How Not To Criticize Nelson Mandela (Or Anyone At All)

You cannot even dream to believe that Hitchens does not understand what he writes. He is one of the most articulate writers of our day. He is wrong about a lot, but maybe not so much about this. For Mandela to say the name of people he is calling out would be very helpful for those working against a tyrant like Mugabe, although I have many problems with Mandela myself, the world sees himself as a sort of Moral Authority. If people like Mandela keep quiet, it is a tacit support for tyranny. It takes nothing to put your name on movements, Mandela could do this and not "be stressed". Yet I ask if it is too stressful to say a tyrant's name than why does he give speeches alluding to tyrants?

Oh gawd, Jeffrey.

For Mandela to say the name of people he is calling out would be very helpful for those working against a tyrant like Mugabe . . . .

Seriously, what's the mechanism here?  Even though Mandela made crystal clear that he was referring to Mugabbe, his denunciation did fuck-all.  Saying the name "Mugabee" would've transformed the entire enterprise.  Mugabee isn't Beetlejuice or Mxyplyzyk; saying his name doesn't have magical properties.

Oops, that should be: "Saying the name 'Mugabee' wouldn't have transformed the entire enterprise." 

ignoring the names of tyrants does nothing either. Unless you are not as worried about tyrants as you claim. Look, the Left loved and some still love Mugabe. He has destroyed Rhodesia single handily. When he was put in office it was warned what would occur, so this is no surprise. What is a surprise is the lack of people willing to take a stand and publicly name Mugabe as the tyrant that he is, and Mandela as a moral authority has the duty to do just that. Countless others risked everything to help Mandela and South Africa become the hole that it is now, maybe they would like to make amends and try to save Rhodesia once again.

Daniel, are you short?

Ok, Jeffrey, you and Hitch have me convinced: Mandela is a pussy and an appeaser and a sell-out. 

And you, brave Jeffrey, are one of  courageous few--the mighty warrior princes--who dare to utter the name "Mugabee" with only a half-eaten bag of Funyuns (and a few thousand miles) standing between you and the tyrant.

Give me a fuggin' break.  Think about the twisted moral universe you occupy: one where you think it's OK for an insect like yourself to pass judgment on a moral titan like Mandela simply because he didn't jump through whatever imaginary hoops you and Hitch dream up.

Are you talking about the terror master Mandela, former head of the terror group ANC? Are you talking about the same man that trashes the western world and still embraces communism?

You have a lot to learn about morality before you question my moral universe.

Okey-dokey...Mugabee's reign of tyranny will end if he's called out (by name, of course) by a western-world-trashing communist terror-master.  It all makes sense now.

the terror master Mandela, former head of the terror group ANC

Jeffrey's messages brought to you by the Zuidafrikaner Broederbond 

Mandela formed an armed faction and off-shoot of the ANC and led many attacks that left many civilians dead. He was tried and convicted, but leftists love "martyrs". BTW, The ANC is still listed as a terror group.

I know, I know. Altogether now:

Uit die blou van onse hemel, uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes waar die kranse antwoord gee.
Deur ons ver-verlate vlaktes met die kreun van ossewa -
Ruis die stem van ons geliefde, van ons land Suid-Afrika.

Where is the ANC still listed as a terror group?  I can only imagine that it's on the little ledger you keep stuffed under your mattress, because you can't possibly be talking about the State Department's list.

The United States State department for one.

There is a bill to remove them from the terror list, but as of now they are on it.

Here is the current list.  Please tell me where you find the ANC.

I am glad you know the South African Anthem, yet does that mean you show solidarity with terror groups against regimes you despise? Or do you think Ian Smith was the bad guy and Mugabee a worthy replacement? Does Mandela's support and friendship with the Libyan dictator not trouble you. What about his deep friendship with Tutu, the anti-Semite, or Jimmy Carter?

And just stop for a moment and think, Jeffrey.  The ANC is the ruling party in South Africa.  We have ongoing diplomatic relations with South Africa.  Does what you're saying about the ANC make any sense at all?

Are you saying that Mandela was not in prison for 28 years and that he  lead a peaceful quiet organization?

List here. You'll notice the African National Congress (ANC) is not on the list (hint: it has formed the government of a US ally for 14 years now).

Here's what you're confused about. Due to bureaucratic errors, some individual members were not scrubbed from the terror watch list with the rest of the ANC. That's why Condoleeza Rice said:

This is a country with which we now have excellent relations, South Africa, but it's frankly a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader Nelson Mandela.

Link.

But whatever Jeffrey, just exterminate the brutes, am I right?

(Not only am I aware that Mandela was imprisoned at Robben Island all those years, I am further aware that his imprisonment was an injustice that helped unify the world against the apartheid regime.)

For good measure, here's the UK terrorist group list. Let me know when you find the ANC. But I'm going to insist you write all future comments in Afrikaans.

You are the one that is calling him a hero. A terror master, supporter of Libyian terror leaders does not get much respect from me. Does not mean I support apartheid, far from it. I just have a more nuanced appreciation for some forms of colonialism.It is people like you that invest so much moral capital in murderers and terrorists and wonder why no one does anything about the Sudan and Darfur. If anyone did, you would fault them too.

If you insist, than I will demand you delete my posts.

Time for the tattoo needle again, Memento-guy.  If you can remember all the we back to the beginning of the thread, you were the one who argued that Mandela is a figure of such enormously moral authority that he is obligated to denouce Mugabee (by name, of course)--notwithstanding his previous denunciation, failing health, and possible loss of mental faculties.

I know things get confusing when your memory reboots.  By my advices is that you just sit on the sidelines and suss things out for awhile rather than diving back into the fray with whatever batshit-crazy thing occurs to you first.

I said that the world confers the moral authority upon him, no where did it say that I THOUGHT of him as such, I do not.

Plus, you obviously spend a lot of time here, are you really so lazy you cannot create a user name? Really! 

Oh, no! You're telling me that Mandela is friends with Tutu-the-antisemite and (gasp) Jimmy Carter?

That does it. Back to prison with the monster!

BTW, Jeffrey, unless you're indifferent to the consequences of the semantic variant of Gresham's Law, please resist cheapening the accusation of anti-Semitism by scattering it about so freely.

Do you have a particle of evidence that Tutu is an anti-Semite? Of course you don't. So stop it. 

Fine, Memento-guy, I'll revise my statement accordingly (and fix some pesky typos while I'm at it):

                                            *   *   *

Time for the tattoo needle again, Memento-guy.  If you can remember all the waye back to the beginning of the thread, you were the one who argued that Mandela is viewed as a figure of such enormously moral authority that he is obligated to denouce Mugabee (by name, of course)--notwithstanding his previous denunciation, failing health, and possible loss of mental faculties.

I know things get confusing when your memory reboots.  Buty my advices is that you just sit on the sidelines and suss things out for awhile rather than diving back into the fray with whatever batshit-crazy thing occurs to you first.

                                            *   *   *

Gee, you're right, Jeffrey.  That changes everything.

By the way, I remain anonymous for one simple reason: it seems to drive you even deeper into the squalid pit of insanity.

Some fine denunciatin' of Mugabe by Desmond Tutu here. I'm sure it's a feint to get people off his back for anti-Semitism.

I am starting to think you are as bad as that Thors fellow...You need to realize that some of us Jews like being Jews and are not as conflicted as some of the editors here.

No-name,  If you are not able to see the idiocy of attacking Hitch because he does not share your hero-affinity for a terrorist beloved by the left, than I am sorry for you. Daniel attacks Hitch for having the audacity to question Nelson Mandela, someone that must be in the pantheon with Obama .Since we are unable to question your heroes, please print a list so we know who is deemed above reproach.

We're returning to a problem nearly as familar as your Memento-esqe memory: your inability to read.  How could any sentient person, with even a minimal command of the English language, come away from Hitch's article thinkging that he does not have a "hero-affinity" for Mandela? 

He says that Mandela is "perhaps only one person in the world who symbolizes" the spirit of "international standards for human rights, ... [and the] need for internationalist solidarity and the brotherhood of man."  He says that the perceived failing of Mandela to denounce Mugabee "bruises [his] soul."  He urges the "old lion [to] summon one last powerful growl."

Read, Jeffrey, read!

I read only Daniel's piece and took from the tone that Hitch dislikes Mandela, if you are right (I still have not read the piece) than Daniel's post is even less worthy than I first imagined.

caller of friends anti-Semite, defender of anti-Semites as friend. I am interested in your effed up world. Where Obama is a champion of libertarian principles, John Hagee is an anti-Semtie, where Obama understands the Jewish hearts more than Joe Leiberman...Tutu has referred to Israel as an apartheid state. He has famously given many Marxist reasons for Muslims to hate Jews...Still we have ventured far from you believing that evil should not be named or your attacking others that seek to name evil. Mandela is soft on these issues, Mugabe is a Lunatic and despot. Hitch is correct and you are wrong.

I want you to stop worshipping Obama.

Who brought up Obama? Also, try to pay closer attention (here too).

So you no longer support Obama and we can be assured that the Obama fantasyl and is now closed?

If so, I will let you in on a little of my nuanced view of colonialism. I do not believe that it was as bad as the mess that has emerged after Colonialism departed. Some colonies were better than others and would have prospered if different choices were made. Kenya until recently was not that bad, Rhodesia became a hell-hole, as did Sudan, Algeria, and the Congo.It can be argued that the enterprise of colonies were foolhardy, but in many cases the areas were just as violent and poverty stricken as they are now. 

Ismail and Thors are one and the same.  This guy? is mentally unstable and has no other life but troll the internet and write lies about the JOOS!  This guy or gal found an audience here because of the lack of real Jews on this site depsite it being called "Jewcy."

 This sicko needs help on his/her obsession with the Jews and the belief that a Palestinian country and people actually exist.  It's really a sad case of extreme psychosis.

Jeffrey: There you have it. One either worships Obama or is against him. There are no other possibilities. I'm not going to reply further to any other comments about Obama btw. Going completely off-topic to discuss Obama is a token of obsession, but not on my part.

Why do you keep saying "Rhodesia"? Shouldn't that be "Belgian Congo" or are you talking about the other one?

Mugabe replaced Ian Smith as head of Rhodesia, a colony of the UK. Is not that difficult. Mugabe is a tyrant and Mandela should say so. Hitch is correct about this.

Kinda going full circle, but Mandela obviously did denounce Mugabe in as strong terms as you could want him to, I don't see why you care at all because you think Mandela is a commie terrorist, and Ian Smith was a monstrous racist who, rather than give Africans equal rights, unilaterally declared independence from the UK, making his country an international pariah subject to severe economic sanctions which wrecked it financially, destabilized it politically, led to civil war and paved the way for the rise of Mugabe. If not for his apartheid rebellion the country would have wound up at least as well as Zambia --- i.e., much, much better than it did. Quite a piece of work.

Also, Mugabe did not replace Smith as head of Rhodesia. Smith's apartheid regime was put down through negotiation, he was forced into the junior position in the biracial government of the new Republic of Zimbabwe Rhodesia headed by Abel Muzorewa; under the Lancaster agreement, Zimbabwe Rhodesia reverted to British control as the Dependency of Southern Rhodesia which swiftly became independent as the Republic of Zimbabwe led by Robert Mugabe.

Just to be clear, you're insisting on calling Zimbabwe "Rhodesia"? To stick it to the darkeys, or some other reason?

mostly do to rankle you leftists. I find it odd that you decide to always trash people that try to do good, I find your moral compass bewildering...It is ssomething to be a self-hating Jew, but when you decide to attack Hitchens for demanding someone be stronger against genocide and tyranny, it looks like you are siding with the evil. It is just the divergent ways we see the world. 

The whole Rhodesia thing isn't really having the desired effect, Jeffrey.  I don't find it particulrly rankling, but that fact that you venerate Ian Smith while denouncing Mandela as a commie terroristit is incredibly revealing of the dark ooze that passes for your soul.

There's one thing, though, that I'm still having trouble getting my head around.  Given your (bizarre) take on Mandela, why on earth would you care what he has to say about Mugabee?  Hitch's position at least makes some sense: he thinks that Mandela is a moral titan who therefore has an obligation to denounce Mugabee in the strongest terms.  Daniel's made a cogent case for why Hitch is all wet.  But shouldn't you be arguing that Hitch shouldn't even be preoccupied with what an Evil-Commie-Terror-Master-Terrorist thinks?

You, of course miss much do to wanting to twist my words. I am defending Hitch from Daniel. I do not see Mandela as anything special. His anti-western leanings and support for terror states does not endear him to me. The left venerates this man as a moral authority, Hitch questions why such a moral authority finds it uneasy and stressful to denounce Mugabe by name and Daniel faults Hitch for daring to question Mandela. Now you question my defense of Hitch.

As for your sad and tired views on Ian Smith, I do not venerate the man. I also do not despise him. He was not racist as you claim, and he proved it time and again. Yet he believed in his country and was against change. After he was ousted he continued to work in opposition and did not flee the country as so many others did after he lost power. Even most of his opposition saw him as an honest patriot, but that is most likely verbotten talk in the Ivy leagues. I am almost amazed by your constant suck-up to Daniel, is there something you wish to declare? 

And again, I do not hesitate to lump Mandela with Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan and any other moral idiot.  

Smith said he wouldn't accept black-majority rule in his lifetime or even the lifetime of his children  Nothing remotely racist about it, that there's just some genuine patriotism. 

And Jeffrey, you totally nailed it: I have a huge gay crush on Daniel.  My agreeing with him in your little spats has nothing to do with the fact that he's generally very sensible and you're crazier than a shithouse rat.  Were in not for Daniel's irresistable man-charm, I'd be right there with you, Jeffrey, nodding emphatically to your sage and nuanced expositions on colonialism.

I know nothing about you other than you suffer from muddled thought. Ian Smith did say that, yet when it happened he went on in opposition. Heated rhetoric at heated times, as an Obama worshipper you might want to embrace the notion of being able to change as the situation does since Obama flips to the beat, as they say. As for my craziness, if not agreeing with the idiocies of Daniel and yourself qualify as crazy, than you can call me that. I do not think you are crazy, I think you are simply crushing on an Ivy leaguer and hoping he will take you out for ice cream.

Calling black people "n------" rankles leftists too. Do you do that, Jeffrey? If not, why not?

No. Because I am not a racist, Daniel. yet I relish that you are so intellectually left that you feel compelled to not spell out the word. What surprises me is that you feel that you are something superior, yet at the end of the day you are just another over-educated leftist that hides behind the term "libertarianism". You cannot even have a civil debate without impugning either your subject or whoever takes issue with your aspersions. I understand that people have differences of opinion and I leave it at that - kinda like a libertarian one might say.

Now, you are being dishonest to imply I am a racist. Yet, I am not surprised by that based on your history here at Jewcy. You libel and slander at will, that is your game. Yet your willingness to resort to the fascism of political correctness to win a debate. You and your fellow mates on the left try to stifle others by tarring them with racist, sexists, homophobe, etc. Well good luck, it looks worse for you than me.

You insist on calling Zimbabwe "Rhodesia."

Because I am not a racist

Right. That's begging the question, isn't it.

and if you were a fair and decent person you would know that. You lack of decency is apparent from the way you treat those that disagree with you. You fancy yourself a thinker, but in the months you have been active at Jewcy you have betrayed yourself. You resort to name calling awful fast, you do it when you can no continued in your tortured logic. I have seen you do it to me, Naftali, David Kelsey, Michael Weiss, these are just off the top of my head. So keep calling me racist, it just cements the idea that you are a fool, well-educated, but a fool none the less.

I'm sincerely and profoundly interested in why somebody would insist on calling Zimbabwe "Rhodesia." I assume you know that Zimbabweans find that to be a hurtful and offensive provocation. Do you not know that? You say you do it to rankle leftists. There are lots of ways of rankling leftists. Presumably you don't do all of them. Why that one?

Same reason BBC calls Mynmar, Burma what is the country but lines drawn by Colonial powers but now ruled by tyrants. The arguments against colonialism can very well be used against current African states. These are not countries in anyway a westerner would recognize. Tribal unity is paramount to any nationalism for most of Africa. Their problems are ignored for the most part. Simpletons want to either throw money at the problem or troops, but none of the audacity to say that what is needed for peace and advancement is Western styled governments and educations. Poverty and hunger are historic norms, we just are supposed to feel guilty about it because of our education and media. When Rhodesia existed, as with many of the colonies, the people had better lives and a future. Now they have poverty, genocide and famine. There may be an answer for the problem, but it is not more money and inconclusive wars. As I said before you started shouting racist, I have a more nuanced view of colonialism. You may ask, why call it Rhodesia...what does it matter what one calls it? It is a tragic farce of a place and the inability of supposedly good people to even name the tyrants is itself a moral crime. Mandela has no problem bashing Bush andt he west, but it is to stressful to call out Mugabe? Hitch is right and when you trash Hitch for that what are YOU saying, but that heroes of the left can never be challenged? It seems you spend a lot of time tearing down people. I noticed today you are trashing Michael Medved, can you not disagree with someone without the rancor? Can you not disagree with someone without imparting nefarious motives on them?