Why is Mandella the liberator?

[Loosehead]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6967927.stm

The real liberator was DeClerk who had the courage to realise the system for SA was wrong and to allow change even though it meant his own deposition. He let Mandella out of jail and legalised the ANC and allowed and election he knew would be won by Mandella. Don't get me wrong Mandella has done well for his people but he would not have had the chance without DeClerk.

[jackthehat]

I have to agree.
Mandela is not the romantic freedom fighter of the myth that has built up around him.
The ANC was a terrorist group quite happy to include bomb attacks and would have let USSR into SA if successful.

The fact that the apartheid system was abhorent and unjustifiable does not justify those actions.........

A statue of Gerry Adams in Parliament Square, anyone......

[Gromit]

DeKlerk did what he had to do. He bowed to the inevitable. He didn't really have a choice, deomocracy was coming to South Africa, the world demanded it. But he wanted a solution that the white South Africans could tolerate, and a negotiated outcome instead of the ANC siezing power.

Mandella didn't liberate SA, but his continued incarceration was a focus for the anti-apartied movement around the world.

[sp1814]

It's that "One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist thing" again.

I suppose at the time, with Britain and America and most countries with economic interests in South African against sanctions, what alternatives were left?

Oppressive regimes will eventually be brought down by popular uprisings.

You know...doesn't it almost feel weird now thinking that our government at the time supported the regime, and trotted out that excuse "Oh, gentle persuasion will change hearts and minds".

Seems like a million years ago that they though we'd swallow that nonsense.

[jake-the-peg]

The main thing Mandella did was to avoid a bloody civil war.

When you consider the violence that normally happens in such a power transition - India independance - Irish civil War - Israel Palestine etc.

The fact that South Africa avoided it is nothing short of a miracle and largely down to his vision and strength of leadership.

I think we should make Margaret Thatcher unveil the statue as she spent so long supporting the Arpartheid regieme it would give her a good opportunity to say "Sorry I was wrong"

[nedflanders]

I agree with you on this one Loosehead. But it just wouldn't suit the PC brigade to actually praise a white man for setting free a black man. It would be like admitting that you actually liked George W Bush or saying yes I have recently increased my "carbon footprint".

[sp1814]

Hoorah...another reference to the PC Brigade.

But unfortunately, you're wrong (as indeed is nearly everyone when they mistakenly start referring to the PC Brigade).

William Wilberforce has a statue in Westminster Abbey.

Could you please tell me why the PC Brigade haven't stormed the Abbey to tear it down?

For goodness sake!!!

[sp1814]

nedflanders

Here's the statue:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en- commons/thumb/b/b4/250px-Westminster_Wilberfor ce_Memorial.JPG

Although, I must say...it's a bit camp!

[China Doll]

We're too busy knitting wooly jumpers with pictures on and singing around camp fires while campaining for the equal rights of a three headed sheep with a speech immediment who is confused about their sexuality and lives on the poverty line.

Or something like that.

I think Gromit may have got it spot on with Mandella bringing focus in from the rest of the world.

[China Doll]

Wow... that is camp....

[Loosehead]

I think if they'd wanted to DeClerk and the whites generally could have held on to power. Although they where out numbered they where much better armed and would have had no difficulty putting down an ANC "revolution". It's also worth pointing out that even among the blacks there where two main factions who where living their own version of aparthied.

I agree with Jake though that Mandella did a great job in stopping some sort of black on white retribution and general civil war among the main black factions. His "truth and reconcilliation" Committee did it's job. As already said he deserves credit but I think it needed the white regime at the time to stand back and let it all happen.

I don't think Mandella deserves a statue though, there are better candidates.

[I.Don No]

a statue of Mandela in this country?

WHY?

[sp1814]

I.Don No - because there are many many people in this country who love Mandela.

I remember back in the 90s, whenever there was a survey naming most admired world leaders etc, Mandela and Mother Theresa would always be fighting it out for number one.

Well, not literally.

Shouldn't our national monuments reflect popular sentiment?

[sp1814]

China Doll

Tell me about it!

Can you imagine if Wilberforce came back to life and went to have a look at his statue?

He'd probably walk right past it thinking, "Why have they got a monument to Kenneth Williams?"

[jno]

same reason as there's a king of the Ukrainian king St Vladimir in Holland Park: because he was a great man whom locals wished to commemorate. Is there a problem here?

[jno]

bleh... a STATUE of St Vladimir...

[China Doll]

I think he'd admire the legs... those legs are fabulous!

[whiffey]

Just hearing on Radio 4. Why erect a statue of Nelson Mandela in London ? What did he ever do for Britain. Is this not about the same as erecting a statue of Tony Blair in Korea ? No it isn't, because Nelson Mandela is -----.

This is not the word that dare not speak its name, it is the word that is compulsory.

[whiffey]

... and he is already playing the Race Card. No surprises there.

[I.Don No]

sp1814

I understand what you mean and I am certainly not denegrating anything Mr Mandela has done to help black people in his native land, but that is where the statue should be.

It is time all british people took pride in Britain and celebrate all that is good here first.

[kwicky]

How long will it be before a statue of Bin Laden is put up in Times Square?