posted August 30, 2007 02:03 AM            

He is the archetypal anticolonial revolutionary. His strategy of noncooperation, his assertion that we can be dominated only if we cooperate with our dominators, and his nonviolent resistance inspired anticolonial and antiracist movements internationally in our century.

Both Gandhi and I suffered colonial oppression, and both of us mobilized our respective peoples against governments that violated our freedoms.

The Gandhian influence dominated freedom struggles on the African continent right up to the 1960s because of the power it generated and the unity it forged among the apparently powerless. Nonviolence was the official stance of all major African coalitions, and the South African A.N.C. remained implacably opposed to violence for most of its existence.

Gandhi remained committed to nonviolence; I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Unkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle. Even then, we chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Militant action became part of the African agenda officially supported by the Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) following my address to the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1962, in which I stated, "Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence."

Gandhi himself never ruled out violence absolutely and unreservedly. He conceded the necessity of arms in certain situations. He said, "Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor ..."

Violence and nonviolence are not mutually exclusive; it is the predominance of the one or the other that labels a struggle.

Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 at the age of 23. Within a week he collided head on with racism. His immediate response was to flee the country that so degraded people of color, but then his inner resilience overpowered him with a sense of mission, and he stayed to redeem the dignity of the racially exploited, to pave the way for the liberation of the colonized the world over and to develop a blueprint for a new social order.

He left 21 years later, a near maha atma (great soul). There is no doubt in my mind that by the time he was violently removed from our world, he had transited into that state.

No Ordinary Leader : Divinely Inspired

He was no ordinary leader. There are those who believe he was divinely inspired, and it is difficult not to believe with them. He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and the personal is at the heart of his philosophy. He seeks the simultaneous and interactive development of the moral person and the moral society.

His philosophy of Satyagraha is both a personal and a social struggle to realize the Truth, which he identifies as God, the Absolute Morality. He seeks this Truth, not in isolation, self-centeredly, but with the people. He said, "I want to find God, and because I want to find God, I have to find God along with other people. I don't believe I can find God alone. If I did, I would be running to the Himalayas to find God in some cave there. But since I believe that nobody can find God alone, I have to work with people. I have to take them with me. Alone I can't come to Him."

He sacerises his revolution, balancing the religious and the secular.

Awakening

His awakening came on the hilly terrain of the so-called Bambata Rebellion, where as a passionate British patriot, he led his Indian stretcher-bearer corps to serve the Empire, but British brutality against the Zulus roused his soul against violence as nothing had done before. He determined, on that battlefield, to wrest himself of all material attachments and devote himself completely and totally to eliminating violence and serving humanity. The sight of wounded and whipped Zulus, mercilessly abandoned by their British persecutors, so appalled him that he turned full circle from his admiration for all things British to celebrating the indigenous and ethnic. He resuscitated the culture of the colonized and the fullness of Indian resistance against the British; he revived Indian handicrafts and made these into an economic weapon against the colonizer in his call for swadeshi--the use of one's own and the boycott of the oppressor's products, which deprive the people of their skills and their capital.

A great measure of world poverty today and African poverty in particular is due to the continuing dependence on foreign markets for manufactured goods, which undermines domestic production and dams up domestic skills, apart from piling up unmanageable foreign debts. Gandhi's insistence on self-sufficiency is a basic economic principle that, if followed today, could contribute significantly to alleviating Third World poverty and stimulating development.

Gandhi predated Frantz Fanon and the black-consciousness movements in South Africa and the U.S. by more than a half-century and inspired the resurgence of the indigenous intellect, spirit and industry.

Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality.

He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry. He preaches the gospel of leveling down, of emulating the kisan (peasant), not the zamindar (landlord), for "all can be kisans, but only a few zamindars."

He stepped down from his comfortable life to join the masses on their level to seek equality with them. "I can't hope to bring about economic equality... I have to reduce myself to the level of the poorest of the poor."

From his understanding of wealth and poverty came his understanding of labor and capital, which led him to the solution of trusteeship based on the belief that there is no private ownership of capital; it is given in trust for redistribution and equalization. Similarly, while recognizing differential aptitudes and talents, he holds that these are gifts from God to be used for the collective good.

He seeks an economic order, alternative to the capitalist and communist, and finds this in sarvodaya based on nonviolence (AHIMSA).

He rejects Darwin's survival of the fittest, Adam Smith's laissez-faire and Karl Marx's thesis of a natural antagonism between capital and labor, and focuses on the interdependence between the two.

He believes in the human capacity to change and wages Satyagraha against the oppressor, not to destroy him but to transform him, that he cease his oppression and join the oppressed in the pursuit of Truth.

We in South Africa brought about our new democracy relatively peacefully on the foundations of such thinking, regardless of whether we were directly influenced by Gandhi or not.

Gandhi remains today the only complete critique of advanced industrial society. Others have criticized its totalitarianism but not its productive apparatus. He is not against science and technology, but he places priority on the right to work and opposes mechanization to the extent that it usurps this right. Large-scale machinery, he holds, concentrates wealth in the hands of one man who tyrannizes the rest. He favors the small machine; he seeks to keep the individual in control of his tools, to maintain an interdependent love relation between the two, as a cricketer with his bat or Krishna with his flute. Above all, he seeks to liberate the individual from his alienation to the machine and restore morality to the productive process.

As we find ourselves in jobless economies, societies in which small minorities consume while the masses starve, we find ourselves forced to rethink the rationale of our current globalization and to ponder the Gandhian alternative.

At a time when Freud was liberating sex, Gandhi was reining it in; when Marx was pitting worker against capitalist, Gandhi was reconciling them; when the dominant European thought had dropped God and soul out of the social reckoning, he was centralizing society in God and soul; at a time when the colonized had ceased to think and control, he dared to think and control; and when the ideologies of the colonized had virtually disappeared, he revived them and empowered them with a potency that liberated and redeemed.


SOURCE: TIME

http://www.tolstoyfarm.com/mandela_on_gandhi.htm
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Sounds like the [automatically murderous by Jwhop's logic] Communist really respects Gandhi's non-violent life.

It also sounds like he gets that there needs to be a balance struck between Capitalism and Socialist ideas:

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He seeks an economic order, alternative to the capitalist and communist, and finds this in sarvodaya based on nonviolence (AHIMSA).

He rejects Darwin's survival of the fittest, Adam Smith's laissez-faire and Karl Marx's thesis of a natural antagonism between capital and labor, and focuses on the interdependence between the two.

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posted August 30, 2007 02:41 PM            

The issue is that Mandela wrote it at all...and that what Mandela says in that little tract on "How to be a Good Communist" proves he IS a communist..which you denied.

posted August 31, 2007 01:13 PM            

Mandela, the author...in How to be a Good Communist and speaking of the Communist Party says:

"A member of our Party is no longer just an ordinary person....

And DL says that proves nothing

It's the fact Mandela wrote the tract at all...combined with the inclusive word OUR which proves to all but the brain dead that Mandela was including himself as a Communist Party member.

posted August 31, 2007 02:32 PM            

Another of the allegations made by the State is that the aims and objects of the ANC and the Communist Party are the same. I wish to deal with this and with my own political position, because I must assume that the State may try to argue from certain Exhibits that I tried to introduce Marxism into the ANC. The allegation as to the ANC is false. This is an old allegation which was disproved at the Treason Trial and which has again reared its head. But since the allegation has been made again, I shall deal with it as well as with the relationship between the ANC and the Communist Party and Umkhonto and that party.

The ideological creed of the ANC is, and always has been, the creed of African Nationalism. It is not the concept of African Nationalism expressed in the cry, 'Drive the White man into the sea'. The African Nationalism for which the ANC stands is the concept of freedom and fulfillment for the African people in their own land. The most important political document ever adopted by the ANC is the 'Freedom Charter'. It is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state. It calls for redistribution, but not nationalization, of land; it provides for nationalization of mines, banks, and monopoly industry, because big monopolies are owned by one race only, and without such nationalization racial domination would be perpetuated despite the spread of political power. It would be a hollow gesture to repeal the Gold Law prohibitions against Africans when all gold mines are owned by European companies. In this respect the ANC's policy corresponds with the old policy of the present Nationalist Party which, for many years, had as part of its programme the nationalization of the gold mines which, at that time, were controlled by foreign capital. Under the Freedom Charter, nationalization would take place in an economy based on private enterprise. The realization of the Freedom Charter would open up fresh fields for a prosperous African population of all classes, including the middle class. The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.

As far as the Communist Party is concerned, and if I understand its policy correctly, it stands for the establishment of a State based on the principles of Marxism. Although it is prepared to work for the Freedom Charter, as a short term solution to the problems created by white supremacy, it regards the Freedom Charter as the beginning, and not the end, of its programme.

The ANC, unlike the Communist Party, admitted Africans only as members. Its chief goal was, and is, for the African people to win unity and full political rights. The Communist Party's main aim, on the other hand, was to remove the capitalists and to replace them with a working-class government. The Communist Party sought to emphasize class distinctions whilst the ANC seeks to harmonize them. This is a vital distinction.

It is true that there has often been close co-operation between the ANC and the Communist Party. But co-operation is merely proof of a common goal - in this case the removal of white supremacy - and is not proof of a complete community of interests.

The history of the world is full of similar examples. Perhaps the most striking illustration is to be found in the co-operation between Great Britain, the United States of America, and the Soviet Union in the fight against Hitler. Nobody but Hitler would have dared to suggest that such co-operation turned Churchill or Roosevelt into communists or communist tools, or that Britain and America were working to bring about a communist world.

Another instance of such co-operation is to be found precisely in Umkhonto. Shortly after Umkhonto was constituted, I was informed by some of its members that the Communist Party would support Umkhonto, and this then occurred. At a later stage the support was made openly.

I believe that communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements. Thus communists have played an important role in the freedom struggles fought in countries such as Malaya, Algeria, and Indonesia, yet none of these States today are communist countries. Similarly in the underground resistance movements which sprung up in Europe during the last World War, communists played an important role. Even General Chiang Kai-Shek, today one of the bitterest enemies of communism, fought together with the communists against the ruling class in the struggle which led to his assumption of power in China in the 1930s.

This pattern of co-operation between communists and non-communists has been repeated in the National Liberation Movement of South Africa. Prior to the banning of the Communist Party, joint campaigns involving the Communist Party and the Congress movements were accepted practice. African communists could, and did, become members of the ANC, and some served on the National, Provincial, and local committees. Amongst those who served on the National Executive are Albert Nzula, a former Secretary of the Communist Party, Moses Kotane, another former Secretary, and J. B. Marks, a former member of the Central Committee.

I joined the ANC in 1944, and in my younger days I held the view that the policy of admitting communists to the ANC, and the close co-operation which existed at times on specific issues between the ANC and the Communist Party, would lead to a watering down of the concept of African Nationalism. At that stage I was a member of the African National Congress Youth League, and was one of a group which moved for the expulsion of communists from the ANC. This proposal was heavily defeated. Amongst those who voted against the proposal were some of the most conservative sections of African political opinion. They defended the policy on the ground that from its inception the ANC was formed and built up, not as a political party with one school of political thought, but as a Parliament of the African people, accommodating people of various political convictions, all united by the common goal of national liberation. I was eventually won over to this point of view and I have upheld it ever since.

It is perhaps difficult for white South Africans, with an ingrained prejudice against communism [sounds familiar ], to understand why experienced African politicians so readily accept communists as their friends. But to us the reason is obvious. Theoretical differences amongst those fighting against oppression is a luxury we cannot afford at this stage. What is more, for many decades communists were the only political group in South Africa who were prepared to treat Africans as human beings and their equals; who were prepared to eat with us; talk with us, live with us, and work with us. They were the only political group which was prepared to work with the Africans for the attainment of political rights and a stake in society. Because of this, there are many Africans who, today, tend to equate freedom with communism. They are supported in this belief by a legislature which brands all exponents of democratic government and African freedom as communists and bans many of them (who are not communists) under the Suppression of Communism Act. Although I have never been a member of the Communist Party, I myself have been named under that pernicious Act because of the role I played in the Defiance Campaign. I have also been banned and imprisoned under that Act.

It is not only in internal politics that we count communists as amongst those who support our cause. In the international field, communist countries have always come to our aid. In the United Nations and other Councils of the world the communist bloc has supported the Afro-Asian struggle against colonialism and often seems to be more sympathetic to our plight than some of the Western powers. Although there is a universal condemnation of apartheid, the communist bloc speaks out against it with a louder voice than most of the white world. In these circumstances, it would take a brash young politician, such as I was in 1949, to proclaim that the Communists are our enemies.

I turn now to my own position. I have denied that I am a communist, and I think that in the circumstances I am obliged to state exactly what my political beliefs are.

I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot. After all, I was born in Umtata, forty-six years ago. My guardian was my cousin, who was the acting paramount chief of Tembuland, and I am related both to the present paramount chief of Tembuland, Sabata Dalindyebo, and to Kaizer Matanzima, the Chief Minister of the Transkei.

Today I am attracted by the idea of a classless society, an attraction which springs in part from Marxist reading and, in part, from my admiration of the structure and organization of early African societies in this country. The land, then the main means of production, belonged to the tribe. There were no rich or poor and there was no exploitation.

It is true, as I have already stated, that I have been influenced by Marxist thought. But this is also true of many of the leaders of the new independent States. Such widely different persons as Gandhi, Nehru, Nkrumah, and Nasser all acknowledge this fact. We all accept the need for some form of socialism to enable our people to catch up with the advanced countries of this world and to overcome their legacy of extreme poverty. But this does not mean we are Marxists.

Indeed, for my own part, I believe that it is open to debate whether the Communist Party has any specific role to play at this particular stage of our political struggle. The basic task at the present moment is the removal of race discrimination and the attainment of democratic rights on the basis of the Freedom Charter. In so far as that Party furthers this task, I welcome its assistance. I realize that it is one of the means by which people of all races can be drawn into our struggle.

From my reading of Marxist literature and from conversations with Marxists, I have gained the impression that communists regard the parliamentary system of the West as undemocratic and reactionary. But, on the contrary, I am an admirer of such a system.

The Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights are documents which are held in veneration by democrats throughout the world.

I have great respect for British political institutions, and for the country's system of justice. I regard the British Parliament as the most democratic institution in the world, and the independence and impartiality of its judiciary never fail to arouse my admiration.

The American Congress, that country's doctrine of separation of powers, as well as the independence of its judiciary, arouses in me similar sentiments.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both West and East. All this has led me to feel that in my search for a political formula, I should be absolutely impartial and objective. I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism. I must leave myself free to borrow the best from the West and from the East.
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1960s/rivonia.html
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posted August 31, 2007 05:00 PM            

Also, don't think it escapes my attention that you have TWICE today avoided my comments of substance. Are you at a loss for words? Can't speak to the fact that it's Republicans that believe they have more "rights" than they do? Can't understand, accept or comment on the political portrait Nelson Mandela paints of himself?

posted August 31, 2007 06:05 PM            

quote:

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God, the lengths of deception, subterfuge and outright lying leftists...socialists and communists...will go to in order to protect one of their own is beyond belief.
Mandela, the author...in How to be a Good Communist and speaking of the Communist Party says:

"A member of our Party is no longer just an ordinary person....

And DL says that proves nothing

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Ummmm, it does prove NOTHING because him using the label communist had nothing to do with him actually being a communist and everything to do with Europeans who labeled him so for their own selfish political reasons. This is common knowledge to most Africans, it is you the outsider who needs to get with the program.

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It's the fact Mandela wrote the tract at all...combined with the inclusive word OUR which proves to all but the brain dead that Mandela was including himself as a Communist Party member.

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Hmmmm, was it not you who said that you don't go by what these people say, but what they have actually done? Because if we use that kind of logic then that would mean that Mandela is not a communist because of the fact that his presidency did not even remotely resemble ANY communist regime of the 20th century nor did he perpetrate ANY of the ruthlessness that the big Communists of the 20th Century. So are you now making exceptions to your own rule to suit your own argument? Because you still don't have squat on Mandela.

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How is it possible for reasonable people to have a reasonable discussion with someone who is so totally unreasonable as to attempt to twist, distort, mangle and mutilate the English language?

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I often ask myself that question everytime you open your mouth.

posted September 01, 2007 08:48 AM            

quote:

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maybe it'll educate some imbeciles on this forum

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posted September 01, 2007 11:41 AM            

quote:

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Dulce Luna, may I please ask exactly to whom you were referring when you wrote

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posted September 04, 2007 03:15 PM            

I know exactly what communists and socialists are all about. Who could be confused about it? We've seen the results of their murderous regimes in the 20th Century...and into the 21st. 200,000,000, (200 million) dead citizens in their nations are impossible to ignore...and I'm just talking about the Soviet Union and Communist China and their own citizens.

Mandela is a communist and the African National Congress, (ANC) is a communist association.

posted September 04, 2007 04:10 PM            

Well, that was a pretty thim limb to walk out on Jwhop, especially after I posted Mandela's own words on his political belief system.

The fact that you'd even consider trying to make Mandela out as the same as the Communist leaders you abhor is absurd. The guy who wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his "Work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new, democratic South Africa," is hardly a pin-up for your warped view of Communism.

posted September 06, 2007 01:15 PM            

Density to the Nth degree.

Yeah acoustic, you posted Mandela's weasel words but I posted his own writings which were written to people in the ANC and the South African Communist Party. Those are his fellow communists he was writing to.

We know he was including himself because he used the plural form when talking about "good communists".

posted September 06, 2007 02:01 PM            

The text you posted came from a site NOT sympathetic to Mandela, one that doesn't seem to have any means of proving that he wrote it. It came from a site with, "Rhodesia," in the name. It is a site devoted to Rhodesian history. What is Rhodesia? Before 1964 the name "Rhodesia" on its own referred to the territory of today's Zambia and Zimbabwe. The United States refused to recognize Rhodesia. After independence in April 1980, the history of Rhodesians became that of the whites in Zimbabwe.

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Up until the 1950s, Southern Rhodesia had a vibrant political life with right and left wing parties (by white settler standards) competing for power. The Rhodesia Labour Party held seats in the Assembly and in municipal councils throughout the 1920s and 30s. From 1953 to 1958 the prime minister was Garfield Todd, a liberal who did much to promote the development of the Black community through investment in education, housing and healthcare. However, Todd was forced from office when he attempted to widen the franchise in order to allow Blacks up to 20% of the total votes.

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After the declaration of independence, and indeed for the entire duration of its existence, Rhodesia did not receive official recognition from any state, although it did maintain diplomatic relations with South Africa, another white minority regime, and Portugal, an authoritarian government which ceased relations with Rhodesia after its democratic Carnation Revolution in 1974. The day following the declaration of independence, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution (S/RES/216) calling upon all states to not accord Rhodesia recognition, and to refrain from any assistance. The Security Council also imposed selective mandatory economic sanctions, which were later made comprehensive.

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The history of Rhodesia is the history of white people keeping the native Africans down.

I don't think it's too much to ask people to dig in to the information they're putting out. I know you are too lazy to fact check a thing, but you'd look a hell of a lot smarter if you would.

Quoting a Rhodesian History site as an authority on Nelson Mandela. At least the text I copied here should be a matter of public record having been said in a court trial. The text you posted can't even be verified. In fact, someone could have easily taken Liu Shaoqi's How to Be a Good Communist and adapted it to make it look like Mandela's work. I'm personally amazed at how many people can just accept something as true without any verification whatsoever. Propaganda of the highest order.

posted September 06, 2007 04:17 PM            

Yep Jwhop, those were the same people I was talking about who tried discredit every single African Nationalist. So how am I supposed to take you seriously now that I know that you quote stuff from their sites?

All in all, you have not proved that Mandela or the ANC were or are communists. Nor how you proved that they massacred millions of their own people? Nor have you proved that every single Socialist in Africa was the same way. So you still have no argument or credibility, end of story.

posted September 07, 2007 10:20 AM            

Nelson Mandela is a communist and the ANC is a communist political organization.

There's no such thing as a "good" communist. At the base of all communist doctrine is the belief that those who will not accept communist rule, slavery...well, then they must be killed.

Up the as$es of all communists and their little socialist brothers and sisters too. Different sides of the same murderous coin...as history has proved over and over.

posted September 07, 2007 01:10 PM            

quote:

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How to be a Good Communist IS Nelson Mandela's work.

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Then prove it JWhop....go find us a source reference. Because I've looked everywhere and I can't seem to finsd one. Every site that has this supposed manuscript is either sympathetic to the Old Apartied regime or is extremely right wing (basically one in the same) and with no exact source reference. And anyways, why should I take your word on it that he actually wrote it if you were stupid enough to quote it from a racist site?

I even doubt the work now because it heavily conflicts with EVERYTHING ELSE Mandela has said and done.

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Nelson Mandela is a communist and the ANC is a communist political organization.

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You see, the problem with that statement is that thoughout this entire thread you have NEVER given ANY proof to back up that statement so up your ass, Jwhop.

posted September 07, 2007 01:50 PM            

"It IS Nelson Mandela's work." That's funny! Good bit of Truthiness:

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Truthiness is a satirical term created by television comedian Stephen Colbert to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or actual facts.

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