I have read the South African Communist Party's
condemnation of the booing of Jacob Zuma at Nelson Mandela's memorial service, and it is
truly shocking. American spellings are used. In what, at the start of
the present reign, was Her Majesty's Union of South Africa. Shocking.
Truly shocking.
Seriously, Zuma is very much the SACP's man, although it is highly critical of many specific policies and actions, as well it might be. It got him the job in place of Thabo Mbeki, Mandela's chosen successor.
The booing made it quite clear how unhappy with that development many within the ANC still were. So much for a Communist dictatorship. You cannot do that in one of those.
The booing made it quite clear how unhappy with that development many within the ANC still were. So much for a Communist dictatorship. You cannot do that in one of those.
Mandela himself does seem to have been a member of the SACP briefly and a very long time ago, although that needs to be set in the context of his having been refused the slightest assistance by anyone else.
The apartheid regime, by contrast, was never without friends. Despite having been invited, Netanyahu did not not turn up to the memorial event. Nor did any Member of the Knesset attend the parallel event at the Israeli Embassy in Tel Aviv. Not a single, solitary one.
Yet even Ian Smith said that he had been, "right about Mugabe, but wrong about Mandela." He ended his days in the new South Africa rather than in the entire country that Thatcher left to the world, which is not Britain, but Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
Norman Tebbit, Terry Dicks, and thus also David Cameron in that he permits them to retain party membership, are therefore more hardline, more right-wing, or however you want to put it, than even Ian Smith was by the time that he died.
Yet even Ian Smith said that he had been, "right about Mugabe, but wrong about Mandela." He ended his days in the new South Africa rather than in the entire country that Thatcher left to the world, which is not Britain, but Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
Norman Tebbit, Terry Dicks, and thus also David Cameron in that he permits them to retain party membership, are therefore more hardline, more right-wing, or however you want to put it, than even Ian Smith was by the time that he died.
Mandela
despised Mugabe. Mugabe, who is not much younger, resented
Mandela's eminence on the grounds that he, Mugabe, had been fighting at
the front while Mandela was in prison. It was Thatcher who installed
Mugabe, having refused any other settlement,
and who even arranged a knighthood for him.
She never saw a Maoist whom
she did not like. Not even him, or Ceaușescu, or Pol Pot. She was quite
true to Red Star's description of her as "a Peking Plotter". Even this week, her flame-keepers have been criticising the ANC and the SACP for their criticism, in turn, of Steve Biko.
Never mind shaking his hand, Cameron ought to have kowtowed to Mugabe. His heroine would have done, and she pretty much did. But Mandela never did, and he never would have done.
Never mind shaking his hand, Cameron ought to have kowtowed to Mugabe. His heroine would have done, and she pretty much did. But Mandela never did, and he never would have done.
You are, as per usual, attacking a collection of strawmen that do not even remotely resemble what the Tories (or Messrs Tebbit and co) rightly said.
ReplyDeleteNobody ever said the ANC was now a "communist dictatorship" or that Mandela is now a terrorist.
They rightly said that the ANC were terrorists-and they were. As their own Truth & Reconciliation Commission accepted.
They rightly said Mandela adopted the path of violence when he didn't have to; he did, and Amnesty International rightly dropped his "prisoner of conscience" status as a result.
It's that simple. Tebbit and co are demonstrably right.
You are wrong.
This made my day.
ReplyDeleteDavid Lindsay writes (he's being serious)"Cameron ought to have kowtowed to Mugabe....But Mandela never would have done"
The same Mandela who praised Gaddafi and Castro?
The same Mandela who lied about his ANC-sponsored “Self-Defence Units” who were running amok, purging enemies from their strongholds and butchering Inkatha followers?
I now realise what you're up to-you are just having a laugh. You're messing around. You couldn't possibly believe the nonsense you've written here.
There you are: further to the right than Ian Smith ended up; still defending apartheid for its own sake, like a Conservative Peer and a Conservative Councillor.
ReplyDeleteGaddafi was a British ally until weeks before we suddenly decided that he wasn't. We rendered people to his torture chambers. Even he was better than what has replace him.
Castro has never been a formal enemy of Britain in any direct way, and even the President of the United States now very publicly shakes the hand of his brother and successor.
As for your view of the ANC, tell Cameron to say it. Go on, I dare him. Alternatively, he could kick out the apartheid restorationists from his party, doomed though their cause in any case is.
Where did I "defend apartheid"? Come back to me when you have an argument-and when you actually know any facts.
ReplyDeleteMy view of the ANC? My view?
I posted the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission's own findings about the ANC-precisely that it was a gang of torturers and murderers throughout the 1980's.
That is the truth.
When will you get that through your thick skull?
When the Prime Minister says it.
ReplyDeleteOr, rather, when he expresses the views of at least two people whom he permits to retain membership of his party while holding public office.
He does that implicitly by so permitting. But let him do so explicitly. Go on. I dare him.