In the New York Times, the nominally Leninist (but perhaps, deep down, more Mussolinist) Slovenian celebrity philosopher Slavoj Zizek laments:
Mandela’s Socialist Failure
By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
In the last two decades of his life, Nelson Mandela was celebrated as a model of how to liberate a country from the colonial yoke without succumbing to the temptation of dictatorial power and anti-capitalist posturing. In short, Mandela was not Mugabe, South Africa remained a multi-party democracy with free press and a vibrant economy well-integrated into the global market and immune to hasty Socialist experiments.
Keep in mind that Mugabe wasn't Mugabe for the first two decades of his rule. He was handed a country with plenty of arable land for everybody (well, except for his archrival Joshua Nkomo's tribe, but that was quickly forgotten). By 2000, the population had nearly doubled, however.
... Two key facts remain obliterated by this celebratory vision. In South Africa, the miserable life of the poor majority broadly remains the same as under apartheid, and the rise of political and civil rights is counterbalanced by the growing insecurity, violence, and crime. The main change is that the old white ruling class is joined by the new black elite. Secondly, people remember the old African National Congress which promised not only the end of apartheid, but also more social justice, even a kind of socialism. This much more radical ANC past is gradually obliterated from our memory. No wonder that anger is growing among poor, black South Africans.
South Africa in this respect is just one version of the recurrent story of the contemporary left. A leader or party is elected with universal enthusiasm, promising a “new world” — but, then, sooner or later, they stumble upon the key dilemma: does one dare to touch the capitalist mechanisms, or does one decide to “play the game”? If one disturbs these mechanisms, one is very swiftly “punished” by market perturbations, economic chaos, and the rest. This is why it is all too simple to criticize Mandela for abandoning the socialist perspective after the end of apartheid: did he really have a choice? Was the move towards socialism a real option?
It is easy to ridicule Ayn Rand, but there is a grain of truth in the famous “hymn to money” from her novel Atlas Shrugged: “Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other.”
... We can safely surmise that, on account of [Mandela'] doubtless moral and political greatness, he was at the end of his life also a bitter, old man, well aware how his very political triumph and his elevation into a universal hero was the mask of a bitter defeat. His universal glory is also a sign that he really didn’t disturb the global order of power.
Judging from the TV commercials shown during golf tournaments, we live in the Age of Gladwell, the triumph of MultiCulti Capitalism.
Meanwhile, Europeans rejoice at the perspective of yet more vibrancy.
ReplyDeleteLook, I liked Nelson Mandela in Shawshank Redemption and Driving Miss Daisy just like every other good American. But do we really have to fawn over this guy right after losing Paul Walker so soon? Mandela had a long life and a very, very rewarding acting career. Let's give it a rest already and put this loss into perspective, OK?
ReplyDeleteThere, I said what everyone else was thinking.
Slightly off topic but over at the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates takes conservatives to task for praising Mandela with insufficient ardor.
ReplyDeleteOddly, comments there are now closed, and the 500 or so comments there either agree with Coates, or they join him in rebutting some apparently critical comments that have been deleted.
To Coates you're a racist if you don't believe apartheid was the worst thing in history.
"...people remember the old African National Congress which promised not only the end of apartheid, but also more social justice, even a kind of socialism."
ReplyDeleteThe ANC is a member of the Socialist International and "... holds a historic alliance with the South African Communist Party (SACP)...". I guess deceptive passive-aggressive liberal types might call that "a kind of socialism".
"South Africa in this respect is just one version of the recurrent story of the contemporary left. A leader or party is elected with universal enthusiasm, promising a “new world” — but, then, sooner or later, they stumble upon the key dilemma:"
Namely that they have give words the reality of things and are confused about the difference between reality and make believe. Between reality and fantasy. Between children and adults. Between things and slogans. Between know-how and knowing arguments.
French Africanist Bernard Lugan on Mandela:
ReplyDeleteNelson Mandela : icon and nothingness
Bernard Lugan press [1]
( 6 December 2013 )
Born 18 July 1918 in the former Transkei , died Dec. 5, 2013 , Nelson Mandela was not like the pious image that the politically correct global now gives him. Beyond the soothing emotions and hypocritical homage , it is important to never lose sight of the following:
1) Aristocrat Xhosa from the royal line of Thembu , Nelson Mandela was not a "poor oppressed black." Educated in Europe by Methodist missionaries, he began his graduate studies at Fort Hare University for children of black elites , before completing it at Witwatersrand , in the Transvaal , in the heart of what was then the " Boer country." He then settled as a lawyer in Johannesburg.
2) He was not that nice reformist media likes to portray sentimentally in " archangel of peace" fighting for human rights as a new Gandhi or Martin Luther King. Nelson Mandela was in effect and foremost a revolutionary, a fighter, an activist who threw his " skin after his ideas ," not hesitating to shed the blood of others and risking his own.
It was thus one of the founders of Umkonto we Sizwe , "the spearhead of the nation" , the military wing of the ANC, which he co- directed with the Communist Joe Slovo , planning and coordinating more than 200 bombings and sabotages for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment .
3) He was no more the man who allowed a peaceful transfer of power "white minority " to " black majority " , thus avoiding a bloodbath in South Africa . The truth is that he was raised to power by President De Klerk, to apply to the letter the comprehensive settlement of the question of Southern Africa decided by Washington. Betraying all the promises made to his people , the latter :
- Disintegrated a South African army that the ANC was not able to cope with.
- Prevented the creation of a multiracial decentralized state , as an alternative to federal and dogmatic Marxist Jacobin ANC
- Torpedoed secret negotiations between Thabo Mbeki and the South African general , negotiations focused on the recognition by the ANC a Volkstaat in exchange for abandoning the military option by General Viljoen [2] .
4 ) Nelson Mandela failed to let South African fountains pour milk and honey as economic failure is now total. According to the Economic Report on Africa 2013, prepared by the Economic Commission for Africa ( UN) and the African Union (online) , 2008-2012 , South Africa s' thus ranked among the 5 " underperforming " of the continent on the basis of the average annual growth countries , just ahead of Comoros, Madagascar , Sudan and Swaziland (page 29 of the report ) .
Part 2
ReplyDeleteUnemployment affected according to official figures 25.6% of the labor force in the second quarter of 2013 , but in reality about 40 % of assets. As the income of the poorest segment of the black , over 40 % of South African population , it is now lower by almost 50 % than it was under the white regime before 1994 [ 3 ] . In 2013, nearly 17 million blacks in a population of 51 million, only survived thanks to the welfare or Social Grant, which guarantees their subsistence .
5) Nelson Mandela also failed politically because the ANC has serious multifaceted tensions between Xhosa and Zulu , among doctrinaire Marxist and post "managers" capitalists , among Africanists and supporters of a " multiracial " line. A generational conflict also opposes the old guard of " Black Englishmen " young wolves who advocate a "racial liberation" and the confiscation of white farmers , as in Zimbabwe.
6 ) Nelson Mandela has not pacified South Africa either; the country being left to the law of the jungle, with an average of 43 murders daily .
7 ) Nelson Mandela has not eased inter- racial relationships . Thus, between 1970 and 1994 , in 24 years , while the ANC was " at war " against the " white government " , sixty white farmers were killed. Since April 1994 , the date of the coming to power of Nelson Mandela, more than 2,000 white farmers have been murdered in the most total indifference of European media.
8 ) Finally, the myth of the " rainbow nation " broke on regional realities and ethno- racial, the country is more divided and fragmented than ever , a phenomenon that appears in broad daylight in every election during which the vote is clearly " racial " blacks voting for the ANC , whites and mestizos for the Democratic Alliance .
In less than two decades , Nelson Mandela, President of the Republic on 10 May 1994 to 14 June 1999 and its successor , Thabo Mbeki (1999-2008) and Jacob Zuma (since 2009) , have transformed a country that was once a outgrowth of Europe to the southern tip of the African continent in a state of " third world" drifting in a sea of shortages, corruption, social deprivation and violence, reality partly masked by a few high-performance sectors, but increasingly reduced, most often led by whites.
Could it be otherwise when the official ideology based on the rejection of reality that is the myth of the " rainbow nation "? This " decoy " for the western silliness forbids to see that South Africa is not a nation but a mosaic of people gathered by the British colonial peoples whose cultural references are foreign , and often irreducible , to each other .
The quasi-religious cult planetary today shown to Nelson Mandela, the outrageous paean sung by opportunistic politicians and uneducated or formatted media will not change this reality.
One thing the Left overlooks is that if ANC had gone the socialist path, the conditions of the masses would not have improved and could be even worse than what it is now.
ReplyDeleteFor socialism to work, it needs wealth for redistribution, but if the golden goose is destroyed, tough luck with that.
Under socialism, South Africa would be more equal only in the sense that more people would be equally poor.
For a poor nation to make real progress, it needs a populace that is willing to work hard as businessmen, big and small, and as laborers who encourage their kids to do well in school.
Problem with socialism is it tells the people that they need do nothing as state will now take care of them and tell them what to do. In places like Germany and Japan, most people improved their living standards by wanting to work harder and better. Thus, the people climbed up the ladder than were lifted up the ladder.
It seems the black elites in South Africa privately believe that the masses of black dummies won't ever amount to much. The only thing socialism will do is drive out foreign investment and white talent, and that means a ruined economy even for the black elites. And with a ruined economy, black elites won't have anything for themselves, let alone anything to distribute.
At any rate, the only reason for black unity in old South Africa was apartheid. With apartheid gone, there's no reason for black unity anymore, and old tribal divisions are showing up and have-more blacks are gonna turn their noses at have-less blacks whose only mantra is gimme me more, gimme more. Blacks, even the rich, have never been known for charity.
"To Coates you're a racist if you don't believe apartheid was the worst thing in history."
ReplyDeleteCoates should thank apartheid for having saved the South African economy. All African nations where blacks took over the government and the economy much earlier than in South Africa went to hell.
Apartheid may have been unfair but it kept the power and control in the hands of people who could do the job.
Black pride precludes blacks from admitting this fact, but it's a fact. Even in America, blacks do best when working for and with whites. On their own, they create Detroits even in blue 'liberal' cities with lots of 'nice white folks'.
'vibrancy', 'diversity', 'creativity'.
ReplyDeleteover and over and over.
@International Jew. Coates is very sensitive or insecure he does not tolerate dissension in the comments section of his stories. He actively moderates and will block anyone who disagrees with him. I've been banned from the Atlantic.
ReplyDeleteApartheid built South Africa. Blacks just inherited its fruits.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why white Americans are so hard on white South Africans while easier on themselves and Australian whites.
After all, white Americans wiped out the indigenous natives(Indians) and took over the entire land. Australian whites did the same to Aboriginal savages who were hunted down like animals.
In contrast, South African whites, even as they took over the land, allowed lots of blacks to remain on the land and even invited many more blacks to settle on their farms to work and live. So, despite the system of apartheid, South African whites were far more generous toward indigenous peoples than white Americans and white Australians were to the indigenous natives(and Zionist Jews were toward Palestinians).
And yet, white South Africans got the most blame as 'evil racists'.
I guess hardcore 'racism-imperialism' has more rewards than soft-core 'racism-imperialism'.
If white South Africans had been as total and extreme as white Americans, white Australians, and Zionists had been in dealing with their own indigenous natives, they would be in much better shape. But they decided to allow the indigenous population of blacks to keep multiplying and living alongside whites(even if with fewer legal protections).
Always amused to hear from a Slovene. They are a quiet bunch but not totally so.
ReplyDelete"Judging from the TV commercials shown during golf tournaments, we live in the Age of Gladwell, the triumph of MultiCulti Capitalism."
ReplyDeleteYou mean the ones from IBM, Oracle and Exxon-Mobile that tell us that with all the money they are donating to education initiatives that the next generation of brilliant engineers will largely consist of today's black male children. That way we don't have to worry that H1-B is making it impossible for the average YT computer programer or engineer to even raise a family. Who needs YT STEM workers once we find out how to "fix" the schools?
White elites imported the blacks as cheap labor in SA. Insatiable greed eventually made whites a tiny minority - as it did once upon a time in Haiti.
ReplyDelete"He actively moderates and will block anyone who disagrees with him. I've been banned from the Atlantic."
ReplyDeleteAs have I. He is a real arrogant SOB with a massive ego who thinks that he's far more important than he actually is.
Arthur Kemp was conscripted into the South African army during apartheid, this is what he had to say.
ReplyDelete"The reality is that the ANC only resorted to “armed struggle” some 50 years after its foundation. During those prior five decades, it had sought to end white minority rule by protests, mass demonstrations, strikes, stay-aways and so on.
The state, however, refused to contemplate black rule, and cracked down on the ANC—using force."
Nelson Mandela Dies: A Nationalist Reappraisal, or, Where Would You Have Stood as a Black Person in Pre-1994 South Africa?
http://www.arthurkemp.com/2013/06/nelson-mandela-nationalist-reappraisal.html
To anon at 5:40 pm:
ReplyDeleteYou have rehashed the usual cultural Marxist nonsense. There were about 200,000 Aboriginees in Australia when Britain began dumping its underclass there. In a landmass the size of Australia that was nothing. The continent was almost unoccupied in any meaningful spatial sense. Even today with a population over 100 times larger, it is still very largely an empty place. I know. I have driven right across it. I was continually struck by the vast open spaces of, well.. nothing. Even driving across the US southwest didn't compare to Australia's sheer emptiness.
There were somewhat more, but also very few Indians in America in relation to its great size. The idea that Indians "owned" all of America, as opposed too wandering around over small portions of it, is pure Hollywood and cultural Marxism. It also serves the interests of certain groups as well. But its bad history. Ironically it actually is true in places like Mexico and Peru, where millions of Indians existed in comparatively small areas and fell to the Spaniards and their diseases.
I've added a line representing quality of life expectancy in South AFrica: http://imgur.com/ng4MaCo
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to ridicule Ayn Rand
ReplyDeleteAin't that the truth.
When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other.
Money is always and everywhere backstopped by "blood, whips, and guns". Money without force is an oxymoron.
Again, the homicide rate has declined by half since 1995. South Africa's social problems were present in spades under the last years of apartheid.
ReplyDeleteJudging from the TV commercials shown during golf tournaments, we live in the Age of Gladwell, the triumph of MultiCulti Capitalism.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. The narrative being pushed is Mandela as saint of neoliberalism. The elites sort of have to push this narrative, since they've so heavily pushed a pro-black, pro-minority narrative that obviously lends itself to racial spoils and socialistic politics, which could put their wealth, position, and power at risk. So they have to marry the black worship narrative they've already pushed so heavily with a pro-free markets one:
"Why the left-leaning Nelson Mandela was such a champion of free markets"
http://qz.com/155310/nelson-mandela-was-also-a-huge-champion-of-free-markets/
"One often overlooked aspect of Nelson Mandela’s legacy is South Africa’s economy. Parallel to everything amazing the man is connected to—freeing the country from the shackles of apartheid, subordinating retribution in favor of peace and reconciliation, and unifying a volatile nation at risk of civil war—he laid the groundwork for South Africa as the continent’s economic powerhouse.
There are a lot of directions Mandela could have taken the country in those early post-apartheid days. At each juncture, he seemed to make the right call. When it came to the country’s economic policy, he chose free markets."
ReplyDeleteHaven't we all, by now, had enough of the Full Nelson?
One thing I can't help thinking. If you put to one side all the injustice of apartheid, and imagine, if you will that the old-style 1960s regime of Verwoerd and Vorster continued virtually unchanged up to present, then I pretty much have no doubt that the old-style RSA would be a state surpassing Australia in terms of GDP per capita and development and lifestyle, for whites at least. Perhaps it would even be a leading industrial power by now.
ReplyDeleteYes, as a Nazi myself, I have always thought that Zizek was a closet fascist. Trying to find brothers in arms here is like being a gay man on the prowl in Saudi Arabia; you develop a very keen sense for those deep in the closet.
ReplyDeleteanon/Bernard Lugan on deKlerk:
ReplyDelete" Prevented the creation of a multiracial decentralized state , as an alternative to federal and dogmatic Marxist Jacobin ANC
- Torpedoed secret negotiations between Thabo Mbeki and the South African general , negotiations focused on the recognition by the ANC a Volkstaat in exchange for abandoning the military option by General Viljoen"
To me the actions of deKlerk, and the at least passive support of those actions by most white South Africans, are more notable than Mandela. Mandela is an interesting figure, but his behaviour was rational - he advanced the condition of his people in the best way he saw. He may also to some extent have believed in 'colour blindness', but that's hard to tell.
With deKlerk and the whites they committed an act of apparent racial suicide, bringing in black majority rule while deliberately *not* putting in place structures to ensure the survival of their own people. The Western media, UN etc wanted them to hand SA over to the ANC; but I think the pressure to put themselves in a totally vulnerable position, where continued survival would be entirely at ANC sufferance, was much weaker. The equivalent would be Israeli Jews supporting a one-state solution and right-of-return. What is it in their - our - mindset - that makes white Westerners do such apparently crazy things? Christianity? Liberalism?
I found this more interesting: http://barelyablog.com/nelson-mandela-the-che-guevara-of-of-africa/
ReplyDeleteA lot of lefties are saying much the same:
ReplyDeletehttp://pauleisen.blogspot.com/2013/12/more-on-mandela.html
(...)
Mandela spent most his adult life treated as a “terrorist”. There was a price to be paid for his long walk to freedom, and the end of South Africa’s system of racial apartheid. Mandela was rehabilitated into an “elder statesman” in return for South Africa being rapidly transformed into an outpost of neoliberalism, prioritising the kind of economic apartheid most of us in the west are getting a strong dose of now.
(...)
http://roarmag.org/2013/11/south-africa-marikana-anc-poor/
(...)
Today, both the revolutionary narrative of the ANC militants and the liberal narrative of the world’s progressives ring increasingly hollow. Racial segregation may have been institutionally lifted, but the socio-economic segregation that undergirded it continues unabated. South Africa is still one of the most shockingly unequal places in the world, ranking second (after Lesotho) on family-level inequality. In this middle-income country, forty-seven percent of the population still lives in poverty, which is actually two percent more than back in 1994. Unemployment formally stands at 25 percent, but the rate goes up to 50 percent for young black men. Twenty years later, blacks on average still earn six times less than whites. While a couple of pejoratively called “black diamonds” have made it to the top, crafting a small indigenous elite that slowly takes up residence in the old vestiges of white privilege, for the vast majority of South Africans nothing has really changed.
Of course, there are good reasons for this. Apartheid fell as neoliberalism rose, knocking down old walls on its quest for globalized market access but forever erecting new ones in its concomittant quest for cheap labor and natural resources. Samir Amin once wrote that “the logic of this globalization trend consists in nothing other than that of organizing apartheid on a global scale.” Apartheid here is not meant as a metaphor; it is what a philosopher might call an ontological category of the neoliberal world order.
(...)
I guess hardcore 'racism-imperialism' has more rewards than soft-core 'racism-imperialism'.
ReplyDeleteIf white South Africans had been as total and extreme as white Americans, white Australians, and Zionists had been in dealing with their own indigenous natives, they would be in much better shape. But they decided to allow the indigenous population of blacks to keep multiplying and living alongside whites(even if with fewer legal protections).
Yeah there are no Arabs in Israel because the Israelis killed them all. Oh wait that's a complete and total lie. Of course despite the complete basis in cultural ,Marxism that his post relies on he will be defended because middle class is shrinking or something and Israel is to blame.
I haven't yet seen any newscasts that mention the impact of China in Africa.
ReplyDeleteOn TV the other day someone said 'Mandela brought equality to Africa'. Hardly. PISA test scores are still not available but I expect that if they were, they would be quite poor. South Africa is still a land inhabited by a population that is unlikely to be competitive in the world economy. It relies on the residual infrastructure built by the white South Africans and on its mineral wealth.
This is the kind of population that inevitably works for a small elite. At one time that elite was white. Now it is black but soon it is likely to be Chinese.
South Africa has two nuclear submarines - but neither currently works. China is very aggressive towards Japan regarding some tiny islands that lie mid way between them. It of course was very aggressive towards Tibet. In the thirties we called this sort of thing 'expansionism' or 'imperialism'. The lesson from those days seems to be that imperial expansion is only checked by force of arms. Diplomacy counts for little.
If that is so, how can black Africa survive. The people themselves may or may not survive - that's up to the Chinese - but the rulers are likely to all be Chinese quite soon.
Mandela left behind him a continent that drove the white imperialists out with moral arguments. But blacks in Africa are helpless before Chinese imperialists who are immune to racism rhetoric.
Air Zimbabwe now teaches its stewardesses to speak Chinese.
Mandela died but the drama of black Africa is not over. The present situation in South Africa is not stable - lots of resources, lots of economic potential, and no defense forces.
Albertosaurus
Anonymous said..."Apartheid built South Africa. Blacks just inherited its fruits."
ReplyDeleteThis is true, though the last accurate thing you wrote.
Both the US and Australia were largely uninhabited. Yes there were nomadic bands wandering around hunting (and massacring each other) when the Europeans showed up. Most died from disease, a good number died in wars with the whites (almost always helped in some way by other "friendly" Indians) and the rest got put onto reservations where they do things like get diabetes at alarming rates and drink as much as posssible.
South Africa was similarly unpopulated. The vast majority of their blacks are the descendants of people that moved there seeking work. In South Africa, the whites were there first.
"One thing I can't help thinking. If you put to one side all the injustice of apartheid, and imagine, if you will that the old-style 1960s regime of Verwoerd and Vorster continued virtually unchanged up to present, then I pretty much have no doubt that the old-style RSA would be a state surpassing Australia in terms of GDP per capita and development and lifestyle, for whites at least. Perhaps it would even be a leading industrial power by now."
ReplyDeleteOh, I have no doubt that would be true. And both races would have been better off. For all the crap that everyone gives the National Party South African blacks today have the highest standard of living and the most wealth per capita than any other blacks on the continent. AS bad as the crime is, and as lousy as inner-city Johannesburg is, it's nowhere near as messed up as places like Nigeria or the Congo.
“...if you will that the old-style 1960s regime of Verwoerd and Vorster continued virtually unchanged up to present, then I pretty much have no doubt that the old-style RSA would be a state surpassing Australia in terms of GDP per capita and development and lifestyle, for whites at least.”
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. With current black to white ratio about 10:1, it is utterly unthinkable to keep racial and social peace necessary for such per capita GDP. With average IQ for the total population about 80 and going south, it would take Saudi Arabia oil fields. And Sharia law. (Watch it coming to African country near you)
Was partition ever a viable option for a post-apartheid South Africa? Give the whites and Asians one section of the country, and give the rest to to blacks and coloreds?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like it would have led to more long-term stability, at least for the white half.
It is easy to ridicule Ayn Rand, but there is a grain of truth in the famous “hymn to money” from her novel Atlas Shrugged: “Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other.”
ReplyDeleteAyd Rand Hymn is why we have immigration issues, a lot of small and large businesses and private individuals hired them since they saved money. A more neutral view about money is better.
The Afrikaners were anti-colonialists. They were not themselves colonialists at any point after about 1700 and arguably earlier than that. Black Africans fighting against Afrikaners were not and are not anti-colonialists, they are simply one ethnic/racial group fighting against another for political supremacy. It would be nice if someone, anyone in the mainstream media would discuss these points even for just a few moments, but of course this doesn't happen.
ReplyDeleteWell, Nelson went too far. We know of Western European countries that are slow growth and have a larger welfare state than the US that don't do too bad. In fact the Right Wing argument around here is slightly wrong since some very liberal states like Vermont outperformed more market states in the South. Few around here are in the middle.
ReplyDelete"a mosaic of people gathered by the British colonial peoples": oh come off it.
ReplyDeleteThe Dutch arrived themselves, to be joined by Huguenot refugees. Neither was anything to do with the British, who took Cape Colony only during the Napoleonic wars. By that time the Boers had already created the "coloured" people, by shagging their black hottentot (Khoisan) slaves. They had also created the Asian minority by importing slaves from the Dutch East Indies. The British added to the Asians by importing labour from India and pissed off the Boers by abolishing the slave trade and then slavery itself. You could argue that more (black) people were then added to South Africa by the British conquering Natal and the Boers trekking inland to colonise the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. After the Boer War, the British set up the Union of South Africa in 1910, as a dominion. Apartheid was introduced after the Second World War when the Boer trade unionists, now known as Afrikaaners, won power acting as the National Party.
And to all that you can add the expansion of the Bantu, whose arrival in South Africa at the expense of the Khoisan had nothing to do with either the Dutch or British. And, oddly, isn't referred to as "colonisation" on Wikipedia. Strange, that.
I was in India last week, and the local media went predictably ape over Nelson's death, majoring on comparisons with Mohandas Gandhi. He was regularly referred to as "a true Gandhian"! Do these people have even the slightest awareness of Gandhi's views of Mandela's people? Clearly not.
ReplyDeleteAlso, visited Bombay/Mumbai for the first time and finally watched "Elysium" for the first time on the flight home. Fiction is barely keeping pace with reality on this one IMO.
Slightly OT, but Bibi is not going to attend Mandela's funeral. He says it would cost the government of Israel too much money and so he will skip.
ReplyDeleteNetanyahu had notified the South African authorities that he would fly in but cancelled his plans at the last minute due to the costs involved -- around 7.0 million shekels ($2 million) for his transport and security alone, pubic radio and the Haaretz daily reported.
"The decision was made in light of the high transportation costs resulting from the short notice of the trip and the security required for the prime minister in Johannesburg," Haaretz reported.
Could a Western leader come up with this excuse? Also, how is $2 million too much for Israel, the booming high-tech economic giant? Aren't there any American Jews who could pony up a measly $2 million? What about sheldon Adelson who gave $10 million to Newt's campaign? Or Bloomberg who recently won that $1 million prize?
Anyway, it looks like a snub, which is fascinating given the messianic-like tributes coming in from around the world. I await to see how the NY Times covers this.
Re: Mandela.
ReplyDeleteSick to death of him.
A Great Man?
If, in 20 years' time, South Africa is a First World, functioning democracy with a decent per capita GDP, I'll toast his memory.
But here's my bet: another ramshackle, impoverished and undemocratic sub-Saharan nation.
At least this time the BBC, New York Times and all the rest will, unlike with Robert Mugabe, be spared the embarrassment that they salivated over him so.
R.I.P. Deadbeat.
"Keep in mind that Mugabe wasn't Mugabe for the first two decades of his rule."
ReplyDeleteMugabe was always Mugabe; it just takes time to run a country all the way into the ground. Robert Mugabe had a track record as a Marxist and a terrorist prior to coming to power in 1979-80. Within a few years he had antagonized the Matabeles and whites, although the full immiseration of the country took longer than that.
To say that the outcome of Mugabe's accession to power was a surprise lets off the hook British, American, and South African* authorities that promoted the Lancaster House accords.
It also fails to credit the people who attempted to reach an arrangement that sidelined Mugabe. Muzorewa, Smith, Sithole, and Chirau promoted their internal settlement abroad, including in the US. (Reagan, Ford, and Kissenger were all sympathetic to their agreement, but the Carter administration was in power at the time and insisted on Mugabe's participation.)
Incidentally, have any of these liberals (reasonably) celebrating the fact that Mandela was not Mugabe ever expressed remorse over the fact that Mugabe wasMugabe? Did these people have anything reflective to say when Ian Smith died a few years ago? Or are they just interested in fashionable moral posturing?
* Apparently the Vorster government strangely calculated that taking a liberal position on Rhodesia would buy them goodwill from the international community on the apartheid issue. In this respect, and probably in others, the South African government was its own worst enemy. They were lucky international communism collapsed before they did.
There were about 200,000 Aboriginees in Australia when Britain began dumping its underclass there. In a landmass the size of Australia that was nothing. The continent was almost unoccupied in any meaningful spatial sense.
ReplyDeleteIt may have been closer to 500,000, but still, that's next to nothing on a territory the size of Australia. The idea that the abos 'owned' Australia is thoroughly preposterous. Even when I was a teenager and totally freaked out by the idea of 'racism' I was extremely scornful of the idea that the abos had any kind of special claim on Australia; my God how their promoters used to get up my nose.
My take as one living in Pretoria on Mandela:
ReplyDeleteMandela's legacy is something of a curate's egg. He was undoubtedly a great reconciler when released from prison in Paarl in the early 90s. It's a great credit to him that he wasn't spitting bile and seeking revenge after 27 years banged up. No doubt the National Party, under FW De Klerk, wouldn't have released him if that looked at all likely. Mandela was clearly someone De Klerk felt he could 'do business with'. The CODESA negations - Convention for a Democratic South Africa - at Kempton Park leading up to the 1994 elections, were a credit to both men. In this instance the Nobel peace prize awarded to them was well deserved.
But the truth is, in terms of advocating change through non violence, Nelson Mandela was no Gandhi or even Martin Luther King, whose non violent demenour he adopted only in later life. Right up until the end of the 80s the ANC was a terrorist organisation...
Read the whole thing.
"Apparently the Vorster government strangely calculated that taking a liberal position on Rhodesia would buy them goodwill from the international community on the apartheid issue."
ReplyDeleteVorster was a feckless and weak leader. Prior to Lancaster House, Smith had gone to Pretoria and basically offered all of Rhodesia if they would invade and turn the country into a fifth South African province. The military was very much in favor of the idea, but Vorster said no.
This is an excellent link, to what appears to be a very informative site:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.censorbugbear.org/black-racism/terrorism/nelson-mandela-the-bombing-record
My apologies, if it has already been posted. A lot of the links on the site are broken. I understand there's some kind of "way-back machine" that gives access to deleted-but-archived pages, which I've never used. Can anyone give brief instructions on how to use that service?
To anonymous at 12/8/13 6:57pm: Does Bibi understand that the techniques of IED's, truck bombs, bombing of fast food restaurants, etc. employed by Mandela's Spear of the Nation terrorist organization are the same as those employed against his own countrymen? And Mandela's destiny to become a wealthy and universally adored elder statesmen will certainly give renewed heart and courage to the terrorist forces arrayed against his own nation? Maybe Bibi refuses to attend the funeral because he has a shred of decency in his soul.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkhonto_we_Sizwe
The poor Socialists always run afoul of the same problem: their cure is worse than the disease.
ReplyDeleteDana Thompson:
ReplyDeleteGo to www.archive.org , enter the precise address of the webpage you want to see past versions of into the little window by the 'WayBack Machine' sign, and then (if any versions have been archived) choose the date you want to view. You'll be shown the page, as it was uploaded on that date.
Just imagine if the South African Train Conductor had not thrown M.K. Ghandi out of the Train, He wont have been the "Mahatma". Th truth is "Mahatmas" dont get shot. Paramathamas do all the shooting, and thats why they are called the "German Brahman". "One Lean Mean Killing Machine".
ReplyDeleteSlightly OT, but Bibi is not going to attend Mandela's funeral. He says it would cost the government of Israel too much money and so he will skip.
ReplyDeleteIt's a curious snub. Apartheid SA once had
no better friend. And of course Israel is now fated to endure the "apartheid" label.
But then there's this.
So Bibi is allowed to reject a role in the farce and Israel isn't plunged into the sort of national crisis the media here would demand. I just look at that and think "how cool it must be to have your own country!"
Look, I liked Nelson Mandela in Shawshank Redemption and Driving Miss Daisy just like every other good American. But do we really have to fawn over this guy right after losing Paul Walker so soon? Mandela had a long life and a very, very rewarding acting career. Let's give it a rest already and put this loss into perspective, OK?
ReplyDeleteThere, I said what everyone else was thinking.
"Look, I liked Nelson Mandela in Shawshank Redemption and Driving Miss Daisy just like every other good American. But do we really have to fawn over this guy right after losing Paul Walker so soon? Mandela had a long life and a very, very rewarding acting career. Let's give it a rest already and put this loss into perspective, OK?
ReplyDeleteThere, I said what everyone else was thinking."
+1
I'm fascinated by the magnitude of the weapons cache found at the Rivonia farm:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.censorbugbear.org/black-racism/terrorism/nelson-mandela-the-bombing-record
The 144 tons of ammonium nitrate jumps out at me. The Hiroshima bomb was 16 kilotons, so only 0.144 kilotons, or one percent of Hiroshima (after blending with fuel oil and assuming prills and oil has the same destructive power as TNT) doesn't sound like much, but it's more impressive if you realize that the destructive power of a bomb increases with only the two-thirds power of energy release, and not linearly. Thus, by this calculation, a 100 ratio of energy is only a 21.5 ratio of destruction, and Mandela's cache of bomb material was 4.65% of a Hiroshima equivalent. Moreover, if you subdivide the cache, you increase the destructive equivalency. The Oklahoma City bombing was performed with 2 to 4 tons of material, I think I remember reading. If you split it into 52 bombs of 3 tons each (after blending with fuel oil), each will be one over 305 of a Hiroshima, 52 of which is 17 percent. The Oklahoma event killed 168 people, so 52 such bombs could kill 8736. The Hiroshima bomb killed about 100,000, 17 percent of which is 17,000, so my calculation of 17 percent Hiroshima equivalency is clearly a little on the high side - it should be more like 9 percent. The difference may be in the radiation effects.
As for the 21.6 tons of aluminum power - the obvious purpose is to make thermite, for which it is the essential ingredient to make 85 tons. The best use to which thermite can be put is to melt structural steel, which is useful for bringing down skyscrapers and bridges. A couple of tons could probably have brought down each of the twin trade towers - call it 4 tons to kill 3000 people, so 85 could kill 63,750 if you find enough really big skyscrapers. And one ton of black powder - three people were killed by maybe a pound at the Boston Marathon, so a ton should be good for 6,000. The wild card is the 210,000 hand grenades. You could do great things if you distributed them as party favors at children's birthday gatherings, but actual efficiency of deployment would undoubtedly be much less. Any way you count them (plus the 48,000 antipersonnel mines) you've got the better part of a Hiroshima's worth of WMD; maybe mult-Hiro's.
The point that I'm leading up to is that if anyone were to compile a list of historic WMD caches amassed by depraved criminal madmen bent on wholesale human destruction, the accomplishment of Mandela and his buddies at Rivonia Farm would surely rank fairly high, at least in the non-governmental division. Our gentle departed Yoda deserves credit for thinking and acting on such a grand scale.
To Silver said;
ReplyDeleteEven if we accept the figure of 500,000 Aboriginees, it still means an essentially empty continent.
Let's take Texas as a comparison.
Australia is more then 11 times larger and Texas currently has a population pushing 27 million, plus god knows how many future democratic voters, (er, I mean illegal aliens).
So to get a proper comparison, lets make Texas 11 times bigger and then reduce its population by making it 54 times smaller.
Even in its current manifestation, Texas has great stretches of empty land. So imagine how empty it would then be.