The usual confused academic drivel surveying a terrain of thorough-going statist intervention into anything and everything and blaming “neo-liberalism” for any resulting poverty, complaining that the working class lack the fruits of development while assuming that employment is exploitative and the only thing that could bring about development - capitalism - is bad.

While I can admire Mandela for putting up with being imprisoned for 27 years for his principles, he didn't do it for "freedom" or "non-violence" as is commonly claimed. He stood for white political masters being changed to black political masters or at best, a situation in which race wouldn't matter to the composition of the class of political overlords living at the expense of their subjects and ordering them around. He still believed in the State exercising a legal monopoly of violence, and still believed that people's rights are whatever the political class says they are.

The reason he was so adored in the West and the rest of the world was because of white guilt over colonialism. It was ironical, and a bit disgusting, that at the time Idi Amin was clogging up Uganda's public water system with the dead bodies of his political opponents, and in the Central African Republic the leader was serving up his political opponents - baked!; and the situation in many other African countries was atrocious, the human rights abuses that the west and its media were obsessing about were South Africa's racially segregated football teams. This is the moral sickness of statism.

The ideal we should be aiming for is not a world in which a person of any race can rise to the position of chief parasite, but a world based on *real* freedom and non-violence, in which the function of the state is only to protect the freedom of person and property, not to be its chief violator.

I always take away a lot from Jardine's posts they cut through the crap and get to core issues

<<The reason he was so adored in the West and the rest of the world was because of white guilt over colonialism. It was ironical, and a bit disgusting, that at the time Idi Amin was clogging up Uganda's public water system with the dead bodies of his political opponents, and in the Central African Republic the leader was serving up his political opponents - baked!; and the situation in many other African countries was atrocious, the human rights abuses that the west and its media were obsessing about were South Africa's racially segregated football teams. This is the moral sickness of statism>>

Spot on! And most of the media and blogs and pollies are still suffering from that psychosis.

im..disapointed..i expected 3 pages at least..but one?

the only error..was you..like every-other
ignore the role of castro..and the peace condition..HE WANTED
demanded..to show good faith[ie the release..of nelson..BUT FOR FIDEL.castro..and his move/exit..from angolia..MANDELA would still have been..in jail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Accord_(Angola)

While the hostilities in Angola continued, the parties met in June and August in New York and Geneva and finally all approved an outline agreement of Principles for a Peaceful Settlement in South Western Africa on 20 July[10]

During the negotiations the South Africans were asked for the release of Nelson Mandela as a sign of goodwill, which was denied.[6] Mandela remained in captivity until 2 February 1990 when the ANC African National Congress ban was lifted. A ceasefire was finally agreed upon on August 8, 1988.[11]

withdrawal was finalised in stages one month early on 25 May 1991

like so many..like HIM..GLOBALLY*
too many

[indeed SET THE PRISONERS FREE
is what mandela would say before those

who..'come to bury....entrap
[or embed]..all future mandelas'
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6132&page=0

ANYHOW..you were going..so well in summation

<<..The reality is that South Africa has witnessed the replacement of racial apartheid with what is increasingly referred to as class apartheid..>>

thats a huge point-
http://www.genocidewatch.org/southafrica.html

<<..systemic underdevelopment and segregation of the oppressed majority through structured economic, political, legal, and cultural practices">>

is SYMPTOMATIC..of whats been going on..GLOBALLY

>>..As Pretoria undertook measures*..to make big business happy,..>

DITT0..BUT..ITS BEING..done..OGLOBALY

it sort of finishes..here for..now
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6098#177707

or here
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15664&page=0

who..knows..maybe here

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6040&page=0#176496

<<..such as cutting corporate tax rates
and restricting social spending,

SAME/same/shame*..

<<they oversaw an actual decline..in the incomes
of the average black African household.

<<Poverty intensified..as South Africa's
rich got richer..and the poor got poorer.

<<..Privatisation of services..led to rising water
and electricity prices, and increasing numbers of the nation's poorest being cut off..from these services altogether.

<<>.Millions of Africans..have been evicted/from their homes or land since 1994...Along with generally limited..lack of access to medical services,..South Africa's HIV crisis has also been..left to continue with little government intervention.

While the biggest scandal..in South Africa today is
ITS GLOBAL..and those doing..it..seem to..be coming home.,.to roost

or/see..their..future...
and..the/media..is..asleep..*
..perfect/timing..or red-flag?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6132#177812

The ANC after the SACP takeover was effectively a foreign force anyway,it's common knowledge that everything Mandela wrote was censored and edited by his White and Jewish Stalinist handlers who were guided by the Kremlin.
Mandela isn't really a darling of the Left anyway, he's regarded as a "fixer" for the colonial powers and a middle man for their aspirations in Africa. Yeah he's admired by your Blairs and Clintons and their followers but it's because he most accurately represents THEIR world view, not necessarily that of well informed South African people or the wider Western intellectual milieu.

If it wasn't for de Klerk, Mandella wouldn't have got a mention.

Mandella did nothing but that which any black politician would have done in the matter of apartheid; white governments would have put aside apartheid after a few hard-headed Boers went.

The worship of Mandella by both blacks and whites has been a massive piece of sentimental nonsense.

Black South Africans are no better off with Mandella; they are no better off now, and South Africa is a much poorer country than it was financially under white rule, after the big miners left the country.

One wrong doesn't cancel another.

While it is obviously wrong to serve your opponents baked, it is also wrong to rule by force over other people of distant lands against their will.

Similarly, while it is wrong for the state to interfere in our lives, it does not justify the greed of those who abuse their freedom to push capitalism. Nelson Mandela in his greatness, understood that it is not possible to change human nature by force, that of those two evils - socialism and capitalism, it is better to tolerate and forgive the latter because anything else would require violence.

While we should never allow government to curb capitalism by the violence of legislation, we should also expect it not to actively support and encourage it either.

Dear NeverTrustPoliticians,

While South-Africans are financially poorer following the departure of the big miners, they are now richer in spirit.

Come the inevitable global financial collapse, more South Africans will maintain their traditional rural crops while the West will be stuck in cities with diamonds they cannot eat.