The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

http://www.newsweek.com/day-mandela-was-arrested-little-help-cia-223935

by salient • 13 years ago

204 157 13 years ago

snrip3• 13 years ago

F*ck apartheid, but for all I know Mandela pretty much deserved to go to jail.

Big disgrace if the CIA actively sponsored this regime, but the allegations in the article are just from one source not directly related to the affairs. All the "Who knows" and "My guess" doesn't make the case any stronger.

TallGuyShort• 13 years ago

I agree that stuff like this needs to be well-sourced, but I'm glad to see some of it getting attention. Mandela is, and rightfully so, held up as a beacon of kindness and forgiveness that we should all try to incorporate. But I think we do his legacy a disservice by not talking about all the corruption he fought, and who we really was (including the parts that make him look like, as you suggest, he "pretty much deserved to go to jail").

I've done a lot of reading on this topic myself. I would love to post some sources but I don't have my books with me at the moment. But for what it's worth (which is not much, admittedly) - let me add my endorsement as a fellow HNer that what the author talks about is plausible, and there is plenty of evidence if you care to go looking for it. I believe this is a well-accepted theory by many other South Africans, rather than a fringe conspiracy. But yes - unfortunate that the author doesn't do more to back up the claims in a verifiable way.

edit: The cover is different, but I'm pretty sure this is the book I read that did the most to back up these events: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-B-O-S-S-Africas-Secret-Police/d.... The details, as I remember them, have always been very consistently reported by the various "sources".

yequalsx2• 13 years ago

Do you believe his jailors deserved to go to jail? What about his prosecutors? The results of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission clearly indicate evilness of the apartheid regime and those in control of it. That Mandela's response when gaining power was not one of retribution, revenge, and bloodshed clearly indicates in my mind that his was a principled, moral mind and that he clearly did not deserve to go to jail.

sigzero• 13 years ago

Weren't like 70K white people slaughtered while he was president?

dragonwriter2• 13 years ago

Big disgrace if the CIA actively sponsored this regime

The US was the apartheid regime's next-to-last overt ally (Israel was the last -- and proliferated nuclear weapons technology to South Africa) -- US overt support ending only late in the Reagan Administration under intense public and Congressional pressure -- and its not really the worst regime the US backed as a bulwark against Communism.

Regardless of whether the CIA was involved in supplying information for Mandela's arrest, there is no question that at the time -- and for decades after -- the US government was -- overtly, not merely potentially covertly -- backing the South Africa apartheid regime.

dingaling• 13 years ago

In what form do you see that overt support?

The USA was very stringent in adhering to the progressively tighter UN arms embargoes and once the supplies from France ceased this caused SA to look towards Israel, Taiwan and Argentina for military equipment ( the latter two mainly as covert import channels, Israel as a partner ).

Occasional US arms did appear in SADF service but only as grey imports.

SA intel and SADF held a pretty dim view of CIA capabilities ( particularly in Angola ) and from what I know in public sources didn't deal much with them. Though they did supply captured Warpac equipment, once they had examined it in conjunction with the Israelis.

jbooth2• 13 years ago

Thought experiment:

Some other civilization (let's say the Arabs) comes to America and puts us in a system analogous to apartheid, where the groups are whites on bottom and arabs on top.

In that hypothetical, would your opinions be different?

pstuart2• 13 years ago

Of course they would. But only then.

snrip3• 13 years ago

In that case my opinion would go from "fck apartheid" to "fck the system analogous to apartheid". I would support the Americans in their fight against Arabs (never thought I would live to say that!). I would still not condone hurting innocent people and feel that a punushment would be justified.

ilitirit7• 13 years ago

for all I know Mandela pretty much deserved to go to jail.

TBH, while he did break the law, I think his course of action against the state was justified. That's obviously not an excuse that will fly in court, but saying "he deserved to go to jail" is a bit disingenuous given the context.

Mandela pleaded guilty to the charges against him (sabotage of various state and military instruments). The state was looking for evidence of him having a hand in killing/hurting civilians because they wanted to hang him. They couldn't find any, so they settled on life imprisonment.

the_af2• 13 years ago

Agreed.

"Deserve" has little to do with going to jail. Going to jail is a legal matter. A moral man committing a moral act that happens to break an immoral law will go to jail according to that law, but does he "deserve" it?

snrip3• 13 years ago

Yeah, I should not have let that remark fly without further elaboration: For all I know mr. Mandela was directly connected to bombings that made innocent victims, such as the Church Street bombing. In my book that warrents jail sentence.

I am not too sure how to feel about an institution of the apartheids regime being the judge to this. Right and wrong get mixed up in my head.

For the fact that he and others resisted this regime, they deserve the praise they are getting. Sure some laws have been broken, but who made and interpreted these laws? That is not why I was saying he deserved punishment. It is innocent victims that make the difference. I was definitely not clear on that.

Btw I just did some reading up on the ANC bombings and it turns out I might be all wrong and just made an ass out of myself.

pjc50• 13 years ago

Some background from Mandela himself: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/23/nelsonmandela

It's important to note the date of this speech at his trial, April 20 1964, _before_ the passing of the US civil rights act (July 2 the same year); so at this time parts of the US had apartheit-like conditions.

munificent• 13 years ago

It does a disservice to the facts of apartheid to compare the US in 1964 to SA at the same time. While, yes, there were many many racial problems in the US, there were no race-based federal laws. The Civil Rights Act was passed to prohibit racial laws at the state level. Meanwhile, in South Africa:

All citizens had to carry a card identifying their race. (Population Registration Act)

It was specifically legally allowed to segregate public facilities (parks, hospitals, transportation, etc.). In addition, facilities were specifically allowed to be unequal for different races or even non-existent. (Reservation of Separate Amenities Act)

Property was legally divided by race and you could only live in areas alloted to your race. (Group Areas Act)

Federal law controlled which jobs you were allowed to hold based on your race. High skill jobs were reserved for whites and blacks were prohibited from holding them. (Mines and Works Act, Native Building Workers Act)

Blacks were legally prohibited from striking or forming unions. Whites had no such restriction. (Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act, Industrial Conciliation Act)

Schools were legally segregated by race, which led (either intentionally or not) to radically inferior schooling for blacks. In the 70s, per capita spending on black education was one-tenth of the spending on white. (Bantu Education Act, Extension of University Education Act et. al.)

It was a federal crime, punishable by up to five years in prison to engage in inter-racial sex involving a white person. Inter-racial marriage was likewise outlawed. (Immorality Act, Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act)

And this is just the beginning. There were dozens of other pieces of legislation that specifically encoded race-based selection into federal law. It's astonishing how horrendous South Africa was in a time where most other developed countries were what we think of as "modern".

trekky1700• 13 years ago

I would like to point out that the article, despite it's leading title, states that there's little evidence to suggest the agent was working for the CIA at the time. He owned a security company and was hired by a South African government agency.

Title really should be: "The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From A Hired Private Security Contractor Who Happened To Have Worked For The CIA In The Past"

scarmig7• 13 years ago

This is inaccurate.

Mandela was arrested in the 1962, and Shirley (the person in question) only retired from the agency a decade later, in 1973.

http://www.salon.com/1996/11/14/news_577/

I believe the confusion comes from when the training manuals for the South African security/intelligence forces were being developed by him, which came later, after his ostensible retirement.

jokoon3• 13 years ago

Maybe the CIA should not have worked with those guys in the first place ?

That's one part of capitalism I hate, paying fat checks, and knowing it will never backfire to you. When you're a government agency, when you hire somebody, there's espionage/politics involved, don't pretend the CIA is pinky pony. It's strategic moves from start to end.

I've seen worse headlines.

Shivetya• 13 years ago

This has nothing to do with capitalism and more to do with anything, colonialism and the Cold War. It was politics as usual, help allies to keep them.

While it is easy to sit back and judge the past we have to realize that some actions were seen as prudent at the time. The nation Mandela came up in is far different from what it is today but so is the world. This by no means excuses actions of the past, but at the time who would have ever figured the transformation that took place in him at the time.

jd_free4• 13 years ago

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history. Millions of people think he was put in jail for protesting apartheid or something else noble. He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. The "activism" he's credited with while in prison was mostly arranging more killings.

Read about a practice his group created while he was in prison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing

scarmig7• 13 years ago

You can read more about the crimes his group was involved in in the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established after the abolition of apartheid.

garg• 13 years ago

From what I am reading all this happened while he was in prison. ANC had violent members while Mandela was in prison but how does that implicate Mandela? Desmund Tutu saved a man from Necklacing so why then would he be such an ardent supporter of Mandela?

scarmig7• 13 years ago

In fairness, he started the military wing of the ANC, and his wife was involved in lots of very nasty stuff.

Those were bleak times, though; I'm sure Mandela himself thought as much. But for some reason you don't see the people so outraged about the relatively limited violence the ANC engaged in even slightly concerned about the constant terrorism and mass violence that the apartheid state directed against it's nonwhite residents. (I would say citizens, but they didn't even have legal formal citizenship.) And more than anything it's Mandela's performance after abolition that has cemented his reputation: he could easily have been another Mugabe, but he pursued restorative justice for both sides, not vengeance.

To paraphrase MLK...

I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that a political movement in a deeply repressed and violent society itself occasionally resorts to violence, but it is even more unfortunate that the country's white power structure left the coloured community with no alternative.

larrys3• 13 years ago

You've raised some interesting points and I don't know enough to know if this is correct (other than what you are referring to and I don't even come close to knowing how to vet anything on this). But I do know that currently Mandela is seen as a saint (just watching the news last night alone would tell you that).

So I wonder if anyone with mainstream credibility has written or will write some definite document that confirms or denies what people are saying on either side of this issue?

at-fates-hands• 13 years ago

Here's an account of the trial which I thought was pretty detailed: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mandela/mandel...

I thought it was pretty telling he was offered his freedom if he denounced the violence the ANC was taking part in and he refused.

ismail3• 13 years ago

I think the media you are watching are doing you a disservice and quite possibly the world media. They are portraying Nelson Mandela as some kind of grand-father to the country, and yes in the last 15 years he has grown into that role, but there was more to the man that.

He was not GREAT because he was a SAINT or a pacifist or forgiving. He was great, because he knew what needed to be done, and he did it at the right times.

When the peaceful resistance, the marching, the uprisings were not working, it was time for the armed resistance.

When the country was at the brink of civil war he reliased unity would be needed to ensure the country and people would be truly free.

He was great, because he could get people to see his view of the world, not by force, not by demanding but just by speaking to them.

He was not this cuddly teddy bear/saint that some here seem to think he was. When the time came, and he did what needed to be done, not for himself but for the people, for a cause and for freedom.

mrleinad3• 13 years ago

This is the same bull*t that is thrown at Castro, Che Guevara, and many others. You can't make a revolution without guns, when the other side has all the power and lots of guns as well. Almost all independence wars (and I say almost, because there's this nice dude Gandhi, but I'm not sure it was an actual war) were fought with weapons, not with flowers and nice thoughts. If you're from the US you should know better, considering that your Constitution clearly states (paraphrasing) that you have a right to bear arms, in case the government tries to take away your freedoms.

tcdent3• 13 years ago

I don't think most Americans understand the second amendment, even if they are in support of it.

gwern• 13 years ago

This is the same bull*t that is thrown at Castro, Che Guevara, and many others.

Bullshit? Should we infer that you think Castro's Cuba was a smashing success and has totally justified all the bad things he and his followers did?

jd_free4• 13 years ago

So, you equate Mandela with Castro and Guevara, and consider that a good thing? Care to through bin Laden in there?

I guess fighting British soldiers is exactly the same as necklacing civilians, too, so it's fair to compare it too the US revolution.

bilbo0s• 13 years ago

I downvoted you and wanted to explain, as the downvote was not for your content.

I, as a rule, downvote posts by sparsely populated, recently created accounts. Reason being, I generally believe them to be throwaway accounts created for the purposes of spamming and trolling. I think it does a disservice to HN to engage in that behavior.

I wanted to give you some advice on how to avoid downvotes in the future. If you have something to say... say it on your own account is probably the best piece of advice. Also, if you really are a new member, perhaps you could put more profiling information in the account you create so that people don't ascribe malevolent intent to your activities. I know that the older members don't need to do so... but they have a track record of useful contributions to discussions.

Lastly, if you are not a spammer or troll... Welcome to HN.

tcdent3• 13 years ago

Automatic downvotes for green accounts?! If that was a good idea, it would be built into the software.

Read, comprehend, and then interact based on the content. Meta posts like this are a waste of everyone's time.

randac• 13 years ago

Perhaps you should exercise self-control and refrain from passing ANY judgement then, if your reasons for doing so are unrelated to the content of the posts in question.

middleclick• 13 years ago

Oh look, someone is going all "respect my authoritah" here. You should stop taking imaginary internet points so seriously.

jbooth2• 13 years ago

It's pretty amazing that we've got all these brand new accounts showing up, all to make sure that we're aware of what a terrible person Nelson Mandela was.

I had no idea this movement existed, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Nothing to do with race, I'm sure, they're just pacifists who oppose violence in all forms. If they were being oppressed by black people, they'd never have resorted to violence.

mjb2• 13 years ago

I had no idea this movement existed, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I'm a South African. I am constantly disappointed by the amount of time and emotional energy some South Africans (and expats) put into historical revisionism and apartheid denial. There are many reasons for it, but it's worth reminding yourself that in 1992 more than 30% of South African voters voted to continue apartheid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_apartheid_referen...). History is ugly, recent history especially so.

PeterisP• 13 years ago

Why do people equate being a terrorist with being a terrible person?

If you're being oppressed and can't fix it by 'soap box/ballot box', then going to 'ammo box' and killing your oppressors is morally just and proper.

Is your country counquered by a foreign military occupation, as say, France in 1940's but also many other cases? Then participating in guerilla warfare and terrorism is perfectly understandable for morally sound, ethical people.

Is your country ruled by an oppressive dictator? Revolution, including terrorism against the ruling clique and military, and followed by armed rebellion (as, say, founding of USA) is morally justified in many such casses; simply allowing your nation to lose another generation while waiting for the dictator to go away is the immoral option.

It might be in my personal and my countries best interests for that particular occupation or that dictator to stay in power, and those particular terrorists to lose - indeed, it probably is so for some current global hotspots - but it doesn't mean that these terrorists/freedom fighters are evil people; they're simply fighting on another side, but if the fighting was needed to defend my community or nation, I'd consider such violence as not only ethically permissable, but as an ethical duty to take up arms and do as much as you can.

mjb2• 13 years ago

He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks.

Mandela was extremely conflicted by the ANC's (and, more specifically, MK's) use of violence against the apartheid government. He saw it as a regrettable tool to be used to achieve better ends. It's clear from his later writings (his Time essay about Gandhi, for example) that he, at least, regretted needing to take these actions.

You're also going to need to present citations for "thousands of innocents". While it is true that civilians were killed in MK bombings, "thousands" is a gross exaggeration. It's also interesting to compare these actions to those being taken on the other side, with the program run under Basson as a very good example. The TRC findings make it clear that both sides were involved in some really unpleasant and unacceptable activities, and Mandela did indeed know about many of MK's uglier secrets, but to cast him as a terrorist only interested in killing civilians is unfair and historically inaccurate.

On the other hand, I suspect you're just a troll, so I'm not going to convince you with evidence.

newman314• 13 years ago

This is all well in good when you are having an armchair discussion. I suspect you would respond different if you were informed: "We regret this but we are going to have to kill you" (read in the voice of a Vogon)

anon808• 13 years ago

George Washington also resorted to violence, and if you're British during the late 1700s, you might even call it terrorism.

danielweber• 13 years ago

There seem to be people who think that Mandela was a pacifist like Ghandi. I can buy the "was justified in the use of violence" angle, but he was supported the use of violence for political ends enough that Amnesty International refused to call him a Prisoner of Conscience at the time.

People are not totally good or totally evil.

mikebludd2• 13 years ago

Black South African here It's a known fact that the ANC's guerilla campaign was largely a failure(most of the combatants were stuck in training camps across africa ).MK was founded after the Sharpeville massacre 21 March 1960 at which the apartheid gov killed 69 people who did not want carry ID's required for all black males.

ilitirit7• 13 years ago

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history.

Ironic, considering that your post is basically revisionism at it's finest.

Four forms of violence were possible. There is sabotage, there is guerrilla warfare, there is terrorism, and there is open revolution. We chose to adopt the first. Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/23/nelsonmandela

Mandela was jailed for sabotage. MK was founded after the ANC's policy of "non-cooperation" was continually met with violent opposition from the SA government. Were they "terrorists"? No, the intent was not to spread terror or harm civilians. They only attacked government and military targets in ways which that would result in the least harm to civilians. This is exactly what he was sent to prison for - sabotage. There was zero evidence that he had a hand in any activities that led to civilian casualties (if there had been, he would have been hanged).

These "thousands of people" you claim that have been killed by MK (I'm not sure you can substantiate that) occurred while he has in prison. A large part of his sentence was carried out on Robben Island (Google it, it's literally an island) so he had little to no contact with the outside world, hence it would have been impossible for him to lead MK. He only found out about the group's activities when he was moved to a prison on the main land. And by then, his wife was running the show.

Yes, MK did bad things, especially under Winnie Mandela. But Nelson Mandela had no part in it. In fact, the differences in political ideology was a big factor in their eventual separation and divorce.

brown9-22• 13 years ago

Are you sure that it is fair to blame Mandela for what some parts of the ANC did while he was imprisoned? Did he have control over all of the factions then?

smsm423• 13 years ago

That depends. Did he raise his voice against the practices and use the fullest of his authority to stop it, but failed, or did he accept the practices as something people do, but not talk about in the polite society?

ZoFreX• 13 years ago

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history.

I agree. It's quite amusing to see politicians that were definitively not on his side coming out after all these years in favour of him: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/06/follow-...

In response to the rest of your comment: wow such edgy.

tokipin• 13 years ago

best historical overview on Mandela for those of us who have only heard the word 'apartheid' but didn't know what it refered to (video): http://on.msnbc.com/1cpfpAr

moolriaz12• 13 years ago

Shocked by how misinformed people are about Mandela/Apartheid, or by the amount of trolling going on here.

Thousands of white people have not died in SA thanks to Mandela. Mandela was not a 'terrorist'. Apartheid was BAD, and still affects the country significantly today. Here's some context for you. This all applied pre 1994/2:

I am a non white South African. The only reason I got a good education was because with the release of Nelson Mandela, my parents were one of few to study at a previously white only university, and qualify for positions previously reserved for whites only. They went on to run companies that they COULD NOT have run during Apartheid, have offices in places they could not have had before, have clients they could not have before etc. I live in a neighbourhood my parents could not have lived in prior to 1994, and study at a university my parents were not allowed to. These were white only areas only, because they are good.

My father was a lawyer during Apartheid. Black people were only allowed to represent black people. Almost all of the people he defended in court were put to death, in many cases before their trials were even heard by courts! Post apartheid, the death penalty was dropped.

My family had family friends that were white. They were never allowed to mix. My aunt wanted to marry a white (American) man but was forbidden to. They got married illegally. She was not entitled to live in the property he owned, as black people could not legally own property. She came close to being arrested many times.

Post apartheid my aunt and her white husband were married. She was allowed to legally own the property after he died.

My birth certificate does not have my parents names on it, due to Apartheid. Families were not formally recognised. I need to get an amended birth certificate to prove who my parents are, and I can now do this post apartheid.

My parents were also forcefully removed from their legally owned properties that were taken from them during Apartheid. Their property was seized by the government and never returned. My parents could barely even travel out of South Africa as flying over/travelling other African countries were restricted. They were even not allowed to enter many countries abroad.

And I'm not even 'Black'. My ethnicity is Indian. I am an Indian South Africa (of which there are millions). Everyone who wasn't white was counted as 'Black'. This accounts for over 85% of South Africa's population.

It is well known in SA that the US government actively supported Apartheid, and many people have a poor opinion of the US because of this.

If it wasn't for Nelson Mandela, I probably wouldn't even be able to post this. My family, and millions others, now live lives they simply could not have lived before.

Please explain to me how this is the work of a terrorist, or how in any way the work of the armed wing of the ANC was not justified by the Apartheid regimes massacre of innocent children and women , and torture of prisoners (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soweto_uprising, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpeville_massacre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko) and their numerous policies and their effects as explained above.

wavefunction2• 13 years ago

Thanks for your take. The people calling Mandela a terrorist don't know what they're talking about.

iends9• 13 years ago

Well, I think many are just pointing out he was classified as a terrorist by the United States until 2008.

puller• 13 years ago

To be fair, he did found the armed wing of the ANC, was offered a release from prison conditional on renouncing violence which he refused to do, and afterward his group went on to carry out a number of IRA-style bombings.

The apartheid regime might have justified extreme measures that killed civilians, but his hands are not as clean as you would imagine from the hagiography.

We don't glorify Gerry Adams in this way and give him Nobel prizes, although he did contribute a lot to the peace process in Ireland.

yequalsx2• 13 years ago

Thank you for your contribution to the discussion. I too am shocked. That the United States actively supported the Apartheid regime is a great national shame. I'm friends with a woman who grew up in South Africa. She is white. The stories she tells about the attitudes and what happened there during the Apartheid regime are revolting. She thinks Mandela is a saint and is very grateful for his leadership.

Mandela was not a terrorist. He did not deserve jail. That he came out of that experience and did not engage in a campaign of retribution is a testament to the man's greatness. Those that denigrate him do so from ignorance or lack of empathy.

iends9• 13 years ago

Mandela was more than happy to use violence against the government as a tool in his cause for equality (although later he seemed to regret the need for it). Using violence, he broke reasonable and justified laws. Laws such as planting bombs, destroying property, and physically harming others.

Just because we can all agree that his cause was just, doesn't mean he should necessarily get a free pass from criticism or judgement.

rayiner3• 13 years ago

That the United States actively supported the Apartheid regime is a great national shame.

The real shame is that The Afrikaner nationlist party that instituted apartheid ran on the platform in 1948, the same year that the Dixiecrats in America ran on a segregationist platform. Apartheid started to crumble in 1990, less than 30 years after George Wallace, as Governor of Alabama, declared "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!", less than 25 years after he ran for President, and just over 20 years after MLK was assassinated.

Of course, by 1970 the situation in the U.S. was far better than it was in South Africa. But apartheid in South Africa was less far-removed, temporally, from segregation in America than most Americans appreciate. Ronald Reagan, who opposed Mandela as President, spent more of his life living in a legally segregated America than he did living in a legally integrated America.

moolriaz12• 13 years ago

If you want to learn more about what South Africa was like for people of different races before Apartheid, and the steps that lead to Apartheid, you should read the excellent book 'Cry the Beloved Country.' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry,_the_Beloved_Country, http://www.amazon.com/Cry-Beloved-Country-Alan-Paton/dp/0743...)

The history of South Africa is unique, and you will learn something. These events are strongly connected to the discovery of gold and diamonds. Perhaps you've heard of the Rhodes scholarship? Cecil John Rhodes was a key player in these trades, and the Rhodes scholarship has a special status in SA.

Examples of previously white only areas : http://goo.gl/maps/JMQ07, http://goo.gl/maps/rz0bf

Examples of black only areas: http://tinyurl.com/pxpbwtq, http://tinyurl.com/kvxzm4l

ismail3• 13 years ago

I have fond memories as a young child, cops escorting us of a beach because were were not supposed to be there.

ilitirit7• 13 years ago

As a non-white South African myself (Cape Malay - a descendant of Malaysian political activists exiled to Cape Town), I can confirm the legitimacy of this post. I have several family members who have strange names because the South African government officials at the time couldn't understand them so they just made up names for them.

My dad had a dead end job because even though he was more qualified than his boss, a non-white could not be promoted to a position held by a white person. Neither my dad nor any of my uncles were allowed to participate in National Cricket, Rugby or Football teams. This led to the very interesting problem where a large portion of the population even today refuse to support any of the National sports teams. You're more likely for example to find a New Zealand Rugby supporter among the older "coloured" (the official term) community, than one who supports the National team. Even today my parents do not support South African sports teams (football was always the exception, because it was regarded as a "black" sport).

I was part of the first group of non-white people allowed to attend a "white" high school. The racism was terrible at times, and it filled me with resentment for the first few years. Afterwards though, I started noticing how my peers were becoming more open to other cultures and ethnicities, and with that the resentment faded.

Ironically, I too for many years believed Mandela was a terrorist who killed civilians, partly because the zeitgeist of my teen years was rebelliousness, and partly because I highly skeptic of anyone held in such high regard. Thankfully, my adult years proved that I was just being naive and willfully ignorant. Mandela was certainly no terrorist.

markdown2• 13 years ago

Even today, South Africa is introducing quota systems into their rugby organisations to try and correct some of the imbalances in sport caused by apartheid:

http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/New-race-quotas-for-SA-rugby-...

nashequilibrium• 13 years ago

The problem is that in the age of TL;DR, nobody here is going to take the time to read "A Long Walk to Freedom". So they will listen to snippets of info, mostly taken out of context. Yes Mandela did create the "spear of the nation" but most people do not understand the background of this or the reason, instead they resort to reading a few snippets and posting here.

You get two types of people here, one group is liberal and support alomost anything against racism, women abuse, welfare reform, you name it, if it promotes freedom they are for it.These are called the Democrats. On the other side of it the people who love racism but deny it exists, they donated to george zimmerman, they hold onto their guns at all cost, believe all minorites are on welfare etc. These are the Republicans. A lot of people who are posting negative things come from this group and they are no different than Apartheid type whites, they even be worst, but this style of thinking has been passed down from their parents and they will pass it down to their kids, thats life. Don't let their lack of evolution sway your understanding of what Mandela stood for as most of them have not taken the time to educate themselves, but just read snippets and focus on something slighlty negative.

If Mandela had ceated a civil war, this country would not have been blessed with "Elon Musk", "Emmanue Dherman" and people Like "Roelof Botha" would not be living the cozy VC life even though his family were high ranking members in the apartheid government.

jd_free4• 13 years ago

The above is an example of exactly what's wrong with politics: A person who defines his side as "anything good" and the opposing side as "anything bad". Obliviously, he insists that the millions on the other side believe things that they do not believe, and gets angry with them for denying it.

Now imagine that you are on the opposite side of this person. How do you feel? Would you even remotely consider switching to his side, when his argument for doing so starts with the presumption that people on your side cannot possibly have any good intentions at all, even though you know that you yourself do?

Exactly.

mason2402• 13 years ago

Your second paragraph is by far the most vitriolic thing I've read in a long time.

dharmach• 13 years ago

I also see many people nitpicking minor details to show that Mandela was not 100% peaceful and he talked about struggle. When you have nothing to complain to those aggressor and their violence, why complain that oppressed victim who has no power, is not perfectly peaceful, law-abiding and fair?

diogenescynic• 13 years ago

Welcome to the new relativism, where the facts don't matter and semantics rule the day.

kops2• 13 years ago

Thanks for your post in a world where it seems horrible things were ever done only by one side in second world war. The fact that white homo-sapiens aren't extinct in SA is good enough to convince me that not just Mandela, but many other people in that country are better human beings than I am. The words of a dutch friend keep ringing in my ears where he suggested that the aggressive group will always be better off regardless of morality, I wish he was wrong but I am still waiting for the evidence to the contrary....

pessimizer2• 13 years ago

Mandela was a terrorist. You're just having cognitive dissonance because you agree with him (as all right-thinking people should have.)

To the extent that "terrorist" has any meaning, it is when a less powerful actor attempts to advance an agenda through creating an unmanageable situation for a more powerful institution by causing an increased sense of risk within individuals who are part of the support structure of that institution, thereby making it too expensive for the institution to continue preventing that agenda from being advanced.

Where conventional war wins by killing enough people on the other side that they can't stop you from doing what you want, instead terrorism makes people so expensive (in lost government support from a targeted public, increased salaries and heightened security, and/or lost inflows of money from targeted clients and customers) that allowing the terrorist agenda to advance turns out to be cheaper for the institution being attacked than continuing to fight.

That's what the ANC did.

moolriaz12• 13 years ago

That's a bit condescending. Terrorism doesn't have an accepted definition, and that definitely isn't my definition of terrorism, nor many others. Perhaps people living in America are more inclined to your definition.

I believe that terrorism is defined by the desire to cause mass fear in the general populace by intentionally targeting innocent people, to send across some political message in whichever guise. 9/11 was a terrorist attack.

The Spear of the Nation targeted infrastructure of the Apartheid regime, and the policies of equality upheld by the ANC and Nelson Mandela were widely supported by both white and non-white people in South Africa. I do not think these actions were aimed at provoking mass fear or lobbying an ideal not commonly accepted in South Africa.

This period is often referred to as a revolution, and successful revolutionaries are not historically known as 'terrorists'. In the Anglo-Boer war a similar tactic was employed by the Boers to great effect, but I have never heard of anyone referring to their actions during this war as acts of terrorism. They fought against an act of war initiated by the British, the same way that the ANC fought against acts of violence by the ruling regime, except the ANC were severely under resourced.

Again, the spear of the nation may have done this. This doesn't make Nelson Mandela a terrorist. If he armed a bomb, killed someone, held someone hostage for international attention, I would be far more inclined to accept your definition, as with others.

Given that even the Iron Lady apologised for calling Mandela a terrorist, I'd say the commonly accepted belief is that he is and was not a terrorist.

TrainedMonkey2• 13 years ago

You are confusing things. Mandela was not a terrorist because he won, proper term is freedom fighter. History is always written by victorious.

jokoon3• 13 years ago

You're displacing and blurring both contexts and words to your advantage.

having cognitive dissonance

I know what most people think is not always right, but read yourself, and try to add water to your wine a little.

The context of apartheid was really bleak. Colonization by whites on african land can only generate relevant tensions from black people toward whites. Most people are black in SA and in all africa around it. You can't have a ruling minority which is not like and expect nice things. Nelson Mandela was much more peaceful (and smart) than most others.

Mandela was a terrorist.

First, people use terrorism when they're losing a war, not an political argument. Secondly, activists have been called terrorists because the cause they defend have been discredited after other activists used violence for the same cause. It's the media and newspaper inflating images which doesn't reflect the thought of the majority.

You can't mix and match opinions and definitions used by the media to discredit Mandela, and at the same time forget how the situation was in SA, and on top of it, talk about cognitive dissonance. If most view it as a hero, maybe he just it. Nobody sees Ben Laden as a hero. Bush actually invited Mandela and apologized after he was considered a terrorist.

Conclusion: everyone sees terrorists everywhere.

bambax• 13 years ago

Please explain to me how this is the work of a terrorist

Terrorism is the response of the weak to the strong; if the strong is wrong and unjustly oppressing the weak, then terrorism is justified and good.

It could be argued that terrorism saves lives: it kills less people to obtain a big outcome, than a regular war.

Terrorism is war hacking.

bananacurve• 13 years ago

Vapid articles like this are up voted on HN on the mistaken idea that this somehow is bringing America down a notch. Inaccuracies of this story aside, people that want America to fail would be much better served by actually building something useful themselves.

CraigJPerry• 13 years ago

I only found out today how Nelson Mandella place in Glasgow city centre got its name.

To piss off SA, the street their embassy was on was renamed while he was still being held.

There's more the story: http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22976781

owenmarshall• 13 years ago

This is the same reason that there is a Bobby Sands Street in downtown Tehran.

The UK embassy responded by moving their main entrance to a side door on a different street so they wouldn't be forced to put Bobby Sands on their letterhead, official documents, etc.

ismail3• 13 years ago

Also to get a more accurate reflection, tune in to Radio 702 (Wont be much now since its 11pm) but you could possibly catch some clips from people who actually knew him.

http://www.ourmadiba.com/reflect.html

http://www.702.co.za/index_site.asp

The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

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