What's new

United States, Israel opposed Mandela, supported Apartheid

RFS_Br

FULL MEMBER
Joined
Jun 1, 2012
Messages
1,237
Reaction score
0
Country
Brazil
Location
Brazil
United States, Israel opposed Mandela, supported Apartheid | Informed Comment

mandelaarafat.jpg


The attempt to make Nelson Mandela respectable is an ongoing effort of Western government spokesmen and the Western media.

He wasn’t respectable in the business circles of twentieth-century New York or Atlanta, or inside the Beltway of Washington, D.C. He wasn’t respectable for many of the allies of the United States in the Cold War, including Britain and Israel.

I visited Soweto in 2012 and went to Mandela’s old house. It was a moving experience. I don’t want him to be reduced to a commercialized icon on this day of all days.

We should remember that for much of the West in the Cold War, South Africa’s thriving capitalist economy was what was important. Its resources were important. Its government, solely staffed by Afrikaners and solely for Afrikaners, was seen as a counter-weight to Soviet and Communist influence in Africa. Washington in the 1980s obsessed about Cuba’s relationship to Angola (yes).

That the Afrikaners treated black Africans like dirt and discriminated against them viciously, denying them the franchise or any hint of equality, was considered in Western capitals at most an unfortunate idiosyncrasy that could not be allowed to interfere with the West’s dependence on Pretoria in fighting the international Left.

The African National Congress had attempted nonviolent protest in the 1950s, but the white Afrikaaner government outlawed all those techniques and replied with deadly force. In the early 1960s when Nelson Mandela turned to sabotage, the United States was a nakedly capitalist country engaged in an attempt to ensure that peasants and workers did not come to power. It was a deeply racist society that practiced Apartheid, a.k.a. Jim Crow in its own South.

The US considered the African National Congress to be a form of Communism, and sided with the racist Prime Ministers Hendrik Verwoerd and P.W. Botha against Mandela.

Decades later, in the 1980s, the United States was still supporting the white Apartheid government of South Africa, where a tiny minority of Afrikaaners dominated the economy and refused to allow black Africans to shop in their shops or fraternize with them, though they were happy to employ them in the mines. Ronald Reagan declared Nelson Mandela, then still in jail, a terrorist, and the US did not get around to removing him from the list until 2008! Reagan, while delivering pro forma denunciations of Apartheid or enforced black separation and subjugation, nevertheless opposed sanctions with teeth on Pretoria. Reagan let the racist authoritarian P.W. Botha come to Washington and met with him.

Likewise British PM Margaret Thatcher befriended Botha and castigated Mandela’s ANC as terrorists. As if the Afrikaners weren’t terrorizing the black majority! She may have suggested to Botha that he release Mandela for PR purposes, but there is not any doubt on whose side she stood.

The Israeli government had extremely warm relations with Apartheid South Africa, to the point where Tel Aviv offered the Afrikaners a nuclear weapon(presumably for brandishing at the leftist states of black Africa). That the Israelis accuse Iran of being a nuclear proliferator is actually hilarious if you know the history. Iran doesn’t appear ever to have attempted to construct a nuclear weapon, whereas Israel has hundreds and seems entirely willing to share.

In the US, the vehemently anti-Palestinian Anti-Defamation League in San Francisco spied on American anti-Apartheid activists on behalf of the Apartheid state. If the ADL ever calls you a racist, you can revel in the irony.

Ronald Reagan imagined that there were “moderates” in the Botha government. There weren’t. He wanted “constructive engagement” with them. It failed. The Afrikaners imposed martial law. Reagan tried to veto Congressional sanctions on Pretoria in 1986 but Congress over-rode him.

Nelson Mandela was a socialist who believed in the ideal of economic equality or at least of a decent life for everyone in society. He was also a believer in parliamentary government. So, he was a democratic socialist.

The current Republican Party is implementing Apartheid policies of making it difficult for minorities to exercise their right to vote. And they are changing tax laws to throw ever more of society’s wealth to the top 1%. And they just threw millions of Americans off food stamps, including children and Veterans. The US House of Representatives still stands against everything Mandela stood for.

President Obama first became interested in politics at Occidental College in California and attended anti-Apartheid demonstrations. It was then that fellow activists informed him that Barack would be a better name for such an activist than “Barry.” In many ways Mandela’s cause started Obama on his path to the White House.

In the meantime the UK also has a right wing government that is punishing students and the poor on behalf of the rich. And the Likud Foreign Minister in Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, wants to take away the citizenship of Palestinian-Israelis (20% of the population) just as the Afrikaners took citizenship away from blacks and pushed them into Bantustans. Mandela said, ““We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

The world will celebrate Nelson Mandela. But for most of those global leaders, it is only lip service. With the partial exception of President Obama, they don’t share his actual ideals and wouldn’t approve of him when he was at his most active, in the early 1960s, trying to figure out how to sabotage the Afrikaner establishment. (I say partial in Obama’s case because obviously he admires the struggle against Apartheid, but on economic issues he is an Eisenhower Republican and Mandela wouldn’t approve). In the 1990s on his release from prison Mandela did stand out for his belief in peace and reconciliation. But that was only because the Afrikaners had lost and he could afford to be magnanimous in victory. He was not a pacifist. He did not believe in taking lives as part of his struggle, but he was willing to resort to violence. He was not a capitalist. He wanted uplift for the workers. He could not overlook racism the way Reagan, Thatcher and Shamir did.

South Africa itself, for all its economic and social dynamism, has also not fully attained Mandela’s ideals. Its poor are becoming worse off. Labor relations are roiled. And the ANC leadership is in disarray.

Mandela is not a birthday cake to be celebrated. The funeral with its hypocritical heads of state won’t honor him. He is a pioneer to be emulated. We honor him by standing up for justice even in the face of enormous opposition from the rich and powerful, by taking risks for high ideals. We won’t meet his standards. But if all of us tried, we’d make the world better. As he did.
 
It was the times that they lived in. The world was a white man's playground. The Americas , the Middle East, Asia...after the second world war, the whites mistakenly believed that they fought for humanity whereas all that they did fight for was possibly the retention of the status quo of the allies which included colonization. Today, their successive generations cannot believe that their forefathers were such a callous people in their treatment of other races. Not to say that this kind of barbarism is restricted to the white colonizers and their allies such as the USA in the 1960s. But in all fairness to the western world, apartheid would have lingered on and Mandela would most probably never have seen a free South Africa during his lifetime had the west not adopted the tough stance which they did towards the apartheid regime in the late 1980s. RIP Mandela. You will always remain an icon to the world
 
It was the times that they lived in.

Pathetic excuse. By the 70s it was already a firmly established norm that liberal values are incompatible with racial segregation. Post-WW2, international legislation deemed state-sponsored racism a crime. Iran, for example, was boycotting South Africa and Israel as early as 1970 (or something like that), when Israel was still selling the apartheid regime missiles to crush its Black enemies as far away as Angola. Quit it, not every crap the US and Israel do you can spin into something innocuous.
 
Pathetic excuse. By the 70s it was already a firmly established norm that liberal values are incompatible with racial segregation. Post-WW2, international legislation deemed state-sponsored racism a crime. Iran, for example, was boycotting South Africa and Israel as early as 1970 (or something like that), when Israel was still selling the apartheid regime missiles to crush its Black enemies as far away as Angola. Quit it, not every crap the US and Israel do you can spin into something innocuous.

Did you read the rest of my post or did you simply respond to the first sentence?
 
Fact #1 Blacks in apartheid South Africa lived way better than in any other sub saharan country.
Fact #2 After Mandela came to power life standards in South Africa significantly dropped. Johanesburg became a worlds rape capital.

south_africa_hdi_md.jpg
 
Fact #1 Blacks in apartheid South Africa lived way better than in any other sub saharan country.
Fact #2 After Mandela came to power life standards in South Africa significantly dropped. Johanesburg became a worlds rape capital.

south_africa_hdi_md.jpg


Are you implying that the Blacks should have remained subjugated to slavery and barbaric apartheid simply to maintain the "lifestyle" of the Whites? :D Please don't embarrass your country with such stupid statements
 
Nelson Mandela was always a great friend of us Arabs. We will always remember that.

34g0w2u.jpg


Israel was a great supporter of the Apartheid state in South Africa. Unfortunately they are a carbon copy of their former great allies.

He was also friendly to Islam and Muslims:

2zh4oic.jpg


21189as.jpg


Here the great Sharif Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki visits Robben Island:

14cb0np.jpg


Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

16lcp08.jpg
 
Last edited:
Fact #1 Blacks in apartheid South Africa lived way better than in any other sub saharan country.
Fact #2 After Mandela came to power life standards in South Africa significantly dropped. Johanesburg became a worlds rape capital.

south_africa_hdi_md.jpg
Yeah, after all Israel was one of the very few countries that was a close friend of the Apartheid regime, because their policies and ideologies were close.

On a side note, Mendela and his party were on the ridiculous terror list of U.S until 2008,because of their armed conflict with the regime! Surprise surprise.
 
Are you implying that the Blacks should have remained subjugated to slavery and barbaric apartheid simply to maintain the "lifestyle" of the Whites? :D Please don't embarrass your country with such stupid statements
I would give my vote right if I could say one woman from being raped.

Yeah, after all Israel was one of the very few countries that was a close friend of the Apartheid regime, because their policies and ideologies were close.

On a side note, Mendela and his party were on the ridiculous terror list of U.S until 2008,because of their armed conflict with the regime! Surprise surprise.
Actually Iran is much closer. South Africa was white apartheid and Iran is Islamic apartheid. But Islamic apartheid is fine. No one cares. Even in "moderate" country like Malaysia there is blatant apartheid.
 
I would give my vote right if I could say one woman from being raped.


Actually Iran is much closer. South Africa was white apartheid and Iran is Islamic apartheid. But Islamic apartheid is fine. No one cares. Even in "moderate" country like Malaysia there is blatant apartheid.

Maybe, but we don't even come close to Jewish Apartheid.
 
Fact #1 Blacks in apartheid South Africa lived way better than in any other sub saharan country.
Fact #2 After Mandela came to power life standards in South Africa significantly dropped. Johanesburg became a worlds rape capital.

south_africa_hdi_md.jpg


Quoted for truth.The blacks ran the country into the ground,it's a shame really ,after the white settlers built a beatiful,prosperous country.The same thing happenned (even worse actually) in Zimbabwe,once one of the most prosperous countries in Africa and even the world is now a shithole after the blacks came to power and the whites fled.S. Africa would have been a better place if they could have negociated the end of segregation but keep the whites as leaders for the country.

It's not racism,it's the truth.
 
It is better that u close your excrement mouth and have answer about 70 years killing innocent muslims in their countries and straying and capturing them alga grimy. Iranian people voted to islamic repulic 98% and nowdays nearby 80% of people participates in elections despite the negative publicity of west. :yes4:
Actually Iran is much closer. South Africa was white apartheid and Iran is Islamic apartheid. But Islamic apartheid is fine. No one cares. Even in "moderate" country like Malaysia there is blatant apartheid.
 
Fact #1 Blacks in apartheid South Africa lived way better than in any other sub saharan country.
Fact #2 After Mandela came to power life standards in South Africa significantly dropped. Johanesburg became a worlds rape capital.

Ma'am two wrongs dont make a right. While you are an Israeli but it shouldnt blind you to your country's mistakes and faults. Israel was wrong to support the apartheid and nothing can justify it. And while it is true that the crime stats in SA are appalling but partly its a legacy of the apartheid era. In fact if anything it was magnanimous of present day SA to forgive the role Israel played and to maintain relations with it. Today SA is one of the safest countries for your citizens (and local Jews) to visit and live.

At the end of the day it is wrong to subjugate people and no rational person/country with any moral or ethical standing can support it. Because the people subjugated were Blacks and Indians and the people doing that were White doesn't make it right.


Quoted for truth.The blacks ran the country into the ground,it's a shame really ,after the white settlers built a beatiful,prosperous country.The same thing happenned (even worse actually) in Zimbabwe,once one of the most prosperous countries in Africa and even the world is now a shithole after the blacks came to power and the whites fled.S. Africa would have been a better place if they could have negociated the end of segregation but keep the whites as leaders for the country.
It's not racism,it's the truth.

Sir I am sorry to say but your statement sounds racist. Firstly the country has not been run to the ground. I would be happy for you to visit my beautiful, if adopted, country and to see for yourself. I have traveled extensively to Eastern Europe and even spent many months in your country and I can honestly say without any racour or prejudice that I would rate SA at a much higher standard baring of course our high crime rate. Secondly put yourself in the place of the people who were subjugated for decades, what would you have done? asked your captors/subjugators to stay in power? Its like at the end of the WWII France would have said to Germany we are now free but you can make Goering or Himmler our President.

I would suggest for everyone reading up on what apartheid was all about to educate yourselves before trying to justify it.
 
Ma'am two wrongs dont make a right. While you are an Israeli but it shouldnt blind you to your country's mistakes and faults. Israel was wrong to support the apartheid and nothing can justify it. And while it is true that the crime stats in SA are appalling but partly its a legacy of the apartheid era. In fact if anything it was magnanimous of present day SA to forgive the role Israel played and to maintain relations with it. Today SA is one of the safest countries for your citizens (and local Jews) to visit and live.

At the end of the day it is wrong to subjugate people and no rational person/country with any moral or ethical standing can support it. Because the people subjugated were Blacks and Indians and the people doing that were White doesn't make it right.




Sir I am sorry to say but your statement sounds racist. Firstly the country has not been run to the ground. I would be happy for you to visit my beautiful, if adopted, country and to see for yourself. I have traveled extensively to Eastern Europe and even spent many months in your country and I can honestly say without any racour or prejudice that I would rate SA at a much higher standard baring of course our high crime rate. Secondly put yourself in the place of the people who were subjugated for decades, what would you have done? asked your captors/subjugators to stay in power? Its like at the end of the WWII France would have said to Germany we are now free but you can make Goering or Himmler our President.

I would suggest for everyone reading up on what apartheid was all about to educate yourselves before trying to justify it.

With all due respect Sir,if you would check out,EE generally has a higher GDP per capita and a better Human Development Index and you must remember that EE came out of communism in 1990,everything was a **** up and fell apart while S. Africa was a developed country built by the whites in 1990.After power shifted , S. Africa fell apart .

A few months ago i saw police open volley fire on protesting miners,how can you say everything is fine apart crime ? Crime stats are appaling in S Africa and economy isn't doing better either.

What about Zimbabwe...now that country sank like a torpedoed merchant british vessel in WW2 after the white farmers were driven off.Can you deny that to ?

You're right,it was a conflicting thing in SA,national pride vs personal well being.They chose national pride in the end but you have to admit that if apartheid wouldn't have happened ,and SA would have been independent under black rule let's say,in 1950, it would have been another Congo.And that' a fact,no use in sugar coating the truth.
 
Back
Top Bottom