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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6→Archive 10

Disorganized

This article is in need of reorganization. Obadiaha 18:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree... Its certainly not high on the list of imortant articles that are disorganized. And much better than a month ago anyway. MadMaxDog 07:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Critical comments from anonymous editor

I've reworked and removed quite a few critical comments added recently by 86.139.109.84 (talk · contribs). I did them in separate submissions so that I could leave fairly detailed comments on each change I made. I don't intend to remove criticism of Mandela from this article, but these submissions "smelt" bad. You shouldn't be able to identify individual sentences and paragraphs in an article as being written by a "pro" or "anti" editor.

Among the many problems with this contribution were:

  • an uncited claim that Mandela encouraged genocide
Perhaps this can help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKiePbTcAfY
  • several weasel words like "supporters claim that"
  • use of the word "terrorism" twice. (Mandela was convicted of sabotage, not terrorism, so the term in one case was factually incorrect. Terrorism in any case is a loaded term which is generally avoided on Wikipedia).

Zaian 22:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Support your edits, Zaian. Though I feel that if someone opposed to this articles current balance were to find a notable quote calling Mandela a 'terrorist' (probably not that hard), then it could well be retained. He was not always seen as the saint he is generally considered nowadays, not in the cold-war and apartheid atmospheres... MadMaxDog 07:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm sure there are Reagen/Thatcher/Botha quotes labelling Mandela as a terrorist, or even maybe Cheney. On the other side, recently UK commentators have been citing a so-called "Mandela test" to see whether proposed new anti-terror laws are fair - see [1]. The test is that if a proposed law would have classified Mandela as a terrorist for opposing apartheid, the law is too harsh. In other words, Mandela is used as an example of a freedom fighter who was not a terrorist. I suppose the argument is that the anti-apartheid struggle is overwhelmingly seen as justifiable, and the resistance proportionate. Zaian 08:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Not calling him one. Though a "Mandela test" will always need hindsight! MadMaxDog 10:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
No problem, I didn't think you were. Zaian 13:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Mandela believed nonviolence was a tactic:

". . .we had contended that for the ANC nonviolence was an inviolate principle, not a tactic to be changed as conditions warranted. I myself believed precisely the opposite: that nonviolence was a tactic that should be abandoned when it no longer worked." Mandela, Nelson. (1994). "Long Walk to Freedom". Little Brown, and Company. pg 272.

Mandela was a great man, and did much to advance human rights and justice in the world. However, the claim that he was steadfastly committed to nonviolence at any time is simply false, and should be exchanged for a more objective statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.130.13 (talk • contribs) 06:24, 13 January 2007

Good point, and a good reference. I've rewritten the sentence in the opening section. (There are two subtle contradictory POV threads running through this article - one is Mandela the non-violent saint, and the other is how reluctant Mandela was to abandon the armed struggle. Neither is accurate. Having both doesn't make the article neutral either!) Zaian 06:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

More areas for improvement

Some points in the article that I think need improvement or discussion:

Political activity
  • There is too little information about Mandela's political activities up to his arrest, e.g. his role in the ANC Youth League and his rise within the ANC.
  • The description of 1952-1959 seems to be aiming to make a point from a PAC / Africanist perpective about how irrelevant the ANC was becoming and how it was led by whites. Even if this is neutrally presented, it needs to show some relevance to Mandela's life, as this article is not a history of the ANC.
Arrest and Imprisonment
  • The CIA tipping off the police sounds like a fringe theory. - added citations
  • There is not enough information on his increasingly symbolic role and the international campaign for his release. - done
  • The section on his autobiography is patchy. Far too much about James Gregory. It's also out of chronological order to mention De Klerk and the 1980s/90s here. - done
  • Several paragraphs in this section seem to be aiming to make a point about how much in favour of the armed struggle he was. This needs balance/context. e.g. the discussion of his refusal of conditional release could include his response to PW's offer - "A prisoner cannot enter into contracts" - done
Post apartheid
  • There is a 4-year gap here, with nothing about the negotiations period from his release until he assumed the presidency. - done
Presidency
  • The "hated Springboks" is POV. They weren't universally disliked. - suppose it's OK, in the context of black South African views under apartheid, to refer to the "previously hated Springboks"
  • The invasion of Lesotho should be described neutrally and not presented entirely under "criticism". - done
Retirement
  • The Blood Diamonds discussion is out of proportion.
Acclaim
  • Perhaps too much emphasis on Canada.
Movies and music
Trivia
  • This section is a dumping ground. Bulleted lists are bad style in an article, and also encourage editors to add facts into a list without context rather than incorporate them into the article properly. - moved several list items into the article text
  • The Olympics quote seems out of proportion. Mandela has said quotable things about lots of organisations. - moved into different section of article. Withdraw my comment based on other editor believing that the quote deserves to be here

Zaian 20:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Will have a look at condensing the Blood Diamond thing later on (I added it) or you can do it, Zaian. I somewhat disagree with your opinions on style questions of bulleted lists (yes, they do need more maintenance, but...) and the Olympics quotation (very good quote from a style and symbolism point of view). Otherwise, valid points. MadMaxDog 06:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

"70th" marriage? In the list of his wives, the 2nd to Winny Mandela is listed as "70th". Looks like a poor attempt at humour by a vandal.

Mandela has received over a hundred awards, with a link to "over a hundred awards". I think "more than one hundred awards" sounds more "encyclopedic".

Ismail Ayob

The section on the Ismail Ayob saga needs major cleaning up. It is significant because it shows the tensions surrounding the ongoing commercialisation and exploitation of Mandela's image (the Blood Diamond controversy could perhaps be another example of this). I do actually remember the roadshows undertaken by Mandela's friends, and this was a very big political issue at the time, before it was mysteriously dropped. Some of the material can probably be safely moved to the Ismail Ayob article though.

For what it's worth, inside information I have gleaned (even though that means nothing on Wikipedia) does tend to lean towards the account given by Zayd-just adding this because Zayd's contributions shouldn't be wiped out without careful consideration of the sources cited.Park3r 23:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

A balanced account is important, and I'm glad Zayd is now taking a constructive approach by editing this article, although as it stands, it takes up too much space compared to sections on other incidents in Mandela's life. Given that Ismail Ayob's son is Zayd Ayob (and also his legal partner), it would also be useful if Zayd (talk · contribs) would declare whether or not he is Zayd Ayob. Zaian 06:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

?

Was he the 11th president of SA or the 1st?199.44.20.13 22:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

As the opening sentence says, he was the first president elected in fully-representative democratic elections. According to the infobox, apparently there were 10 previous presidents (I didn't count them), but before Mandela the vote was restricted to whites only, so they would not have qualified as democratically elected in any normal use of the term. Zaian 20:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Prior to the "reformed apartheid" constitution adopted in 1983 (in referenda that excluded Africans) the state presidents were formal heads of state with executive power held by a prime minister in a more-or-less Westminster style parliament. Since the king or queen of England was the head of state, acting through a high commissioner (like other British Dominions) prior to the declaration of S.A. as a Republic in 1960, the number ten for presidents seems high to me. Prior to Mandela there were two executive presidents: P. W. Both and F. W. de Klerk. The arguments that their elections were in any meaningful sense democratic is nonsense unless one wants to argue that those excluded from the franchise were not part of the people of South Africa. This of course is the situation "grand apartheid" aimed to create in a formal way, by removing Africans from political citizenship in South Africa and assigning it to phony countries, the bantustans. But note that under S.A.'s own law, and the legal program of the National Party ("Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act" & sequelae), the legal fact of African citizenship was recognized and had to be changed. Though they were hard to get, when Africans and other Blacks travelled overseas, they had S.A. passports. Prior to the 1994-96 constitutional transition, South Africa was never democratic. Rather it was a racialized electoral oligarchy. Elections don't make democracy. The Holy Roman Emperors used to be elected. The electorate was just very small, not the whole people. it wasn't the whole people in S.A. prior to 1994 either, only a smallish minority. Chris Lowe 06:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Does Mandela Advocates Genocide?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKiePbTcAfY At least he is clenching his fist in this Video. This demonstrates some agreement with the statement of the song. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.2.124.251 (talk) 12:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

AmaBhulu doesn't mean "whites" in isiXhosa, as the translation says, it means Boers or Afrikaners -- in some ways that might be seen to strengthen the case for a more specific ethnic animosity of the sort that could contribute to genocide, of course, but it speaks something to reliability of the commentary. Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, a.k.a. MK) was the ANC army. This was an army song. If the U.S. or British army had songs in World War I or World War II that involved a sentiment of "killing the Germans" it would not have been an advocacy of genocide, but a statement of who the enemy was. Notice the white guy standing to Mandela's left (right of M. from viewer's side). That is Ronnie Kasrils, who was a key commander of MK. Notice other white ANCer's singing too. One doesn't find Hitler with Jewish generals, or the Serbs or Croats with Bosnian ones. The key document of the modern ANC has been the Freedom Charter of 1955. The Charter says "South Africa belongs to all who live there." This position was rejected by the Pan-Africanist nationalists who broke away in 1957 to form the Pan-Africanist Congress precisely because they disagreed that South Africa belonged in part to whites. Rather they said it belonged to "Sons of the Soil" (Africans and Coloureds) and treated both whites and Indians as alien unless they proved a full commitment to Africa. Under Mandela's presidency, the ANC pursued nothing at all like a genocidal policy. On the contrary, the ANC itself placed whites in high office, backtracked (some argue betrayed) on redistributive promises under a Reconstruction and Development Programme in favor of a policy called GEAR that was much more in line with what big business and the World Bank/IMF were demanding for macro-economic policy, formed governments of national unity including the New National Party (many party representing Afrikaners at the time) and protected the civil service jobs of existing white government employees (racially discriminatory patronage in favor of whites and especially Afrikaners was a key element of National Party success in the previous 40-odd years). I believe that this film may come from a time before the 1994 elections when there was a massacre of demonstrators against the Ciskei bantustan, or possibly at a commemoration of the massacre of peaceful demonstrator at Sharpeville in 1960, the event which more than other swung the debate within the ANC against non-violent direct action over to armed struggle.

Chris Lowe 07:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Fluent Afrikaans

Under TRIVIA...

"He speaks fluent Afrikaans, a language disliked by many black people because of its roots in colonialism."

I fail to see how Afrikaans has its roots in colonialism, since Wikipedia itself refers to colonialism as "the extension of a nation's sovereignty over territory beyond its borders", etc etc. Could someone provide an example of Afrikaans-based colonialism?

Also, that many black people dislike the language is a bit of a generalisation, and indeed somewhat conflicting if you are using the ANC's current race classification system, under which the term 'blacks' includes 'coloureds', the majority of whom speak the language as their mother tongue and hold no real animosity towards it. You could then replace 'black people' with 'African people' (to use the ANC's own terminology), but for me this is, in a universal context, more of a geographical description than anything else. Even then you would require a bunch of citations.

Therefore, I am shortening things to "He speaks fluent Afrikaans", until someone else comes up with something better. FlyBang 12:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The sentence used to say "a language once hated by black people because of its association with Apartheid." At some point it was changed to say colonialism, which is inaccurate. Zaian 12:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

World War Z

In Max Berry's fictional novel, World War Z, Nelson is mentioned in a South African survivor's account while in a government survival bunker. He is referred to as his given name of Rolihlahla, and is depicted embracing a white man named Paul Redeker whose draconian survival plan just may be humanity's last hope at an effective defense against the far reaching hordes of zombies that destabilize the Earth.

No speaking

Mandela has some Bushman appearance but seems to speak no Bushman language. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.145.48.55 (talk) 16:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

He's one of the Thembu people who have fairly strong KhoiSan ancestory. In my opinion the older he gets the more it shows.
About him not speaking KhoiSan languages -- if you ever get to hear isiXhosa then you'll understand...
Note that many if not most South Africans have some KhoiSan ancestory. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 08:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

This person served a long prison sentence and is in Category:South African criminals

Then what is the point in removing the category, given his convictions for sabotage and related offences? In each case they're not trivial offences or sentences.Proudlyhumble07 07:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

May I turn it around, and ask what is the point of adding a pejorative category? Is it appropriate? He is clearly not regarded as a criminal by many (most?) in SA and worldwide. His actions are regarded as political, not criminal. Is it even legally correct? Many political convictions are no longer considered part of a criminal record. Finally, thanks for taking this to the Talk page. Since you've tried to add this category 4 times, and been reverted within minutes each time, by 4 different editors, please do not add it again unless there is consensus here. Zaian 07:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Only those people who are Proudly Obtuse consider him a criminal. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 10:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, looks like Proudlyhumble07 is a WP:TROLL. Let's not feed the troll. Zaian 11:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

On a more practical note, the article states that Mandela "co-ordinated a sabotage campaign against military and government targets", and "MK did indeed wage a guerrilla war against the regime … in which many civilians were killed." It also states that he "later admitted that the ANC … violated human rights". So my question is: Was Mandela personally responsible for any of the civilian deaths, or were they the result of acts of the MK organization in general? This is not clear at all in the article, and I've never found a citable source that answered that question. — Loadmaster 16:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Lets give the facts that are citable, and leave it to the reader to make the value judgements, and to the pundits to speculate ad nauseum.

--Ezeu 18:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Mandela "co-ordinated a sabotage campaign" in the period between 1960 and 1962. It was indeed sabotage intended at that stage as "propaganda of the deed" carried out with very limited resources, and involved things like blowing up power transmission poles. As far as I know, no persons at all, and certainly no civilians, were killed in that period. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and remained in prison from then until February 1990. Until the Portuguese Revolution of 1973 and the subsequent independence of Mozambique in 1974 the ANC had relatively little success in smuggling guerrillas into the country, although they did try to participate in the liberation struggles in Mozambique and Southern Rhodesia. In the 1970s matters changed a good bit. At least one rather spectacular sabotage attack destroyed a major artificial petroleum facility, the ANC managed to draw in the lion's share of the 10,000 or so youth who fled the country after the post-Soweto Uprising revolts and repression of 1977-78, and many of them re-infiltrated in the 1980s, having a significant but not entirely controlling role in the development of the United Democratic Front. Both MK and some elements of the UDF's popular base attacked police and security forces -- for those who fantasize the ANC as genocidal, it is notable that the bulk of anti-police attacks were directed against African policemen, who had to live in armed compounds. This was part of a strategy of "making the townships ungovernable" -- one which came into some criticism for not effectively challenging the regime's strategy of containment. There as the 1980s wore on, there were some ANC attacks on "soft" targets like nightclubs that catered primarily to whites that I would regard as terrorist in a different way than previous armed struggles. More such attacks were carried out by forces associated with the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), and to a degree the tendency of certain ANC cells to do likewise came from competition for the allegiance of new generations of youth alienated, radicalized and angered by the violent repression of the 1980s in which many African civilians were killed and tens of thousands suffered brutal physical violence. The older generation of ANC leadership rejected such "soft target" attacks and saw the perpetrators us undisciplined and hurting the cause, but it became an issue of contention within the ANC. Had de Klerk not freed Mandela it seems likely that pressure for more such attacks would have grown (this is comparable to how Hamas suicide bombings in Israel & Palestine created pressure for Fatah to create the Al Aksa Martyr's Brigades). Mandela arguably bears the same sort of responsibility for deliberate anti-civilian attacks within the armed struggle he supported that U.S. generals in Iraq bear for atrocities carried out by U.S. soldiers who have been put on trial for them. The policy created the context for the attacks, but they were against policy.
Admission of human rights violations I believe refers very largely to ANC treatment of dissident elements that developed in MK training camps in Angola ans Zambia. The ANC has been criticized for NOT admitting human rights violations enough in the armed struggle or in the civil conflict with Inkatha/the Inkatha Freedom Party, such as the "Shell House Massacre" in Johannesburg (1993 or '94 if memory serves) -- Inkatha of course has been even more reticent to admit any wrong-doing. Chris Lowe 08:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

CIA connection in Mandela's arrest

There are now three references in the article to a connection between the CIA and Mandela's arrest. However, I don't think any of them is a particularly reliable source. I removed [2] because it's only an interview with a film director. [3] is the allegation itself, so it's not a neutral source. [4] is better as it refers to specific 1990 news reports in the 1990 South African Sunday Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. There's a New York Times article at [5] but it's subscription only. Does anyone know more about this? How reliable are the claims from the people involved? Zaian 23:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Good Article candidate

I am nominating this article as a Good Article candidate. It previously failed to reach this status (November 2006) on the grounds that it had only five references, which is no longer the case. I feel the article is very much improved and we should aim to take it as far as Featured Article status. This is an important article and it will benefit hugely from the external reviews which are part of this process. Zaian 11:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Failed GA

Sorry to burst your bubble but the article suffers from trivia, unformated citations, a section requiring expansion and a trivia list. Alientraveller 19:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - bubble not burst, as most of those are mostly fairly easy to address (I've reworked the article to remove the Trivia section already). Could you highlight anything else that needs to be addressed? Zaian 19:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Longer paragraphs with compound sentences makes reading easier for one. Alientraveller 19:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

For one... could you give the others, so that there's a target to work towards? And could you give an example of a paragraph needing improvement? I'd like to know if the article close to GA level, or far from it, and preferably a bulleted list of comments. IMO, such a brief review doesn't do justice to the article or the GA nomination process. Do we only get one reviewer? Zaian 06:30, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
For example, in the allegations section, the last two paragraphs are 2 sentences long. Generally, if the paragraphs are going to be that short they need to be really good, which is hard to do. For general english writing practices, try to keep paragraphs at least 4 sentences long. They don't need to be extremely long, because too long of paragraphs can be hard to read; it's a judgement call on the length, but you don't want 1 sentence paragraphs all over the article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, a lot of your subsections are extremely small, which could constitue "weak" sections of the article. For example, I don't see why you can't put "Teriary education" under "schooling". It's all part of his educational advancement, and it's only a couple lines of information. Things like that can be helpful to the article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarifications and suggestions. I have combined a number of shorter paragraphs, and combined sections in a few places, and also acted on all of the original comments from Alientraveller. Is it getting closer to the GA mark now? Zaian 13:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Response from the reviewer on my talk page: ... Now you've massively improved the article, so I think a re-nomination is in order... Alientraveller 15:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)'. Would anyone like to add other comments before I re-nominate the article? I think it's getting close, and I would welcome any help getting it to the required level. Zaian 21:36, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Chapelle Show

It should be noted that Mandela was parodied in a sketch by Dave Chapelle on the Chapelle Show. The sketch was about Mandela being a boot camp instructor brought to the Sally Jesse Raphael show to scare unruly teenagers. (Ghostexorcist 19:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

Infobox flag

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to change the SA flag in the infobox to the one in use at the time of his birth? (South Africa Red Ensign) It appears to me that most infoboxes have the flag according to the birthdate. KeNNy 19:50, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Overall:
    a Pass/Fail:


In the section "Guerrilla activities" it says "A few decades later, MK did indeed wage a guerrilla war against the regime, especially during the 1980s, in which many civilians were killed." My question is: "Is Mandela still in-charged of MK organization when this happened?" If not then that sentence should be removed because it's not related to him. The information in "Arrest and Rivonia trial" can be moved into Rivonia Trial article itself.

Another thing, is the section "Invasion of Lesotho" and "Lockerbie trial" necessary in his article? It's better to put this info to somewhere else or create a sub-article.

I'm not sure about the copyright of Image:Young Mandela.jpg. Please fix the sections mentioned above to meet the GA criteria. OhanaUnitedTalk page 16:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Nelson Mandela
SCORES IN KEY AREAS
Legality B B B
Neutrality A A A A
Writing A A A A
Sources A A A A
Citations B B B

There are two main problems with this article including, non-free images without proper fair-use rationales and the lack of citations in some sections. Getting proper images and/or image tagging may be easier to deal with than adding more citations. As for the writing, it doesn't appear detrimental to GA, but it's style is kind of out there, but that because the nature of the issues. Overall, there is a greater than 50% chance that this article would make it, but the end result depends on whether you can deal with the things I have mentioned.◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 03:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Image issue is done by Ezeu. Citations, however, seems to be good in my opinion. They are taken from reputable news agencies. I'll see what I can do on the coverage. OhanaUnitedTalk page 06:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
"Image issue is done by Ezeu .. yadiyada .. however" leaves a faint lingering feeling of having been accused of something. An elaborate fairuser rationale for Image:Young Mandela.jpg was added after the above GA review. Not a problem I hope? --Ezeu 00:59, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The hold for the GA nomination has long expired, yet the issue with citations has not been addressed. While GAs do not require citations for every single paragraph, quotations are explicitly mentioned in the criteria (WP:WIAGA). Feel free to renominate the article once you believe it meets the criteria.--Konstable 03:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Mandela on the dock (speech)

The Guardian has a recording of Mandela's speech at the opening of his trial in 1964. http://www.guardian.co.uk/greatspeeches/mandela/0,,2060099,00.html Anyone know the copyright status of the recording? Maybe we can add an OGG media file to Wikipedia. --Dbolton 23:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The speech is provided by the National Archives of South Africa. --Ezeu 04:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Atheist?

Could we get a quote from Mandela regarding his atheism? The user who posted it said he was a "professed atheist". 74.105.48.21 13:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Remove it. Seems like nonsense. --Ezeu 00:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

26 years instead of 27?

Wasn't Mandela let out of jail a year early? Cloudbreath9 23:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Mandela was in jail continuously from some point in mid- or late-1962 until February 1990, so, 27 or 28 years. The 26 year figure generally refers to the period after his conviction, most of which he spent on Robben Island. In the very last period of his imprisonment, which was also a period in which he and other major prisoners were negotiating with the de Klerk government, they were moved to a more comfortable prison on the mainland convenient to the executive capital of Pretoria (I believe, though I could be wrong & it may have been near Cape Town). He wasn't let out "a year early" -- he was sentenced to life. Chris Lowe 08:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

EDIT REQUESTED: misleading statements and lacking his positions and quotes

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EDIT the sentence in the introduction

"Following his release from prison in 1990, his switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa."

It misleads some people into thinking that he was released first and than transformed and began working to end Apartheid. The fact is that he was released as part of the transition from Apartheid, not preceding it.

the transition was the cause of his release, not the other way around, not his release lead to the transition..

the transition was underway and the prime minister that ended apartheid was in office since some time in 1989 (according to the wiki article on him).. the sequence of events is important and the reader should not be confused..

it should say something like "he was released from prison in 1990 during the transition from Apartheid to multi-racial democracy, and his leadership in reconciliation and negotiation helped ease the transition"

______________________

secondly, i would like to see some things added about his positions on certain issues and quotes and articles about him.. for example, i know that he has made some speeches and taken some position about palestine/israel and about whether or not he believes that what is going on there is apartheid, and i know that he called george bush and asked him not to launch the war on iraq in 2003...

as a president, i am sure there was much more to him than what has been written..

(9 July 2007) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.167.42.34 (talk • contribs) 19:11, 11 July 2007.

Perhaps not everyone agrees with you. I have unprotected the page so you can make the edits yourself. It may be blocked again, given that this article is a frequent target for vandalism. Register an account and you will be able to edit semi-protected pages. --Ezeu 23:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Happy Birthday Mr. Mandela you are an icon in the world

F. W. de Klerk was not prime minister but state president. De Klerk did not act unilaterally. The transition you cite was part of a process of negotiation in which Mandela was involved. They were in a sense "negotiations about negotiations" -- what conditions would have to obtain for Mandela to be able to come out of prison and persuade both the internal Mass Democratic Movement and the external exiled leadership, as well specifically as the military leadership of MK, to accept a ceasefire, and what rough framework for negotiations toward a new political order would be the starting place? It is indeed true that in 1989 there were a few significant practical abolitions of apartheid laws regarding housing e.g. that essentially had collapsed anyway out of people ignoring them, making them dead letter -- the changes de Klerk announced in the same speech as when he announced the release of Mandela & the unbanning of the ANC were more significant. But abolishing apartheid laws was not the same thing as leading the country toward a non-racial democracy. Significant forces in the the negotiations, specifically from right-wing Afrikaners (far to the right of de Klerk) did want a "multi-racial democracy" i.e. one that preserved some idea of "group rights" and it may be that de Klerk hoped for weaker versions of something similar. In the event, though what came through was rights to cultural self-definition that were not defined in racial terms. And it is simply not true to give de Klerk all the credit. "Reforms" of apartheid in the 1980s were always grudging, limited, and made under intense pressure from the political struggles of the trade union movement and the UDF and corresponding Black Consciousness forces, and then after the UDF was banned, the reconstituted Mass Democratic Movement, and increasing organized and simple individual choices to ignore laws. A hunger strike early in 1989 that led to significant releases of detainees without trial, which revealed the the old regime didn't have the stomach for the consequences of deaths in prison (unlike the British in Northern Ireland) also played a key role.
The term "multi-racial" means something different in a U.S. context than in a South African one. In Mandela's writings and speeches from the 1950s, possibly even as late as his speech from the dock, you may find the language of "multi-racial," but not after that. There is an argument that could be made that non-racialism is an ideal that has not really been achieved so that "multi-racial" is more descriptively accurate, but it is a bit of a problem given the politicization of both terms in South Africa. Chris Lowe 08:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Protection required?

Please check the history. There's been severe vandalism on this page. I recommend semi-protection for some time Oskilian 22:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

An alternative would be to permanently block the anon IPs who are doing the vandalising. We could start with this nasty piece of work: 218.185.72.226.Phase4 23:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource images

There are seven images relating to Nelson Mandela on Wikisource that are likely to be removed due to lack of licensing and also for being inappropriate. s:Wikisource:Proposed_deletions#Fair_use_as_illustrations. Do any of these appear to be in public domain or useful under fair use? John Vandenberg 01:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

It appears from the discussion at the link you give that the photos should not be used in any case because not appropriate to Wikisource purposes. It is hard for me to see how any of these would fall under fair use. Several of them are widely used in print contexts. I don't know if any are PD, but there are a couple of ways they might be. Possibly some of them were made for or rights given to the former International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF) which put all of its papers in the public domain upon disbanding. Possibly some of them were made for or rights given to the ANC -- they have supported the creation of a widely accessible archive, but not sure if that access extends to PD. Possibly some of them were works made for hire for a now defunct newspaper (e.g. Rand Daily Mail). Occasionally photos from such papers end up the public domain through donation to a public institution -- this has happened in a couple of cases of collections donated to the Library of Congress in the U.S. I don't know what happened to RDM's photo morgue when it ceased publication -- given their editorial antipathy to the then apartheid government, likely they either went to a private institution or were sold commercially, but perhaps not. One way or another, though, I bet at least some of these are Corbis (curse you, Bill Gates!).
If someone wants to use any of these in another WP context, those would be the avenues I'd suggest looking into. Chris Lowe 07:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Chris. While they are definitely not fair use on Wikisource, and the photos of Nelson Mandela are not obvious fair-use even here on Wikipedia, the image of the newspaper and the two photos of events look like they would be useful for Wikipedia articles if we can pin point the event each refers to. John Vandenberg 12:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Guerrilla section

I have edited the controversial sentence in the guerrilla section (see above under debate over SA criminals category, and again under GA review) about later guerrilla warfare killing many civilians to point out that more civilians were killed by state security forces and vigilante groups they supported. At first I was inclined to change many to "some", but looking at the WP definition of civilian it appears that police count as civilians for these purposes.

Another ambiguity here is that guerrilla war here appears to refer to the activities of Mkhonto we Sizwe. Many of the killings committed by pro-ANC persons of "collaborators" (including but not restricted to police), e.g. the infamous horrific "necklacings" with burning tires, were done by members of UDF or Mass Democratic Movement organizations, i.e. other civilians, not by MK-trained guerrillas. However, UDF/MDM actions were claimed by MK as part of the strategy of "making the townships ungovernable," so perhaps they should be regarded as part of the guerrilla war. Assuming that is what the current language implies in arriving at the statement that "many" civilians were killed by the ANC's guerrilla warfare is why I added the part about vigilantes, who were the equivalent sort of person to UDF/MDM members on the pro-government side.

OhanaUnited above questions whether this sentence should be here at all if Mandela was no longer directing guerrilla activities. He certainly was not. Decisions concerning shifts to wider guerrilla tactics were made by the collective exiled ANC leadership headed by Oliver Tambo. The earliest, taken at Magorogoro in Tanzania in 1969, actually was to participate in guerrilla campaigns against Ian Smith's Southern Rhodesia. Guerrilla struggles in South Africa itself only became practical after the Portuguese and Mozambiquan revolutions in 1973/74.

On the other hand, Mandela never ceased to support the armed struggle. P. W. Botha offered to release him if he would renounce the use of violence as a strategy and tactic as early as 1986, but Mandela refused to do so. Botha made this offer largely because he feared the consequences should Mandela die in prison; Mandela's refusal likewise was based on calculations of negotiating leverage.

In light of the question posed above by OhanaUnited, and less dramatically by Loadmaster, it may be that an edit is in order along the lines of "After his imprisonment, Mandela no longer directed the ANC's guerrilla warfare, but he never wavered from his support for armed struggle as a necessary component of ANC strategy, even as it evolved into wider and more violent forms in the 1970s and 1980s." Possibly also mention of Botha's offer and Mandela's refusal.

Chris Lowe 08:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

birth place

In Nelson Mandelas autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, he says in the first sentence of paragraph two that "I was born on the eighteenth of July, 1918, at mvezo, a tiny village on the banks of the Mbashe River in the district of Umtata, the capital of Transkei." The artical seems to have his birth place wrong, he did move to Qunu while he was very young but he said him self that he was born in Mvezo.

User:Daniel Farrell 04:31, 28 August 2007 (EST)


junior certificate

under education it says mandela completed the junior certificate, which hotlinks to a page on the junior certificate examinations in the republic of ireland? --86.42.128.54 20:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC

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