Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Mandela no more a Terrorist! Hurrah!

So, finally, the US government, through a new bill written by President Bush, has taken Nelson Mandela (and other members of the ANC) off its terror watch list. Thank God, we must now be safer, although I imagine that Dick Chenney doesn't still think it is a good idea. If anything, this sordid reality of US international politics--in taking a whole of 18 years since the "unbanning" of the ANC in South Africa, and 14 years after the Party won legitimate, popular elections in South Africa, to remove it from the so-called terror list--must teach us to be dubious of the US government's (and its allies') characterization of any individual or group as "terrorist." They were wrong about ANC and Mandela, and should apologize to South Africa because America was on the wrong side of history on the matter of South African decolonization and independence. Just removing Mandela's name from the stupid list is not enough.

3 comments:

NeNe said...

excellent point! it cannot erase the inactions and apathy of the US govt. it does not far enough-- at the very least an official apology is needed.

Anonymous said...

Good for Mandela but I still think its all about box ticking.The United Kingdom now has his Stature at the parliament Sq.

raphael chikukwa said...

The oldman came out of the Roben Island and created the so called Rainbow Nation, how Rainbow is the Rainbow Nation? I think it was just Propanganda because there is no Black in the rainbow colours. Today Rainbow Nation era has ended, Thabo Mbeki is out and yet they the ANC preach about UBUNTU. What Ubuntu? I am not sure about the officail apology, they refused to apologize about Slavery. We need more than that am sure