Political Cartoons

Is he wrong?

From:

It's not like Mandela was a puppet for the white powers, right?
Apartheid is history, and the conditions of the blacks have been
rising, no? To make things work, you have to be a moderate, no?
If he was an all-out social warrior, wouldn't the country be much
more of a mess and his legacy more dubious.

After spending 30 years behind bars, the man deserved to have
some good times and champagne.

From:

While I don't think it would be right to discredit any of Mandela's accomplishments, I don't think it's wrong to point out how all of the enforced hagiography helps to distract from the issues that South Africa actually continues to struggle with. And I'm moreover responsive to Rall's intent to make the point now, while all of that hagiography is dominating all of our media, just to draw attention to the very taboo he's breaking.

I personally know very little about Mandela, his life, and the ways in which he contributed to the downfall of apartheid. I know very little, I should say, beyond what amounts to "public knowledge," which seems to be the primary basis for drawing conclusions about his moral victory and saying things like, "after spending 30 years behind bars, the man deserved to have some good times and champagne." Just looking at my own thinking, I realize how flimsy and unsupported it is, so it's hard for me to fully endorse the hagiography.

From:

I don't know how many of us have private knowledge of Mandela.
I assume it is usually the case that we are commenting with respect
to what is in the public domain, and I am sure you are right to never
fully endorse hagiographies. I also share your lack of familiarity with
all that is probably available in the public domain of knowledge regarding
South Africa and Mandela's rule. I do assume there is some reason to
celebrate the man. How flawed he was, I cannot say.

From:

I think a lot of the discussions we have around deaths like Mandela's tend to amount to moral benedictions based entirely upon what's commonly known about his life and accomplishments. So-understood, it starts to make sense why people think it's wrong to say anything critical at those moments - it's almost like we're not running the moral calculus correctly, or reaching the "right" conclusions, given what's commonly known. But "what's commonly known" is really a very shallow, perhaps even substantially false, picture. It's a little like how Independence Day in the U.S. plays on sentiments that are based on an understanding of the Revolutionary War that's almost entirely indistinguishable from what we picked up in grade school.

I suppose the good thing that can be said about South Africa's issues is that they aren't exactly just South Africa's issues, the same way apartheid was. I mean, an established corrupt political elite isn't exactly unique to SA.

From:

It would have been better if, instead of becoming the rare face of the native elite in S Africa, he'd kept the pressure on by living as one of the common citizens, wouldn't it? It would have shown the world what was really happening there. Instead, our collective eyes turned away, assuming that everything was all better now and leaving them alone to work out the details.

Such seems to be the way with most revolutionary leaders.

Rall has it right, but general population doesn't like criticism of the recently deceased.

From:

To be honest, I am not really very familiar at all with this history
of Mandela's rule. Aside from the sentiment over his death, would you say
that an honest thinker can regard Mandela as being something of a sell-out,
or is it fair to say that he was simply a moderate?

From:

I think he tried, but he (and his wife) were caught up in their own celebrity. After his release, he became a symbol more than a leader.

From:

Here is a hard datum that I came across.

In 1982, whites were nearly unanimous in expressing some degree of pride as South Africans (98%), but barely half of blacks (57%) did so. This gap is a stark reminder of how deeply the effects of apartheid were felt. It was not just a question of opposing a white-led government. Among blacks, there was a profound alienation from the state itself.

But the release of Mandela from prison in February 1990 and the early signs of apartheid’s end — such as negotiations between the white-led government and the African National Congress that spring and summer — appeared to close this gap. In the 1990 survey, which was fielded in October and November, 93% of whites and 90% of blacks expressed pride.

Mandela’s legacy may be even more visible in how little white and black South Africans’ patriotism has changed since then. Although his leadership — indeed, any one person’s leadership — could never eliminate racism or racial tensions, whites and blacks continued to express high levels of pride. The transition to a black-led government under Mandela and later Thabo Mbeki did not make white South Africans any less proud to be South African. Blacks too remained similarly proud, despite the disappointments that they have experienced and the challenges they still face.

-- Sully's Dish (http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/12/06/chart-of-the-day-124/)

One can interpret that a lot of ways. But it seems to me that Mandela must have been a little effective, and not merely as a symbol.

From:

Honestly, I don't think that patriotism is a good measuring stick of a country's health or the effectiveness of a politician. *GOP*cough*GOP*

Apartheid ended because of the international attention he brought upon S Africa during the '80s and early '90s. The international business community divested itself of S African stock in droves because of the pressure of consumers. It was a boycott that worked. White S Africans even put out a tourism PR campaign to show what wonderful people they were. I remember it as slapping a band-aid on a gaping wound.

So, yeah, symbol would effect how they saw themselves. The white S Africans clung to the idea that they had it right until they couldn't cling anymore.

~~I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, just that~~ (Oh yes I did.) I understand what Rall is saying. Mandela was elected in the mid-90s and S Africa was a mess during the transitional years. IIRC, Mandela was a Marxist/Socialist and S African white pols were about as Conservative as you can get. Prejudice ran deep. So, I think that a messy transition was inevitable. My memories are fuzzy about the era, but I remember some of it.

Edited Date: 2013-12-07 05:31 pm (UTC)

From:

So, if Mandela died in, say, 1979, do you think the
blacks might have ended up faring better, that
apartheid would have ended anyway and there
might have been more justice under a different
black ruler?

In other words, was it just a happy coincidence that
Mandela was the leader when the white international
community brought apartheid down, and the only sure
thing we can say about Mandela's rule is that he didn't
make things worse?

From:

I don't know, none of us can ever know that. What if George Bailey had never been born? Would every man on that ~~fighter~~ transport have died?

I don't think it was just the white international community that brought down apartheid. Folks really give too much credit to white people sometimes, when it's more about money that has a much wider distribution. Japan played a huge role in bringing it down, IIRC. So did other African nations and countries in the middle east. It was a withdrawal of investments in natural resources that halted apartheid. My memory of this is just about tapped out. Imma gonna have to go to Wikipedia soon.

Edited Date: 2013-12-07 05:56 pm (UTC)

From:

badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com

I found this piece really illuminating (http://drewmusings.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/getting-mandella-wrong-when-conservative-juiceboxers-attack/) and really helped me kind of wrap my brain around the situation a bit.

In the end the story of Mandela is that he wasn’t like almost all men. He wasn’t perfect and he wasn’t without sin (almost no one in South Africa was). However, he changed and grew. When he lacked the power to change his country he used violent means to attempt to get it. But once he had the power, he eschewed violence. That is not the typical tale of history. He did not crush those who had crushed him and his people. Instead he recognized that no one would benefit from that and more to the point, it was morally reprehensible to him to do so.

Mandela was a complex and imperfect man but when he faced the choice of violence on an awesome scale, a violence he could have turned lose with a single sentence, he said no. He used the moral authority that had been invested in him not simply to sweep away a racist regime but also to control his former comrades, including his own wife, who wanted to change South Africa with blood.

That is the man the world rightly mourns the passing of.

From:

Thanks, I'm glad to have that note here, addressing the early, violent years
and Mandela's capacity not to let that take over.

Our discussion above is about the latter, governing years and the concerns that
more animate the left: did Mandela go to far the other way and become more
of a sell-out? This is the Rall point, I think. I don't know a lot of facts here, but
I have been happy to think that Mandela was a wise moderate, and that a moderate
is what was needed rather than a firebrand radical. But I'm interested in what
others have to say.

From:

badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com

I think the Rall point is possibly coherent if there wasn't the context of the era and the country Mandela was in to get in the way. Mandela could have turned South Africa into something ridiculously different that would have justified a lot of the anger and hate he gets from some segments today. Instead of Rall recognizing the unique nature of Mandela (a unique nature that really doesn't get highlighted enough), Rall expects ideological perfection.

From:

I think the Rall point is possibly coherent...

You put that word right back where you found it, Jeffy. That's a grown-up word.

Instead of Rall recognizing the unique nature of Mandela (a unique nature that really doesn't get highlighted enough), Rall expects ideological perfection.

I dunno, I kind of side-eye this whole, "At least he wasn't a tyrant!" sigh of relief we're hearing from the righties. It seems a bit odd, when one group of people is celebrating Mandela for putting an end to apartheid, there's a group of people who are joining in, saying, "He could have slaughtered his opposition, but he didn't!" It's like, sure, but...

From:

What is your problem?

From:

Could you be more specific?

From:

Because no matter what Jeff posts, you have to snipe and be condescending. I get it, you don't like him, but I bet a majority of people don't like or agree with him, but they can at least hold it back when he posts something worthwhile.

From:

Pretty impressive how you're able to invent vindictive motives in the simple act of responding to a comment, basically the ONLY activity for one to do in an online community.

From:

Multiple points of data to prove my reply. There are multiple people here that disagree with Jeff, but you don't see them constantly sniping at him.

From:

You're the last person that should be shaking your finger at someone about "snipey" content of their comments.

From:

Okay, I guess you have no problem with defending people like the above.

From:

I think, first of all, you don't need to be playing Daddy for something as pithy as an internet comment. Second of all, these dramatics, the grave tragic injustice of someone responding to someone else a lot :O is pathetic. Third, considering your usual behavior, this is very hypocritical of you.

I have no problem defending people when the situation warrants defense. I'm sure Jeff is a big boy and can handle something as terribly horrible oh no! as this on his own.

From:

Discount it all you want.

From:

Okay, thanks!

From:

op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com

Plenty of points for mine (http://politicartoons.livejournal.com/4013423.html?thread=91035759#t91035759) too, and all I got was a fish.

From:

So what, exactly, are you hoping to accomplish by calling me out? Do you think that you'll manage to correct my behavior? Shift community attitudes against me? Provide moral support to Jeff? What is it, really?

The strategic problem you're facing here - if I may be so frank - is that you're not well-positioned to call out my behavior as failing to meet some standard without yourself falling afoul of the same standard. Pointing out that I'm (ineffectively) picking a fight (if that's what I'm doing), particularly in the way that you've done it, itself is picking a fight. Problematically for you, my own sniping at least carried with it a substantive comment - here, an oblique criticism of the right's grudging admission that Mandela wasn't as evil as most communists have proven to be - which your own comment wholly lacked. Your responses to

new_wave_witch only help to corroborate that initial impression.

Unfortunately, the only way to make me look like the bad guy is to improve your own behavior to the point where my own dramatics start to seem unusual and distracting. Jeff, at least, seems to intuitively understand this - only partially, though, as he continues to bait and egg on countless others who attack him far more directly than I ever have or do. With me, he's trying to appear besieged, victimized, etc. - and look! it's worked with you - which might have attracted broader sympathy if everyone else weren't already so familiar with his passive-aggressive sniping, blithe apologia, and relentless promotion of GOP talking points, which he is all too willing to remind them of.

And there - again, if I may be so frank - is exactly why you won't ever succeed. Because you can't just let me be, and you can't control your own behavior in the way necessary to make me stick out. Trying to do so would leave you feeling both vexed by me but powerless to do anything about it, the instant gratification of leaving a snarky comment to me forbidden to you. So that's just something you won't be able to do, not for very long, at any rate.

From:

Because no matter what Jeff posts, you have to snipe and be condescending.

Is that kind of like how Jeff always feels the need to criticize any viewpoint on the left side of the spectrum, no matter how trivial, no matter how coherent his criticisms are?

I get it, you don't like him, but I bet a majority of people don't like or agree with him, but they can at least hold it back when he posts something worthwhile.

And still others can hold back the need to pick fights over whether I ought to have refrained from responding to Jeff's comments. I dunno, dude - if you have a problem watching me respond to Jeff, in whatever snipe-y or condescending (or for that matter, substance-focused or thoughtful) way that I choose, maybe you should grow a thicker skin. Like, y'know, all them conservatives are always telling us SJWs to do.

From:

farchivist.livejournal.com

You can always complain to the mod.

From:

fizzyland.livejournal.com

I appreciate you sharing that.

From:

johnny9fingers.livejournal.com

You've posted the best comment on here by a country mile.

[Tips hat.]

From:

dexeron.livejournal.com

I think he, like some recent Russian visitors to that other community, want to equate "South Africa is not yet a utopia" with "Mandela failed."

Mandela was imperfect, but still a great man, and did great things, and this comic is just another... Rall-y thing.

From:

compost75.livejournal.com

One thing I love that Mandala did is something that I have not seen discussed.

He stepped down.

He broke the mold of president-for-life that has resulted in strong-man pseudo democracy in so many African countries.

From: