to hate it when famous people die

[2rebecca]

OK I'm in for a flaming, but I'm in my late 40s, I lived through the ANC/apartheid/ "free Nelson Mandela"avoiding S African fruit in supermarkets/ being delighted when he was released and became an excellent president, sad when his successor was an HIV denying plonker,and the fact that S Africa is developing corruption levels like the rest of Africa and still has a huge violence problem (mainly black on black), but find the wall to wall media coverage completely OTT.
Obituaries are interesting when they are brief and concern someone whose story you don't know. When they are endless and cover someone whose story has been extensively documented it just makes me avoid the media.
It's nothing against Nelson, when the queen dies it will be even worse , and every time a media luvvie dies the media goes into overdrive.
All I needed to hear today was "Nelson Mandela has died", not everyone and their dog repeating stuff I've heard before, especially as I heard it last night anyway.
Someone famous dying is news, endless anecdotes and preprepared staements aren't news.

LaGuardia, no informed person can deny that NM used violence and caused deaths to achieve his goals.
What he was up against kind of made that necessary and as you are so well informed I'll not go in to details.

If add up the numbers that died under Apartheid and due to NM/ANC acts, I know which way the balance was tipped.

Anyway, the OP (who seems to be a bit more sophisticated in her thinking) was annoyed at blanket, superficial, repeated coverage of the event of his (and other prominent people). She did not (in her OP) actually comment on the relative merits/demerits of NM's actions.

What could/should he have done in your opinion? Known were his, his families and his peoples' place was??

You just reminded me of a white South African customer I served last new year's eve. He started out - when he was sober - very enthusiastic about the new South Africa. As he got drunker and drunker the mask slipped further and further, until he was YELLING the most stomach-turning racist shit. On and on and on. And it was all in Afrikaans, so his English wife was just sitting there smiling at him because she didn't understand any of it.

i am curious to know what NM did to LaGuardia's family that means there will be no mourning for him.

I agree with that creighton about 'most of them'. I can't believe what people could look at kids and think just because we were black or whatever,mwe were inferior

I am shocked to the core that there are people on here who do not comprehend that the apartheid regime in S Africa was such an evil that it had to be overturned at any cost and any price.

I am not. I am black person born and bred in africa whose parents struggled their way through apartheid. I still experience racism every day. At 7 months pregnant a man came up to me and called me a black cunt and made a stabbing motion towards my stomach. Police didn't give a shit. This is London today. Can you imagine what a black person had to suffer in apartheid era South Africa?

From what some posters have written it is clear that there were a significant number of white people who would have preferred black people to put up and shut up. To be treated like dogs, to be disenfranchised, to allow police to shoot children in their backs at protests and not retaliate. Fuck that.

I knew reading this thread would be a bad idea.

MyPrettyToes

My dad grew up as a white South African during apartheid. His parents and brother absolutely believed in the regime but my father said as he got into his teenage years, he started to see how wrong it was. It's been really interesting talking to him about living there and coming to the realisation that the whole political and social structure was based on an iniquitous lie. He went to university in jo'burg and got heavily involved in the student protests in the late 50s before having to leave when the police started taking an interest in him. He says that Mandela and the ANC always used soft targets before he went to prison and the one time a child was scarred after a bomb in a bin, there were doubts it was even the ANC who had planted the bomb. I don't think there is any evidence that Mandela was involved in anything that resulted in death.
This thread is really depressing, that people can compare a man who fought for equality for his people and demonstrated forgiveness and grace like few other people, to Gerry bloody Adams. People really are stupid. And the celebrity comments makes me want to bang my head against something hard. This is a man who is genuinely deserving of the obituaries and retelling of his history.

Myprettytoes, that is horrific :(

MyPrettyToes I'm so sorry.

I think he deserves the coverage, so YABU there but what annoys me is the way it has been described by some (Prince Wiliiam for one) as a tragedy?! He was 95 and very ill. It was expected, it it not tragic.
Him being forgotten or his legacy having no effect to future generations, that would be tragic.

well prince William was caught on the hop when he made his speech. it is strange when an old person dies, sometimes you think that they will be there forever, maybe, if they are seen as a good force, it seems like a tragedy.

MyPrettyToes and that you experienced that cruelty.

Racism is clearly not just a historical issue.

I have to thank NM and his team for not chasing the whites out of SA although there are lots of them in England. If they had left en masse, this country would be full of them complaining that they have to wipe their own arses and clean their own houses and not kick black people in the face when they want to.

Creighton you sound a bit disappointed that NM didn't chase anyone with a white skin out.

Actually, in contrast, here in SA there has been the most amazing amount of goodwill between races in the last few days. You can literally feel it on the streets. Tomorrow a group of my white and brown skinned friends are off to the memorial service at the stadium. Unfortunately the tickets are gone (they were free but you had to book) so I'm not going. There won't be any "trouble" or hatred between races - sorry to disappoint some people. You'll just see lots of sad South Africans, black and white, celebrating a great leader.

It's a funny old thing being a South African and a pale one at that. So many people want us to fail. On the one hand you have the Daily Mail and its readers and racist people who left because they didn't want to live under a "black" government literally rubbing their hands together with glee when anything goes wrong here. (I'm not saying anyone who leaves is racist mind you but I do know some personally who left exactly for that reason.)

Then you have the odd politician in the ANC who, whenever his shares are down because he's done bugger all for his constituents, starts sabre rattling about the whites (like we're all some homogenous group). My ancestors have been here a while but I’m a South African first – I don’t define myself by the colour of my skin or my language. I don’t expect anyone else to define me in that way.

But then you have people like Desmond Tutu and Mamphela Ramphele who are of the same calibre as NM and there are plenty more, black and white, coming through the ranks. We've got a bit of a tool for a President at the moment but he won't last forever and his latest dishonesty has woken a lot of people up. There's a new organisation in SA called Agang, led by Mamphela Ramphele, which IMO has the ability to take SA to the next level and I believe it will happen. As much as many people would love to think SA is a failure waiting to happen, actually I think we’re going to be just fine.

Interesting news update: Jacob Zuma at the memorial service in Soweto today:

Quote: "A number of people in the crowd made a rolling hand signal, usually interpreted to mean change is wanted, as he walked on, dressed in a dark suit ... When Zuma's face appeared on a large screen above the pitch, a sustained boo rolled through the tens of thousands of people gathered for the service."

Story at www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/zuma-receives-boos-cheers-1.1620023#.Uqb-AU3xs6E

We can thank Madiba for leaving us with a constitution where we can vote for a new leader (unlike say in the case of Zimbabwe) and I think South Africans are going to use that right soon.

i think my words are selfexplanatory. it is a good thing that the white people did not leave SA en masse because they would be feeling sorry for themselves here in England and that would be too much to bear.

You know I never thought in my lifetime I'd see an ANC President being booed at Nelson Mandela's memorial of all places. It's almost unbelievable. In some ways, it's really, really sad. On the other hand it just proves that South African voters, although hugely loyal to the ANC and with good reason, won't be taken for fools - which is encouraging.

I've just come back from SA (visiting the in-laws), I hope the legacy he (and all the others on both sides involved in the end of apartheid ) are leaving behind is that even in the the most difficult circumstances, it is possible to find common ground, forgiveness and to move forward.

Creighton* most of the white South Africans I know who moved here have actually moved home now - it may be a time of life thing, but most of them seem to appreciate the quality of life at home better than in the UK.