LJD:



I think you
misunderstood Hous from context. He was just complimenting Baba's write-up and
showing his clear "disapproval" with those that humiliated Mandela.
It is not the way that I would have said it, but I understand the point he is
trying to make. I agree with him that even a layman or the very idiots that
incarcerated Madiba have something good to say about him. I wonder what was
former British PM’s (Margaret Thatcher aka Iron) last thought on Mandela before
she died. She was one hell of a man who saw Mandela’s revolutionary defiance as
terror. We know former president Clinton wholly adored, loved and championed
Mandela to where he would even call him at times before bed times. We all know
Clinton is a Blackman. lol 



On another
note, I think Dr. Jallow cracked the nutshell open on this one another. The
piece is loaded and filled with historical facts to the brim of the neck
bottle. 



Some
interesting points which stood out clearly include the fact that Mandela
endorsed guerrilla fight to weaken the criminal apartheid. Apparently, some of
our folks (Gambians) are missing that part of the equation. 



Another point
is fact that Mandela could have stayed to win many elections but he refused to
hang on....it is with full knowledge of what it would brought, just like noted
in the other greedy pigs of masquerades in presidency uniforms. 



It is clear
from his speech, a treason that sent him to 27 years in jail, that he was ready
to live or die for a principle he believe. This is very fundamental and lacking
in many people. 



While
appreciating Dr. Jallow for his write-up, I like his acknowledgement that his
own tribute to Mandela is just one drop of water in the ocean. The man
represented a lot more than we can write, a lot more than we talk about….some
of the history probably lost. Also, we must note clearly that he wasn’t alone
in this heroic struggle. The likes of Steve Biko, Oliver T, Winnie Mandela, etc…all
were heroes and heroines. 



Thanks &
very best,



Yero



 
> Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2013 00:10:37 +0000
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [G_L] Mandela’s Abiding Legacy
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> Hous
> 
> I'm perplexed by your dismissive statement "I think even a layman has a lot to say about Mandela". Are you suggesting Baba is engaged in superflous activity by writing on a matter of 'common expertise'? The popular narrative may be straightforward but the Mandela issue involves deep moral questions. Forgive me if I read you wrongly but your perspective is amenable to multiple interpretations.
> 
> Why am I going on this tangent?
> 
> I think there is a certain level of disgust with any show of intellectualism in Gambian society. Yet we have no trouble celebrating disgraceful musicians who have nothing to say about the deep moral challenges embedded in our public life. Or to mindlessly celebrate sports personalities, footballers in particular, for winning meaningless trophies when our house can collapse any day from the sheer weight of public lawlessness. 
> 
> In this period of great challenge, I would rather remind myself of the man Mandela in Baba's illuminating writeup. 
> 
> 
> 
> LJDarbo  
> 
>   
> --------------------------------------------
> On Fri, 6/12/13, Husainou <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>  Subject: Re: [G_L] Mandela’s Abiding Legacy
>  To: [log in to unmask]
>  Date: Friday, 6 December, 2013, 1:51
>  
>  I think even a
>  layman has a lot to say about Mandela. Allah will be the
>  judge between him and those who put him into incarceration
>  for 27 years. A lot could be learned from his
>  legacy. Hous
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  On Dec 5, 2013, at 8:36 PM, Baba Galleh Jallow <[log in to unmask]>
>  wrote:
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  Mandela’s Abiding
>  Legacy
>  
>  By Baba Galleh Jallow
>  
>  On Thursday, December 5, 2013, the world received
>  the news
>  it has been dreading for the past several years: Nelson
>  Mandela was dead, aged
>  95. Born on July 18, 1918, the former South African
>  president spent 27 years of
>  his life in prison before being released by F. W. de Klerk,
>  the last president
>  of Apartheid South Africa in 1990. In 1994, he became the
>  first Black President
>  of South Africa after that country’s first multi-racial,
>  democratic elections
>  in over 300 years. After serving a single term of five
>  years, Mandela stepped
>  down from the presidency in 1999 and was succeeded to the
>  post by Thabo Mbeki.
>  After his retirement from politics, Mandela set up the
>  Nelson Mandela
>  Foundation in 1999 and dedicated much time and energy in the
>  fight against
>  HIV/AIDS, lack of adequate school buildings in South Africa,
>  and other
>  humanitarian causes. During his life time, Mandela has won
>  over 250 honors, including
>  the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He has gone into History as
>  one of the greatest leaders
>  the world has ever known and will ever know.
>  
>  Mandela joined the African National Congress
>  (ANC) in the
>  early 1940s. In 1944, he and other young members of the ANC
>  formed the ANC
>  Youth League with a mission to further radicalize the
>  organization. Founded by
>  John Dube as the South African Native National Congress in
>  1912, the ANC got
>  its current name in 1923. Dube was very much influenced by
>  the ideas of Booker
>  T. Washington, and because Washington was largely a pacifist
>  who encouraged
>  Black Americans to be content to just gain technical skills
>  which would then
>  make them acceptable to White society, the early ANC was not
>  as radical as
>  Mandela, Luthuli, Sisulu and other young members wanted.
>  That is why they formed
>  the ANC Youth League to inject more energy into the
>  organization.
>  
>  Mandela and members of the ANC Youth League did
>  not
>  immediately turn to violence against the South African
>  government. Even after
>  Apartheid became official state policy with the coming into
>  power of the
>  Purified National Party in 1948, the ANC still used peaceful
>  means to advocate
>  for the rights of black and colored people in South Africa.
>  But Apartheid
>  brooked no opposition, however peaceful. In 1956, Mandela,
>  Luthuli and other 154
>  members of the ANC were arrested and tried on treason
>  charges. The trial lasted
>  until 1961 when all the defendants were acquitted and
>  discharged. It was not
>  until the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 that the ANC leaders
>  decided that the
>  only effective way to deal with the Apartheid regime was
>  through violent revolution.
>  Consequently, Mandela and his colleagues went underground
>  and formed Unkhomto we Sizwe (MK) or Spear
>  of the
>  Nation in 1961 to engage the Apartheid regime through
>  guerrilla tactics. In
>  1962, Mandela was arrested again and sentenced to five years
>  imprisonment.
>  While he served his term, further charges of plotting to
>  overthrow the
>  government were brought against him. A new trial at Rivonia
>  found him guilty
>  and he was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 1964.
>  First kept in Robben
>  Island prison, Mandela was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison
>  and eventually to
>  Victor Verster Prison from where he was released on February
>  11, 1990.
>  Throughout the period of his incarceration, the MK conducted
>  relentless bombing
>  campaigns and other acts of guerrilla warfare against the
>  Apartheid regime from
>  bases in what were known as the Frontline States: Botswana,
>  Mozambique, Angola,
>  Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, bordering South
>  Africa to the north.
>  
>  By 1990, prominent members of the National Party
>  Government
>  in South Africa had realized that Apartheid was no longer a
>  feasible government
>  policy. The MK’s bombing and guerilla warfare was exacting
>  a heavy toll on South
>  Africa’s internal security. Mass protests and
>  demonstrations especially in the
>  aftermath of the Soweto riots and massacre of June 1976, and
>  the state-killing
>  of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko in 1977 were making
>  it impossible for the
>  South African government to maintain order. By the 1980s,
>  the anti-Apartheid
>  movement had become so persistent that Prime Minister P. W.
>  Botha declared a
>  state of emergency and launched what he called his Total
>  Strategy because in
>  his estimation, his government was under a Total Onslaught
>  by anti-Apartheid
>  groups in the country. At the same time, international
>  pressure against the
>  Apartheid regime had steadily picked up steam in the 1970s
>  and gained momentum
>  in the 1980s. Anti-Apartheid UN Resolutions and protest
>  marches had become a
>  common feature of international politics by 1985. When the
>  U.S. Senate overrode
>  a veto by President Reagan and passed the Comprehensive
>  Anti-Apartheid Act in
>  1986, the Pretoria regime began to crumble in upon itself.
>  Washington was one
>  of the strongest supporters of the Apartheid regime since
>  its inception in
>  1948, which coincided with the heating up of the Cold War.
>  Taking advantage of
>  the anti-communist paranoia in Washington and other Western
>  capitals, the
>  Apartheid regime branded the ANC, the Pan-Africanist
>  Congress, the Black
>  Consciousness Movement and all other anti-Apartheid groups
>  communist and
>  thereby won the unconditional support of successive U.S.
>  governments. This all
>  changed in 1986 when the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act
>  imposed trade and
>  travel sanctions against South Africa, demanded an end to
>  Apartheid, called for
>  the release of Nelson Mandela and asked for a time-table for
>  the conduct of
>  democratic elections in that country. When F. W. de Klerk
>  took over after P. W.
>  Botha’s resignation in 1989, he knew he had to end
>  Apartheid or risk letting South
>  Africa slide into full-blown civil war and economic
>  ruin.
>  
>  Mandela and the ANC were swept to power in the
>  first democratic
>  elections in South Africa in 342 years. Since Jan van
>  Riebeck, an agent of the Dutch
>  East India Company landed at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652,
>  the majority of
>  South Africans had suffered racial discrimination and
>  oppression by a small
>  group of white rulers and their enablers, including black
>  South Africans. For
>  the first time in 1994, the disenfranchised people of South
>  Africa enjoyed
>  universal adult suffrage and voted overwhelmingly for
>  Mandela and the ANC. 
>  
>  Shortly after coming into power, Mandela and the
>  ANC government
>  passed the Promotion of National Unity Act which set up the
>  Truth and
>  Reconciliation Commission (TRC).  Under the
>  Chairmanship of Bishop Desmond Tutu, the TRC was mandated to
>  help South
>  Africans deal with their violent past. Perpetrators of
>  Apartheid era atrocities
>  were encouraged to come forward and confess to their crimes.
>  Where their crimes
>  were not too extreme, these people were granted amnesty by
>  the TRC and their
>  victims and their families granted some compensation. Where
>  their atrocities
>  were too much to forgive, or where they denied committing
>  crimes in the face of
>  evidence, their cases were passed on to the judicial system
>  and they were tried
>  and if found guilty, convicted. Through the TRC process,
>  Mandela was able to
>  help South Africa come to terms with its violent past and
>  learn to live
>  together as a rainbow nation. While the TRC has been
>  criticized on many fronts,
>  it was a lesser of two evils: the greater evil being
>  allowing a regime of
>  retributions and vendettas to grip South Africa and lead to
>  untold consequences
>  for the newly freed nation.
>  
>  But while the TRC was certainly one of
>  Mandela’s greatest
>  achievements, his abiding legacy for most Africans is the
>  fact that he stepped
>  down from power after serving only one five-year term as
>  president of South
>  Africa. In a continent with a long and ugly tradition of
>  sit-tight dictators
>  who cling on to power for as long as they are alive,
>  Mandela’s act represented
>  an example that will yet be South Africa’s ultimate saving
>  grace. Once he set
>  that precedent, no South African president will ever be able
>  to cling on to
>  power beyond their mandated terms. Having given all his
>  adult life to the
>  struggle for justice in South Africa, Mandela could have
>  continued winning
>  elections for as long as he wanted; but he was an honorable
>  giant who would not
>  stoop that low and who had the honor, the integrity and the
>  foresight to know
>  that stepping down after only one term was perhaps the best
>  service he could
>  render his people. And they are no doubt grateful for that
>  honorable gesture. And
>  so are all of us who hanker after leaders of Mandela’s
>  stature in Sub-Saharan
>  Africa. May his beautiful soul rest in perfect
>  peace.
>  
>  Author’s Note: I
>  just thought it necessary to say that this
>  short essay represents a very thin skeleton of Mandela’s
>  innumerable achievements
>  over a long a fruitful life as freedom fighter, leader and
>  international
>  diplomat, among other things. 
>  
>                                             
>  
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