Author Topic: Newt Gingrich: What Would You Have Done? Nelson Mandela and American Conservatives  (Read 606 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Machiavelli

  • Curmudgeon
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4,222
  • Gender: Male
  • Realist
Newt Gingrich
Gingrich Productions
December 6, 2013

Quote
Yesterday I issued a heartfelt and personal statement about the passing of President Nelson Mandela. I said that his family and his country would be in my prayers and Callista’s prayers.

I was surprised by the hostility and vehemence of some of the people who reacted to me saying a kind word about a unique historic figure.

So let me say to those conservatives who don’t want to honor Nelson Mandela, what would you have done?

Mandela was faced with a vicious apartheid regime that eliminated all rights for blacks and gave them no hope for the future. This was a regime which used secret police, prisons and military force to crush all efforts at seeking freedom by blacks.

What would you have done faced with that crushing government?

What would you do here in America if you had that kind of oppression?
More


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avprS9cmoTE


Offline truth_seeker

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 28,386
  • Gender: Male
  • Common Sense Results Oriented Conservative Veteran
Another voice of rational thinking, to go alongside Cruz' position.

South Africa with apartheid was the 20th century version of 19th century slavery, and was universally condemned.

« Last Edit: December 08, 2013, 02:09:49 am by truth_seeker »
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline Bigun

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 51,331
  • Gender: Male
  • Resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to God
    • The FairTax Plan
From another online forum in response to Newt:

I was born in South Africa, and lived there for 35 years of my life, including the time of apartheid, through the transition and after. The documentation is liberal revisionist history at worst, or incomplete at best.

Newt is wrong in many ways, but I have been seeing you comment almost every Mandela thread trying to demonize white South Africa, just like Newt is doing.

Just to be clear, I am no champion or supporter of apartheid, and worked to help change it. I was not on board with what was agreed to in the end, but almost everyone there agreed that things could not continue as it was, hence the change. The ANC and Mandela had almost zero influence, and South Africa could have continued with apartheid for many more years without any major problems. Sanctions were hurting only those it was supposed to help, and military intervention was not an option.

So specifically which rights were denied to blacks under apartheid? I would think these were the most important.
1. They couldn’t own land or lived where they wanted outside of their tribal homelands.
2. They couldn’t vote outside of their tribal homelands.
3. They could not participate in the national government, only their own.
4. They could not use the same facilities as whites.

The idea was to help tribes gain independence in countries located in their traditional and historic tribal areas , not unlike Native American reservations (just bigger), and not unlike the kingdoms of Lesotho and Swaziland. Economic Development Corporations were set up, some investments made, but that was where it mostly stopped. Even with big infusions of capital the tribal lands were and stayed poor, and the people did not want to live there, as the better infrastructure and jobs were around the major cities.

Some rights they did have:
1. The right to free medical care, anywhere in the country, in hospitals set up for them, and staffed by white and black doctors and nurses.
2. The right to free education, through school and college, in facilities built for them, and again staffed by white and black.
3. The right to work anywhere.
4. Homes were built and utilities provided in some cases, but the demand was really high, and the government could not keep up.

Was it right that they were kept separate? No, but to say they were denied “all rights” is total nonsense.

Now do yourself a favor and go and research the mfecane, which explains what the thinking process was behind keeping the warring tribes apart. Now extrapolate that to the time 1990 to present, and see what has been going on. It explains a lot of the violence.

Furthermore, in all the years of apartheid, around 30,000 “political” prisoners passed through the prisons, where the vast majority were treated like any other prisoners. Yes, regrettably there were some tortured and killed. The total amount of dead at the hand of the South African authorities was just under 600. If the white government wanted to viciously suppress, kill opponents and deny rights, they sure stunk at it, and I can promise you it was not due to lack of ability.

Now, if you want to know more personal stories, I can tell you how my uncle lost our family farm (in our family for more than 100 years, bought legally from the British) under apartheid so that it could be given, free of charge, to the Ndebele people. At the time he was operating a successful fruit juice factory, providing employment, housing and schooling to more than 200 Ndebele, and free medical care, since he was also a medical doctor. After he left, it all went to ruin.

How about the black police officers, soldiers and security guards that stood in the trenches with the white government to fight the ANC? They were subject to the same “abuses” and “oppression” that you and Newt are talking about, yet they saw fit to rather defend that “oppressive” system as opposed to submit to the communist ANC. And for good reason, the non-ANC supporters were, and are, being murdered and intimidated in large numbers.

I freely admit that my opinion is biased because I lived through it, personally. I saw it from the inside, from both perspectives, before and after apartheid. Before 1990 I served in the military. I was an officer, required to study the complete history of the ANC, and had access to all the intelligence that was shared with us, also from the US government.

After 1994 I worked with some high ranking ANC officials (including their chief of intelligence, who sadly died in a car accident later. Even though he had risen to the equivalent of the rank of colonel in the KGB, and we were on opposite ideological ends, he was a gentleman who I respected) on a local project. I heard what their perspective during the negotiations were, and saw their motives and modus operandi first hand. I understand why they did what they did. I disagree with how they went about it. Moderate black leaders, like the Zulu chief minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, had much more of an influence on the decision to end apartheid.

You are welcome to believe what you want, as is Newt. But I do implore you to look for the rest of the story, and not just rely on what liberal scholars propagate. There is a lot more to it.


Yes indeed! A lot more to it!

Newt just jumped a mighty big shark if you ask me!

« Last Edit: December 08, 2013, 03:16:54 am by Bigun »
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Oceander

  • Guest
This is another pointless mole hill that some people are turning into a mountain.

Offline Bigun

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 51,331
  • Gender: Male
  • Resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to God
    • The FairTax Plan
This is another pointless mole hill that some people are turning into a mountain.

That's how it's done! ONE little mole hill at a time!
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline evadR

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,190
  • Gender: Male
That's how it's done! ONE little mole hill at a time!
Incrementalism is the key to success for the liberal agenda.
It points out the problem with conservatives...we want all or nothing. If someone isn't completely on board we throw him to the wolves. And even thought we have all the right ideas and solutions, we lose ground.
Oh well, what's on football today?
November 6, 2012, a day in infamy...the death of a republic as we know it.

Offline truth_seeker

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 28,386
  • Gender: Male
  • Common Sense Results Oriented Conservative Veteran
Incrementalism is the key to success for the liberal agenda.
It points out the problem with conservatives...we want all or nothing. If someone isn't completely on board we throw him to the wolves. And even thought we have all the right ideas and solutions, we lose ground.
Oh well, what's on football today?
Too many "true conservatives wouldn't know how to be diplomatic or strategic, if it hit them upside the head.

What is to be gained, by dissing Mandela? Conservatism has become its own worst enemy. 
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln