Does this demonstrate the enormous generosity of the ANC government?

Question

Sadam Hussein is sentenced to death while PW Botha was allowed to live a peaceful old age, protected by the state, when he died he was offered a state funeral and all flags are still flying at half mast. Such generosity is scarce in this world with its Saddams, Pinochet, Bothas, etc.

Answer 1

I think it was generous of them. And the two can be compared on some level. How many know that the UN was investigating South Africa for genocide when it was still following the apartheid policy?

A lot of the apartheid policy can be viewed as fostering genocide when looking at the following:

http://www.genocidewatch.org/8stages.htm

As for assertions that the ANC was always a terrorist organisation, people need to stop looking at anecdotal history and look at the full story. Beyond Fear by Jean Knighton-Fitt notes that from it's inception the ANC followed peaceful resistance against apartheid. However, after 40 years of following this approach, this changed when in 1952, when SA celebrated the anniversary of Van Riebeeck landing in the Cape. It tells how Nelson Mandela sent notification to the then government that for 40 years the ANC had been peacefully pleading for equal rights for ALL South Africans and that if it was continually not granted, the ANC would then embark on a more violent path to oppose apartheid. It still witheld violent action but eventually went ahead with it after 60 000 people were forcefully removed from Sophiatown and displaced to other areas. The land was then used to build a town called Triomph - a whites only development.

Jean Knighton-Fitt then notes that Nelson Mandela realised that the only way to possibly win against the government was to "fight fire with fire" and use the same tactics being practised against non-whites to fight back.

This does not excuse violence in any way but it provides a better context in which to view the actions of the ANC.

Alf Garnett and Brad M will counter what I have said with accusation of me being an ANC apologist. Gentlemen, both your opinions of me count for sqaut. I had to bury my father as a result of apartheid. Both my cousins and I were imprisoned and beaten by the SAPS in the 80's and the school we attended was tear gassed with no provocation. I have no love for that government. As for me loving the ANC and it's associates, I was also part of the congregation of St. James Church (which I had been since 1987), on the night when APLA members burst in and opened fire on the church. Had I been sitting the seat I would normally occupy, I would have been shot centre forehead. Unfortunately, the gentleman sitting in my place was. I have no love for those who practise this type of action either.

Yeah Alf, I'm really looking for free tissues with that drivel. Of course my father dying is a joke and my mother laughs about that every day. I laugh about it too when I go and visit his grave. You should see how his brothers and sisters all pack up laughing when they remember the brother that isn't there. I found it funny when I had to carry his coffin into church.

Yeah, that was really funny.

Answer 2

Botha was definitely not a Saddam - learn a bit more about history before making assertions like that. He was the first of th aparthed leaders to meat with Mandela in exile to try and come to a better solution.....

Good move by the ANC government - the only type of attitude that will ever get South Africa to it's full potential and to total reconciliation!

Answer 3

Political game playing from Mbeki.Tony Blair probably told him what to say.You forgot to mention Mandela and what about McBride the infamous Magoos Bar bomber. Isn't he chief of some provincial Police force. Or Selebi the gangster who runs the Police or the 75% of ANC politicians who have a criminal record. Botha would never have entertained a State funeral from the Communist scum and quite rightly his family told them to shove it up their jacksie. You should rather apply your mind to the hundreds of thousands of South Africans who have died at the hands on Mbeki and Msimang's views and response to the AIDS pandemic or the ANC's open support for that knuckle dragger Mugabe and the genocide he has visited on Zimbabweans or your very own Winnie Mandela with her necklacing of people who opposed the ANC before you come on here with your racist and anti Afrikaaner view.
I never saw the answer from the ANC apologist Loving Resistance whatever. Is he looking for some free tissues with that drivel?

Answer 4

The Associated Press had a good article this week... It starts as follows:

"Reaction to Botha's death is a vivid display of change in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Something remarkable happened after the death of the ruthless and reviled P.W. Botha, apartheid South Africa's last hard-line president: The black government Botha toiled to prevent sent condolences, offered a state funeral and ordered flags flown at half staff.

The reaction to Botha's death pointed to the extraordinary strides toward reconciliation made by a country once bitterly divided. The gestures made this week also show a desire to relegate the wounds inflicted by apartheid to the past.

In a measure of the progress, former President Nelson Mandela – who Botha kept in prison despite enormous international pressure to free him – gave him some credit for helping to pave the way for multiracial democracy."

It was good to see the respect the ANC had for a former leader, no matter what he did.

Answer 5

You do realise that it was PW Botha who originally wanted to free Mandela from Prison.

Answer 6

Pw botha didnt comit genocide and the south african sonstution for what it is wurth states that any state president will be given a state funeral its not generosity its by law thye have to

Answer 7

What a stupid and immatutre answer Brad M has given? God help him.
Anyway, Joyce F, it's plain generosity. It doesn't only begin here. It began in the 1920's when the black people were fighting for their rights in their own country (not fighting physically). Infact they persued the peaceful fight for freedom for almost 50yrs, and the White people never stopped dispersing their peaceful protest marches with violence. Fighting for rights peacefully was generosity. Again, Mandela was made to spend a torturing 27 years of his life in jail. P W Botha himself didn't have a good answer as to why Mandela was sentenced for 27 years. After all that 27 yrs imprisonement of an innocent human being, he was finally released. After his release he did something that no one in the world had expected; forgiving the Whites. What a generosity. Even shortly after Mandela became a president Eugine Terreblanche and a million of his followers were still exercises political violence agaist Blacks. After killing a number of Black people (which Mandela never did to Whites) he (Eugine) was jailed. Guess what, Mandela released him (a murderer) only after 3 years. He could have kept him in jail for 27 yrs if he wanted some sort of a revenge. But all he had was generosity. "RAINBOW NATION" is a phrase that fulfill the acceptance of the cultural diversity in South Africa, and it came from a Black person's mouth, that's still generosity. Having said all this, it goes without doubt that the ANC demonstrates the ernomous generosity.

(Brad M, English is only my second language)

Answer 8

True that.
I always tell people, Mandela could have turned around straight after he became president and said lets do to the white man as he did to us, but instead he said we must bury the sins of the past and move on to a better future.
I really fear for the day that Madiba passes away, I feel his vision is the only thing keeping the country peaceful at the moment.

Answer 9

An eye for an eye... Contrary to what people like Brad, who ran away from the country because he can't help himself but remain miserable when racism failed. Most of South Africans are peace loving and content with what is happening in SA and would like to make things better for everyone. Brad will have you believe that people are shying away from SA, but we will be hosting a World Cup in 2010. We will have millions of tourists. Brad and all the prophets of racism can sulk in their own misery.

Answer 10

South Africa stands as a beacon of hope for the rest of the world in these troubled times, there is still much to do but we will get there eventually, we can no longer rely on the west but must look eastwards to China the next great world power.