Obama Visits Prison Where Mandela Was Jailed

[alp227]

Source: nyt

CAPE TOWN — In the foreword to Nelson Mandela’s 2010 book of letters, President Obama wrote that “even when little sunlight shined into that Robben Island cell, he could see a better future — one worthy of sacrifice.”

On Sunday, Mr. Obama stood in that same, tiny prison cell — now a monument to Mr. Mandela, South Africa’s first black president — and showed his wife and two daughters the place where Mr. Mandela was incarcerated for 18 years during his long campaign to end the policies of racial apartheid and oppression in his country.

Later, Mr. Obama again invoked the legacy of Mr. Mandela, 94, who remained in critical condition at a Pretoria, South Africa, hospital, during a speech to the African people he delivered from the University of Cape Town.

In the speech, he called Mr. Mandela the ultimate testament to the process of peaceful change and said his daughters now understood his legacy better. “Seeing them stand within the walls that once surrounded Nelson Mandela, I knew this was an experience they would never forget,” Mr. Obama said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/world/africa/obama-visits-prison-where-mandela-was-jailed.html?pagewanted=all

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President Obama toured the prison cell where Nelson Mandela was held on Robben Island, South Africa, on Sunday. The prison is now a monument in honor of Mr. Mandela. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

[Arctic Dave]

1. Just think if the Us didn't support South African aprtheid.

That little nugget of information gets lost in the "we did it to defeat the evil commies" blather.

Other Western countries adopted a more ambivalent position. In Switzerland the Swiss-South African Association lobbied on behalf of the South African government. In the 1980s both the US Reagan and UK Thatcher administrations, followed a 'constructive engagement' policy with the apartheid government, vetoing the imposition of UN economic sanctions on South Africa, justified by a belief in free trade and a vision of South Africa as a bastion against Marxist forces in Southern Africa. Thatcher declared the ANC a terrorist organisation,[104] and in 1987 her spokesman, Bernard Ingham, famously said that anyone who believed that the ANC would ever form the government of South Africa was "living in cloud cuckoo land".[105]

[Towlie]

2. I wonder if it was as bad as Guantanamo.

[DeSwiss]

8. That's the prison he should have visited.

Go and see the 86 prisoners that can't be charged since there's no evidence against them? Take them a fruit basket?

- I guess Congress won't let him do that either......

K&R

[freshwest]

3. Excellent article, thanks for bringing it, alp. Obama, Mandela, Kennedy, all.

[pinto]

4. Kick

Great, historically symbolic visit.

[dipsydoodle]

5. He'd already seen it in 2006

Wonder if its changed much.

[Iliyah]

6. Damn, I'm still at awe

when I visit in DC the Vietnam Wall. Mandela spent 27 years in prison, and I myself would still be in awe visit after visit because its history.

[Ash_F]

7. Republicans used to call Mandela a terrorist.

Just saying.

[XemaSab]

9. He was in jail for leading an organization

that went on a bombing campaign.

It's not a totally crazy assertion.

[Ash_F]

10. Oh hey there it is. /nt

[XemaSab]

11. You have a source that says otherwise?

[Ash_F]

12. I'm not going to engage you in conversation about this

It's good enough for me that you showed yourself in this thread.

[XemaSab]

13. I like Mandela and I think he's a modern hero

but he isn't a saint, and pretending that he is is disrespectful to his legacy.