UK Liberty

Nelson Mandela

Posted in politicians on liberty by ukliberty on August 29, 2007

Congratulations to Nelson Mandela, who today had a statue erected in his honour in Parliament Square.

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said,

The statue of Nelson Mandela is to be placed in Parliament Square to demonstrate that the struggle of the South African people to overcome the tyranny of the racist apartheid state was itself the struggle for universal human rights.

Humanity’s greatest causes are embodied in the cause of the South African people against apartheid, the cause of the struggle against tyranny.

Nelson Mandela’s struggle came to symbolise the very idea of a better world, a world in which the most fundamental rights are available to each and every human being, and this is why his statue is such an appropriate addition to one of our most important squares.

That the ANC “routinely violated its own code of conduct with physical and psychological torture” is by the by, I think.

After all, the important thing is the symbolism, not what actually happened on the ground.

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  1. t said, on September 4, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    I agree that this Mandela worship is nauseating, but WorldNetDaily?

    I am sure you can find a more honest source than the bunch of fruitloops like WND, a source famous for stories such as ‘soy leads to homosexuality and ‘Muslims bakes children‘.

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  2. ukliberty said, on September 8, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    Fair point, I should have made an effort to check out the source.

    Here then is a quote from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report:

    The ANC and particularly its military structures responsible for the treatment and welfare of those in its camps were guilty of gross violations of human rights in certain circumstances and against two categories of individuals, namely suspected ‘enemy agents’ and ‘mutineers’.

    With regard to the allegations of torture and ill treatment, the Commission found that although torture was not within ANC policy, the security department of the ANC routinely used torture to extract information and confessions from those being held in camps particularly in the period 1979–1989.

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