It should be possible to ungive the Noble Prize

[regexcellent]

Nominee 1: Obama
Nominee 2: Lech Walesa

Wait what's wrong with Lech Walesa?

[onodera]

It would have made Zimbabwe look like a nice peaceful transition and a well run government.
If things become nightmarish there, the problem will have been the people after Mandela...
JM

Okay, de Klerk and Mandela managed to abolish apartheid without any further bloodshed. But Mandela's still alive and ANC is already run by crooks and tribalists like Zuma. If sanctions from the 1980s were applied to ZA right now, their economy would crash and burn.

[regexcellent]

Not only is the ANC run by crooks and tribalists, but they've been effectively propping up Mugabe too. If South Africa wanted it could have him gone tomorrow. But he is a fellow freedom fighter against colonialism! or some other such bull**** so he stays.

[Sava]

I would only bother "ungiving" something if I felt it had any value to begin with.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Wait what's wrong with Lech Walesa?

Guess we have a few posters who get a warm, tingly sense of nostalgia about totalitarianism.

[Jon Miller]

Okay, de Klerk and Mandela managed to abolish apartheid without any further bloodshed. But Mandela's still alive and ANC is already run by crooks and tribalists like Zuma. If sanctions from the 1980s were applied to ZA right now, their economy would crash and burn.

Mandela is basically senile and has been for some time.

Mbeki wasn't great, but the disaster that is Zuma can't be blamed on Mandela. And even Zuma is nothing like what would have happened if not for Mandela.

I have been there and I am married to a South African.

If not for Mandela, people worse than Malema would be in charge (and even Zuma isn't that bad, considering). Malema is one of the leaders of the ANC and was calling for the murder of white people in 2011 (he was the leader of the Youth League). There are many whites who hold similar views of africans.

Relations in South Africa were terrible. Worse than the US even after the Civil War, I think. To compare Zimbabwe and South Africa, I have heard the average Zimbabweans described as gentle, intellectuals, and educated compared to the average South Africans being agressive, anti-intellectual, and uneducated. You would have expected things to be worse in South Africa than Zimbabwe.

The Africans in South African are extremely under educated. They were taught how to be laborers and only taught how to be laborers. Older people where not even taught to read. All achievements were described as coming from white europeans, white europeans were taught as being angelic in all facets (Hitler wasn't taught about because it would spoil the notion of the moral white man).

Things are changing, and fast, but it will be a long time before the Africans will responsibly be part of the democracy. In the short term it would probably have been better for Mandela's faction of the ANC to have taken dictatorial control. However, this would have made sure they were screwed in the long term (and likely the middle term too, the extreme factions of the ANC are strong).

JM

[Colonâ„¢]

Wait what's wrong with Lech Walesa?

Well, he got his Noble Prize for founding Solidarity but as it turns out he only played a minor role in that. Moreover, in the strikes that led to the legal sanctioning of the union and wider political reforms, he apparently was willing to cave in for a wage raise and a new contract. If you're looking for articles, it seems none of the English language media has picked up on it yet.

He's also advocated blatant discrimination of homosexuals by saying homosexuals should accept a lesser role in society and gay MPs should sit at the back in parliament, or behind a wall.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I don't buy that. In the lead-up to martial law in Poland, when Walesa was constantly on TV and blatantly pushing hard for a showdown, there was a marked shortage of people going "He's only playing a minor role, you know". History is getting re-written there.

[regexcellent]

Yeah and the stuff you're talking about him doing today does nothing to lessen the impact of what he did then. Having relatively harmless opinions on gay rights is more than made up for by fighting communism all his life. Consider for a moment how the communists treated homosexuals, anyway. They were undesirables. Far worse happened to them than sitting in the back row of Parliament.

[Fake Boris]

Yes, look at his contribution to the cause of homosexuals in Poland.

[Sava]

fighting communism all his life

I fight abstract ideas all the time and nobody recognizes me for it..

[Colonâ„¢]

I don't buy that. In the lead-up to martial law in Poland, when Walesa was constantly on TV and blatantly pushing hard for a showdown, there was a marked shortage of people going "He's only playing a minor role, you know". History is getting re-written there.

It's one of the co-leaders of the strike that has made the allegations and pointed to current senate chairman Burosewicz as the real driving force behind the strike. He has declined to comment, which pretty much translates as: "What she says is true, but it'd be immodest to say that out loud"

[Colonâ„¢]

Yeah and the stuff you're talking about him doing today does nothing to lessen the impact of what he did then. Having relatively harmless opinions on gay rights is more than made up for by fighting communism all his life. Consider for a moment how the communists treated homosexuals, anyway. They were undesirables. Far worse happened to them than sitting in the back row of Parliament.

Saying a certain portion of the population should accept being second-class citizens sort of goes against the whole idea of being a major civil rights protagonist.

[Jon Miller]

Then you would say that most 'major civil rights protagonists' throughout history were not major civil rights protagonists.

Quit being stupid.

JM

[regexcellent]

I would much rather have a world without communism and no gay rights than a world with gay rights and communism. At least only some people would be second class citizens, instead of starving factory workers and collective farmers.

And anyway, stop expecting so much of people. He had a cause and he championed it, he doesn't have to be a 100% saint to be a good person.