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RIP
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
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Tax Research UK Blog is written by Richard Murphy unless otherwise stated and published by Tax Research LLP under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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http://www.okwonga.com/?p=869
This is good.
Agreed
You described on Twitter Mr Mandela as the ultimate exponent of the Courageous State.
I would have thought virtually all of his achievements were in FIGHTING a state that well knew its levers of power (police, army, prisons, press censorship etc) and wasn’t frightened to use them. Whatever you can say about the South African governments over that era, you couldn’t accuse them for lacking courage.
And if you think Mr Mandela embodied a courageous state during his short Presidency, here is a famous name who disagrees with that view – John Pilger, who wrote this piece published in July.
See here http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/11/mandelas-tarnished-legacy/
I often read Pilger’s work with a pinch of salt. But have a read – I would be interested in your thoughts (and those of other commenters of course).
Have you read my book?
He never claimed to be perfect
He wasn’t
I wasn’t commenting on the man’s qualities. From what I gather, he was acutely embarrassed at the sainthood status he was given.
My point is that he was hardly an ambassador of the courageous state, either within his struggle, and again, after he became President.
If anything, his life story was a warning on what the state can do to its own citizens. And judging 20th C history, SA was not the only country to commit heinous abuse against its own citizens. There were plenty of other examples, some arguably worse.
I haven’t read your book. Could you please suggest how Mr Mandela could have possibly been an ambassador of the courageous state?
He believed the state’s job was to deliver the potential in everyone
That’s what a Courageous State should do
Adrian
Insofar as you have a thought process, it seems to be everyone for themselves & hell for the hindmost. If that’s what you believe fair enough although I strongly doubt that you’ve thought through what it will entail.
You are certainly well out of line in trying to recruit Nelson Mandela to your cause. He was probably the most communitarian of world leaders. When he wore the Springbok jersey it was an amazing statement that “we’re all in this together”
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/05/201358183059392141.html
This is an interesting article. I think most people would do well to be cautious in attempting to recruit Mandela to their cause.
I am not doubting Nelson Mandela’s towering achievements for a second. Destroying the apartheid regime and bringing the country back from the brink of civil war are but two of them.
Unfortunately though, Pilger was correct that Mandela allowed the free market to reign in South Africa – a country dripping in resources and an economy that could have very easily have provided full employment, housing and infrastructure for all!
Telling the free marketeers to go to hell was risky, but it probably would have been a risk well worth taking!
It certainly did Argentina no harm!