Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen
After his release he eventually became SAs FIRST black president. He spent his whole life trying to get the country to allow equal voting for black and white people.
That to me is a man who tried for years to change things and ultimatly acheived it.
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He though did not achieve it but instead was used to achieve it...
De Klerk was the one who changed the views of the nationalist party, he was the one who instigated the referendum (though whites only) that took the country into the post apartheid era and he was the one who thrust Mandela into the role as peace negotiator..
I agree greatly that no-one else could have done what Mandela achieved and that was to act as a buffer between the black majority and the white minority (shame the colored class (not the blacks as they were counted as a seperate class) at the time just sat on their backsides and waited until a victor emerged which turned out to be the people and not an individual group)
As for Mandela being a terrorist I wonder how many people involved in for example Manchester/docklands/Harrods and many other IRA bombings would still classify Gerry Adams and others as a terrorist. You had to live there in the late 70's/80's to realise the state of fear that gripped the public at that time.
Finally though I have to say that without Mandela there may have been bloodshed and a lot of violence in the early 90's and for that he has found his place in history and a lot of peoples hearts but what the news keeps hammering on about how he brought about the end of the apartheid era is just wrong..