deficient arsenal of presumption. Hold tight, son.
(Sorry 'pire, that was a no ball).
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Ah see yuh eager for more licks. I'll be happy to oblige, but not on this thread. One of the considerations in my reticence has been relocating this discussion to the KPB thread. That way, the proceedings can move fwd unfettered ... informed by my reasoning and your lack of decorum, not to mention mentally deficient arsenal of presumption. Hold tight, son.
(Sorry 'pire, that was a no ball).
Self-praise is no recommendation, but keep fooling yuhself with yuh "licks" talk and cricket reference that you really doing something. You should know by now that empty gun talk doh move me, call it "lack of decorum" if it makes it easier fuh you to swallow yuh own bullshit that yuh spewing.
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Ah see yuh eager for more licks. I'll be happy to oblige, but not on this thread. One of the considerations in my reticence has been relocating this discussion to the KPB thread. That way, the proceedings can move fwd unfettered ... informed by my reasoning and your lack of decorum, not to mention mentally deficient arsenal of presumption. Hold tight, son.
(Sorry 'pire, that was a no ball).
Self-praise is no recommendation, but keep fooling yuhself with yuh "licks" talk and cricket reference that you really doing something. You should know by now that empty gun talk doh move me, call it "lack of decorum" if it makes it easier fuh you to swallow yuh own bullshit that yuh spewing.
More of the tired rhetoric? Is personal dignity beyond you? Some things are sacred. I won't desecrate this thread, but I doh own any guns that bark metaphors.
Lawd! ah know mash up thread does be par for de course in here
But oh gorm, is de man death thread allyuh decide to paint with ah 3-coil steamer?
Selah!
... and Selah again.
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Could we keep this argument out of a topic dedicated to Nelson Mandela's memory please?
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Could we keep this argument out of a topic dedicated to Nelson Mandela's memory please?
1. I'm unaware of an "argument".
2. Although, the topic holds a nexus to Mr. Mandela's passing (stimulated from the Prime Minister's attendance at the memorial service in SA), I've indicated that I would switch the substance of the posts directed to the PM ... to another thread. And, that's been done.
3. I seem to have noticed a segment of the thread directed to America's power that was not so "tidy".
High road?
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http://www.nelsonmandela.org/uploads/files/Press_Pack_Nelson_Mandela_Will_and_Testament_2_February_2014_1.pdf