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Originally Posted by over the mountain
i have to admit, i dot really know what he did besides the obvious "led a civil rights revolution to challenge the apartheid theocracy of S. Africa as well as spending 20 plus years in jail"
but besides that sentence, that is really it.
It seems the conservatives of this country brand him a terrorist and mass murderer.
something like 147 republicans in the house voted "no" to a proclamation that he should be freed back in early 2000.
at some point this weekend i hope to read a good article on him ... preferably written in the 80s or 90s or earlier.
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As I recall, he was a leader on the ANC, a party that did a lot of heinous stuff while fighting the evil aparthied system. Including some ugly atrocities against their rivals, the Zulus. But he had a good retort to people criticizing his associates methods, basically that they could stop using force when the government stopped using force (and committing countless atrocities of their own). Mandela's probably one of the primary reasons South Africa made a relatively peaceful transition out of apartheid, and isn't like Zimbabwe or Mozambique today.