He was the first black president in South African history, holding high the spear of the nation and dragging the black community out of the abyss of apartheid.
He is one of the few politicians in the world who is respected by both The East and the West. After he was imprisoned, 2,000 mayors from 53 countries around the world spontaneously signed a petition demanding that south African authorities release Mandela. Even the presidents of Europe and the United States, whose eyes are above the top, have praised him as "the brightest light in the world."
He is globally recognized as the "Father of the Nation of South Africa", but now in the motherland for which he has struggled all his life, he has become a controversial "sinner". Countless people condemned him as the culprit who caused the country to fall from the peak to the quagmire.
He was "the great man of the world, the sinner of South Africa", Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela
In recent times, South Africa has been in turmoil, the biggest riot in 30 years. A large number of people poured into the streets, breaking into major shopping malls, supermarkets, banks, factories and frantically smashing and looting goods and cash. From time to time, people set fire to cars and buildings to vent their anger. Even the military police who bumped into the loaded guns did not restrain themselves.
At present, more than 300 people have been killed in the riots, and the country's politics and economy have been hit hard, making this already difficult country even worse. Not only that, but this great insurrection ruthlessly unveiled the historical scars of South Africa, exposing the social ills that have never been truly solved for centuries and exposed to broad daylight.
In ancient and modern China and abroad, the outbreak of a riot, revolution and war often has two factors: fuse and powder keg. Like the anti-racial discrimination campaign that swept the world last year, the violent killing of Black Floyd by white police officers was the direct trigger, and the root cause was the eruption of deep-rooted racial contradictions and defiance. The same is true of the Great South African Riots.
Immediately after the arrest and imprisonment of former South African President Jacob Zuma on July 8, his supporters have taken the lead in igniting the flames of the riot. Just like Halloween's "don't give sugar, make trouble", they also engaged in the action of "not releasing people, destroying".
Former President of South Africa Zuma
Speaking of Zuma, this is also a highly controversial figure. As a young man, he followed in Mandela's footsteps and worked to end apartheid, and was personally nurtured and escorted by Mandela until he sat on the presidency. In the first few years of becoming president, Zuma was indeed running for the people, handing over two excellent political achievements in "aids prevention and control" and "improving the living standards of the people at the bottom". But over time, Zuma's chaotic private life and corrupt behavior were exposed. He was arrested and imprisoned for more than 10 counts of rape, embezzlement, fraud and more than 10 other charges.
Seeing this, I believe that someone must have doubts. Why doesn't such a president with a bad record and a pile of criminal cases be sent to prison and continue to stay in the government to let him do evil? Did the people of South Africa rise up and leave the country in ruins and ruins, just to get him out of prison? The answer, of course, is no.
As a kind and gracious president who worked to improve the status of black people, Zuma did have a lot of followers. But it obviously can't reach such a large scale, and the extent to which it is necessary to break the law and commit crimes for him and fight with his life. In fact, Zuma's supporters initially blocked the road and staged protest demonstrations without causing any casualties or property damage.
But I don't know when this protest suddenly changed its flavor. Regardless of men, women and children, more and more people are pouring into the streets, bank cash, supermarket food, shopping mall jewelry, expensive home appliances, what is valuable everyone rushes to grab what.
Some media outlets published a photo of the scene of the riots in South Africa on the Internet: a black man holding a paper plate in mourning, which read: One day, the hungry and inedible poor can only eat the rich. This sentence is the real reason for the great riots in South Africa hidden in the wake of Zuma's arrest, that is, the barrel of gunpowder that has accumulated over time.
South Africa is a blessed land of heaven, nestled between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and has a strategically valued Cape of Good Hope. From gold and diamonds, to rare earths, to uranium mines, the core raw material for atomic bombs, South Africa has mineral resources that are difficult for other countries to match.
Thanks to this, South Africa was once the most economically developed country in Africa, and there was no one. In 1980, South Africa's per capita GDP was as high as $2,900, compared to China's per capita GDP that year was only 467 yuan.
Today, however, South Africa's economy has fallen from heaven to hell. In the first quarter of this year, South Africa's unemployment rate exceeded a record 32%, and inflation reached its highest level in nearly three years.
There is an old Chinese saying: "Full of warmth and lust, hunger and cold to steal the heart." It is precisely because of such a serious livelihood dilemma that a large number of South African people will take advantage of the outbreak of political protests to loot money and materials. Therefore, the Great Riot in South Africa is essentially a "food riot" caused by extreme poverty. Mandela, on the other hand, was identified by many South Africans as the culprit in this situation.
Speaking of Mandela, I believe that the first thing that people around the world think of is his contribution to racial equality. Beyond's famous song "Glorious Years" was written by Huang Jiaju himself for Mandela, and the phrase "a lifetime of dedication to skin color struggle" in the lyrics is a true portrayal of Mandela's life.
Born into a family of tribal chiefs in Transkei, South Africa, Mandela was established as the next ruler at a young age. However, compared to the sixpence at his fingertips, Mandela's eyes were full of distant and dreamy moons. Growing up, Mandela was heart-wrenching and indignant for his fellow blacks who suffered. He resented the tradition of whites in black lands, and even saw a chieftain as a ruler of a tribe as an unequal oppression.
Mandela wanted to revolutionize the status quo and improve the status, rights, lives and well-being of black people. To this end, he gave up all glory and wealth and devoted his life to the struggle to abolish apartheid.
In 1944, at the age of 26, Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa and formally entered politics. The ANC is the largest black nationalist party in South Africa, advocating nonviolent struggle against all forms of ethnic discrimination and oppression, and working towards a united, democratic, racially equal South Africa. Unfortunately, neither Mandela nor Zuma today has been able to achieve this ultimate goal, but has embarked on a path contrary to it, of course, this is all a matter of the future.
During the half-century of relentless struggle for black rights and racial equality, Mandela suffered countless repressions and even spent 27 years in prison. Fortunately, victory finally came, and in 1990, under strong condemnation and severe sanctions from the international community, South Africa finally announced the policy of desegregation. In February of the same year, Mandela was released from prison, and he delivered his famous release speech in front of 120,000 passionate citizens.
"To build a democratic, colourless and unified South Africa," he said.
"I fought against white rule and I fought against black rule," he said.
However, these two shocking statements of affection eventually turned into jokes. Because, with Mandela's victory in the 1994 general election, becoming the first black president in South African history, black people officially came to power, and apartheid policies immediately made a comeback in South Africa. The only difference is that this time it is the white community that is quarantined.
The apartheid policy in South Africa dates back to the mid-17th century. In April 1652, a Dutchman named Van Ribek sailed with a crew of 153 to Cape Town, the capital of present-day South Africa. Then began the usual process of establishing colonies, taking over the land, and multiplying.
Over the course of tens or hundreds of years of development, this group of Dutch gradually interacted with other white Europeans, thus forming a new group of white South Africans "Boers".
The Boers, like many white Europeans and Americans, carried an innate, confident sense of racial superiority. It's like Indians dividing the four classes by caste, plus a class of untouchables who are not human. Many Caucasians pride themselves on being superior and civilized, and always feel that the whole world must revolve around them, and that any other ethnic group is inferior to them, especially the black race.
Presumably, everyone knows about the cruel black slave trade. For four centuries, Western colonists waged a "slave hunting war" in black African tribes, selling hundreds of millions of blacks to the Americas as slaves. It is estimated that the slave trade killed at least hundreds of millions of blacks.
From this shameful and heinous black slave trade alone, it can be seen that in modern history, white People in the West did not regard Black Africans as people at all, regarded their lives as grass, and wantonly oppressed and maimed them. This was true both of the Boers and the British colonists who had taken South Africa from the Boers in the early 20th century.
The whites firmly held the political, military, and economic power of South Africa in their hands, and plundered the land and wealth of the blacks. Over the past hundred years, whites in South Africa have enacted hundreds of laws called apartheid, which restrict the work, status, and rights of black people in all aspects.
Most ironically, the British colonists also enacted the Bantustan Act. They carved out 13 percent of the remote, barren land from South Africa, and then confined 75 percent of the blacks to these so-called "black homelands," stripped them of their South African citizenship, and didn't even allow them to set foot on "white land" at will.
It is said that "rabbits are also eager to bite people", out of the principle of extreme opposites, when the Black South African turned over as the master, they immediately began to retaliate with tit-for-tat and eye for eye.
Overnight, white people became the target of discrimination and oppression. The land, enterprises, minerals and other wealth they possessed were successively stripped away, their status and rights plummeted, and even many white people fell into slums to live. As a result, South Africa's wealthiest white population began to flee en masse, taking with them a lot of wealth and resources, causing South Africa's financial sector to take a heavy hit.
At the same time, as soon as Mandela came to power, his government launched the "Black Economic Revitalization" program. Its core content is very simple and crude, that is, to improve the wealth, land, and asset ownership of blacks, and to increase the participation of blacks in government, corporate management, and social and economic activities.
It should be noted that this "improvement" is not a soft advocacy, but a practical hard requirement. For example, The Mandela government explicitly stipulated that state-owned enterprises must transfer more than a quarter of their shares to blacks. But discerning people know that under the oppression and restrictions of the white people for centuries, the vast majority of black people can only engage in the most basic manual labor. Whether it is the level of knowledge, technical ability or management experience, they are all incompetent, and they do not have the ability to manage government and corporate affairs.
In other words, the "Black Economic Revitalization" program clearly has the problem of pulling up seedlings and rushing. The company is fine, and it is a big deal to arrange some false jobs for black managers, and white-collar salaries are dividends. But the government is different, and with the participation of a large number of black people who do not even have basic computer operations, the South African government's ability to govern has declined sharply. A small number of people continue to manipulate power, and the culture of corruption is becoming more and more serious.
Some say that before Mandela came to power, South Africa was the light of Africa, and it took Mandela only a few years to drag South Africa down.
In this regard, it can only be said that Mandela did not do what he called "the struggle against black rule", and indeed there were certain mistakes. But to say that he single-handedly destroyed South Africa would be absolute nonsense.
Looking back on Mandela's life, he has been working to end apartheid. When he says he ruined South Africa, does he think it would be better to let the White race continue to rule South Africa, and to exchange the suffering of the vast majority of the South African people for superficial prosperity?
In addition, Mandela was in power for only 6 years, during which time South Africa's per capita GDP remained above $3,000, and the country's inflation rate fell from 15% to 8%. It can be seen that south Africa's current economic recession has nothing to do with Mandela.
The so-called Mandela was blinded by the rhetoric of the West and took the initiative to give up nuclear weapons, resulting in a great reduction in South Africa's military strength and completely becoming a second-rate country. Because long before Mandela came to power, white President De Klerk had already destroyed all nuclear weapons-related materials in South Africa.
As for the current chaos in South Africa, it is entirely due to the collective outbreak of problems that accumulate over time. The lack of strength and consciousness of the ruling class, the unhealthy trend of corruption, the impact of the new crown epidemic, and the riot factors carved into the bones of some people are not beyond Mandela's control.
In general, it is true that Mandela was a great man who made outstanding contributions to the black community, but he was not a supreme saint, and certainly not a sinner.
What are your thoughts on Mandela? Feel free to leave a message in the comments section. We'll see you next time!