NELSON MANDELA

R.I.P.

OMG so sorry to hear this news R I P

A truly great man. Rest In Peace.

Very sad news, an incredible man.

R.I.P

Nelson Mandela, the revered South African anti-apartheid icon who spent 27 years in prison, led his country to democracy and became its first black president, died Thursday at home. He was 95.
"He is now resting," said South African President Jacob Zuma. "He is now at peace."
"Our nation as lost his greatest son," he continued. "Our people have lost their father."
A state funeral will be held.
Though he was in power for only five years, Mandela was a figure of enormous moral influence the world over – a symbol of revolution, resistance and triumph over racial segregation.
He inspired a generation of activists, left celebrities and world leaders star-struck, won the Nobel Peace Prize and raised millions for humanitarian causes.
South Africa is still bedeviled by challenges, from class inequality to political corruption to AIDS. And with Mandela’s death, it has lost a beacon of optimism.

Little is known about Nelson Mandela

Feb. 1990: NBC's Robin Lloyd reports on Nelson Mandela on the eve of his release from prison in 1990. Mandela's name has become a rallying cry for the overthrow of apartheid, but no one but prison guards and visitors have actually seen him since he was jailed 27 years ago.
In his jailhouse memoirs, Mandela wrote that even after spending so many years in a Spartan cell on Robben Island – with one visitor a year and one letter every six months – he still had faith in human nature.
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion,” he wrote in “Long Walk to Freedom.”
“People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
Mandela retired from public life in 2004 with the half-joking directive, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” and had largely stepped out of the spotlight, spending much of his time with family in his childhood village.
His health had been fragile in recent years. He had spent almost three months in a hospital in Pretoria after being admitted in June for a recurring lung infection. He was released on Sept. 1.
In his later years, Mandela was known to his countrymen simply as Madiba, the name of his tribe and a mark of great honor. But when he was born on July 18, 1918, he was named Rolihlahla, which translated roughly – and prophetically – to “troublemaker.”

Nelson Mandela turns 93

South Africa's anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela turned 93 today, as 12 million school children celebrated his life in song. Brian Williams reports.
Mandela was nine when his father died, and he was sent from his rural village to the provincial capital to be raised by a fellow chief. The first member of his family to get a formal education, he went to boarding school and then enrolled in South Africa’s elite Fort Hare University, where his activism unfurled with a student boycott.
As a young law scholar, he joined the resurgent African National Congress just a few years before the National Party – controlled by the Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch and French settlers – came to power on a platform of apartheid, in which the government enforced racial segregation and stripped non-whites of economic and political power.
As an ANC leader, Mandela advocated peaceful resistance against government discrimination and oppression – until 1961, when he launched a military wing called Spear of the Nation and a campaign of sabotage.
The next year, he was arrested and soon hit with treason charges. At the opening of his trial in 1964, he said his adoption of armed struggle was a last resort born of bloody crackdowns by the government.
“Fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation and fewer and few rights,” he said from the dock.
“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Nelson Mandela on eve of historic win

April, 1994: Former political prisoner Nelson Mandela is on the verge of being elected South Africa's first black president.
He was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Robben Island. As inmate No. 466/64, he slept on the floor of a six-foot-wide cell, did hard labor in a quarry, organized fellow prisoners – and earned a law degree by correspondence.
As the years passed, his incarceration drew ever more attention, with intensifying cries for his release as a global anti-apartheid movement gained traction. Songs were dedicated to him and 600 million people watched the Free Mandela concert at London’s Wembley Stadium in 1988.
In 1985, he turned down the government’s offer to free him if he renounced armed struggle against apartheid. It wasn’t until South African President P.W. Botha had a stroke and was replaced by F.W. de Klerk in 1989 that the stage was set for his release.
After a ban on the ANC was repealed, a whiter-haired Mandela walked out prison before a jubilant crowd and told a rally in Cape Town that the fight was far from over.
“Our struggle has reached a decisive moment,” he said. “We have waited too long for our freedom. We can no longer wait.”
Over the next two years, Mandela proved himself a formidable negotiator as he pushed South Africa toward its first multiracial elections amid tension and violence. He and de Klerk were honored with the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.
When the elections were held in April 1994, the ex-prisoner became the next president and embarked on a mission of racial reconciliation, government rebuilding and economic rehabilitation.

Philip Littleton / AFP - Getty Images, file
Springbok captain Francois Pienaar receives the Rugby World Cup from South African President Nelson Mandela at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on June 24, 1995.

A year into his tenure, with racial tensions threatening to explode into civil war, Mandela orchestrated an iconic, unifying moment: He donned the green jersey of the Springboks rugby team – beloved by whites, despised by blacks – to present the World Cup trophy to the team captain while the stunned crowd erupted in cheers of “Nelson! Nelson!”
He chose to serve only one five-year term – during which he divorced his second wife, Winnie, a controversial activist, and married his third, Graca, the widow of the late president of Mozambique.
After leaving politics, he concentrated on his philanthropic foundation. He began speaking out on AIDS, which had ravaged his country and which some critics said he had not made a priority as president.
When he officially announced he was leaving public life in 2004, it signaled he was slowing down, but he still made his presence known. For his 89th birthday, he launched a “council of elders,” statesmen and women from around the world who would promote peace. For his 90th, he celebrated at a star-studded concert in London’s Hyde Park.
As he noted in 2003, “If there is anything that would kill me it is to wake up in the morning not knowing what to do.”
In April, de Klerk was asked on the BBC if he feared that Mandela’s eventual death would expose fissures in South Africa that his grandfatherly presence had kept knitted together.
De Klerk said that Madiba would be just as unifying a force in death.
“When Mandela goes, it will be a moment when all South Africans put away their political differences, take hands, and will together honor maybe the biggest South African that has ever lived,” he said.

Nelson Mandela - freedom fighter, at peace tonight

RIP

R.I.P Nelson Mandela, true legend.

May he rest in peace

One of the greatest if not the greatest men of our era! RIP Mandella

IT'S SAFE TO SAY WE CAN ALL FEEL PRIVILEGED TO HAVE LIVED AT THE SAME TIME AS THIS GREAT MAN.


Rest In Peace Madiba.




You will never ever be forgotten..

"I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for, because of what I thought, because of my conscience.”

(Statement during trial, 1962)

r.i.p .a wonderful special man.

An absolute gent. RIP

Terribly sad news, although not unexpected.

One of the most influential people ever to grace this planet.

RIP Mandela

Ole man river.......RIP Madiba

Just because he was anti aparteid doesnt make him worthy of this pedastel. As head of the MK, the terrorist wing of the ANC, he personally sanctioned the murder of hundreds of innocent civilians via terrorist bombing campaigns. These are actions he himself has admitted and imprisoned for.

I think you've swallowed something there mate - same shit sandwich that Thatcher used to spout.

Enjoy the company over there fella.

I think you've swallowed something there mate - same shit sandwich that Thatcher used to spout.

Enjoy the company over there fella.

Same shit? It "shit" hes admitted to.

Was his cause (anti apartheid) just.....yes
Were his methods during the miltant phase of the ANC......no.

No innocents should be murdered on behalf of any cause.

Mandela spent 25yrs in prison for murders of white south Africans during the civil rights movement.during his spell in prison he personally authorized those killings via his terrorist group Mandela utd that was led by his wife winnie mandela.so whilst the world wakes up & starts crying in their breakfast spare a thought for all those white south africans that our equal rights activist & gr8 former sa president was nothing more than a cold blooded killer.

Mandela spent 25yrs in prison for murders of white south Africans during the civil rights movement.during his spell in prison he personally authorized those killings via his terrorist group Mandela utd that was led by his wife winnie mandela.so whilst the world wakes up & starts crying in their breakfast spare a thought for all those white south africans that our equal rights activist & gr8 former sa president was nothing more than a cold blooded killer.

It wasnt only whites. The church street bomb in Pretoria killed 19 blacks and 17 whites.

People will have there own personal opinions and ideas as to the kind of man that Madiba was.
The fact that myself and millions upon millions of other people of a multitude of race,creed and various religious beliefs are all mourning the loss of this man is more than justified in my opinion.

He went into a civil war in his country and was held in regard as a type of Martyr. He turned Hate Rage and resentment into a preach of peace love and understanding.
It's east to sit at a computer and hate what you don't really understand, but to spend 25 years in a prison and come out and preach compassion is a whole different league of understanding.


Videos can be seen today of White and Black African men women and children standing beside each other.
Closer to peace than ever they have been before.

People will have there own personal opinions and ideas as to the kind of man that Madiba was.
The fact that myself and millions upon millions of other people of a multitude of race,creed and various religious beliefs are all mourning the loss of this man is more than justified in my opinion.

He went into a civil war in his country and was held in regard as a type of Martyr. He turned Hate Rage and resentment into a preach of peace love and understanding.
It's east to sit at a computer and hate what you don't really understand, but to spend 25 years in a prison and come out and preach compassion is a whole different league of understanding.


Videos can be seen today of White and Black African men women and children standing beside each other.
Closer to peace than ever they have been before.

i cant comment on this really as i dont know much about what happened around the time. However, it does appear that he didnt achieve much through peace. I dont really want to go into weather the ends justified the means or what ever, just saying.

People will have there own personal opinions and ideas as to the kind of man that Madiba was.
The fact that myself and millions upon millions of other people of a multitude of race,creed and various religious beliefs are all mourning the loss of this man is more than justified in my opinion.

He went into a civil war in his country and was held in regard as a type of Martyr. He turned Hate Rage and resentment into a preach of peace love and understanding.
It's east to sit at a computer and hate what you don't really understand, but to spend 25 years in a prison and come out and preach compassion is a whole different league of understanding.


Videos can be seen today of White and Black African men women and children standing beside each other.
Closer to peace than ever they have been before.

i cant comment on this really as i dont know much about what happened around the time. However, it does appear that he didnt achieve much through peace. I dont really want to go into weather the ends justified the means or what ever, just saying.

He achieved more than most.

People will have there own personal opinions and ideas as to the kind of man that Madiba was.
The fact that myself and millions upon millions of other people of a multitude of race,creed and various religious beliefs are all mourning the loss of this man is more than justified in my opinion.

He went into a civil war in his country and was held in regard as a type of Martyr. He turned Hate Rage and resentment into a preach of peace love and understanding.
It's east to sit at a computer and hate what you don't really understand, but to spend 25 years in a prison and come out and preach compassion is a whole different league of understanding.


Videos can be seen today of White and Black African men women and children standing beside each other.
Closer to peace than ever they have been before.

I can link you pictures of dead people in the aftermath of his ordered bombings if you like?

Hen he came out of prison he was all about peace. Before that he was a terrorist who murdered innocent of both colours in the name of a cause. No different to Bin laden.

Do you condone his actions to which he admitted?

In his 1999 speech he told the world he was a flawed man who should not be put on a pedastel by the world.....yet here we are.

He should be judged on all his actions, not just the one you choose to agree with.

Last edited by CraigCCFC on Fri Dec 06, 2013 9:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

If he was guilty of these crimes as you say, you don't think the apartheid regime would have just executed him as they did many other thousands?

Don't know why I'm bothering with this I really don't...

Craig did seriously just compare Mandela to Bin Laden?



What are your views on Bush And Blair?

If he was guilty of these crimes as you say, you don't think the apartheid regime would have just executed him as they did many other thousands?

Don't know why I'm bothering with this I really don't...

He was guilty, by his own admission! And he refused to condone terrorist violence!

If he had been executed he would have been made a martyr.

I agree with his anti apartheid movement but i cant forget what he did before he was in prison in the name of that movement.

Do you believe murdering innocent people in the name of an ideology, whether you agree with it or not is right?

Craig did seriously just compare Mandela to Bin Laden?



What are your views on Bush And Blair?

Yes I did. They both murdered innocent people in the name of an ideology. Just because I agree wirh Mandelas ideology doesnt make it right.

I hate Bush and Blair.

Craig did seriously just compare Mandela to Bin Laden?



What are your views on Bush And Blair?

Yes I did. They both murdered innocent people in the name of an ideology. Just because I agree wirh Mandelas ideology doesnt make it right.

I hate Bush and Blair.

In the last to quotes you have mentioned the words "I Hate" and "I cannot forget"
His last remaining words were of peace and understanding, your here stating Hate and non forgiveness...

Craig did seriously just compare Mandela to Bin Laden?



What are your views on Bush And Blair?

Yes I did. They both murdered innocent people in the name of an ideology. Just because I agree wirh Mandelas ideology doesnt make it right.

I hate Bush and Blair.

In the last to quotes you have mentioned the words "I Hate" and "I cannot forget"
His last remaining words were of peace and understanding, your here stating Hate and non forgiveness...

So his last words were of peace and understanding. Therefore we should forget the people murdered on his orders?