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| English: Young Nelson Mandela. This photo dates from 1937. South Africa protect the copyright of photographs for 50 years from their first publication. See . Since this image would have been PD in South Africa in 1996, when the URAA took effect, this image is PD in the U.S. Image source: http://www.anc.org.za/people/mandela/index.html (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Much like Martin Luther King in America, Mandela had a score of
powerful detractors and enemies while he was alive — and more
particularly when he was fighting and imprisoned trying to obliterate
the unjust South African apartheid system.
Now he died some enemies still show their hate against this South African.
The
Westboro Baptist Church which has gained international infamy for
picketing the funerals of dead soldiers with offensive signs such as
“God hates f*gs” and is widely considered to be a hate group which is still kicking alive after their founder
Fred Phelps his death.
In a series of deliberately-provocative Twitter posts, the church says
it is buying plane tickets to South Africa and is hoping to coordinate
with
South African police while they stage a protest at the funeral,
citing Mandela’s divorce and remarriage as evidence of damnation.
Like some Catholics they claim that
Nelson Mandela was a communist, a pro-abortionist and pro gays person.
Catholic Truth asks g
iven the facts about Nelson Mandela’s
support of abortion and homosexuality, should Catholics up to and
including the Pope himself, be lavishing unqualified praise on him?
Or
should they speak the truth?
They forget the pope may speak the truth, like many other who have known and met Nelson Mandela at tdifferent stages in his life.
Both groups do forget that it is not because human rights campaigner
Peter Tatchell writing for PinkNews
Commenting on the death of Nelson Mandela, of how the
former president became a “gay icon” that it does not mean Mandela would have agreed with everything those gay people did. But he respected their 'nature' and foudn others also had to repsect other people who felt different than the majority.
Peter Tatchell says Mandela “failed” when it
came to dealing with the HIV epidemic, challenging Robert Mugabe, and
tackling poverty during his time in office.
Mandela was a political and moral giant. He led the victorious
liberation struggle against apartheid, and then pioneered the peaceful
transition to multi-racial democracy. He was the first African leader to
embrace LGBT rights. His extraordinary compassion and forgiveness led
to reconciliation with his former white supremacist oppressors. For all
these reasons, he is a global icon and a gay icon. Few people in history
can match his moral stature.
Tatchell continues:
Although a staunch supporter of the anti-apartheid struggle, I was
never an uncritical yes man. In 1987, I exposed the ugly homophobia
within Mandela’s liberation movement, the African National Congress
(ANC).
I wrote to Thabo Mbeki, who was in exile in Lusaka at the time and
who later become the second post-apartheid South African president. My
letter criticised ANC homophobia and appealed to the leadership to
support LGBT equality. I was delighted when Mbeki replied to me making
the ANC’s first public condemnation of homophobia and its first public
pledge to LGBT equality under a future ANC-led government – and with a
request that I publicise this new ANC commitment, which I did.
Heartened by this commitment, in 1989 I proposed to the ANC that
their post-apartheid South African constitution should have a
comprehensive anti-discrimination clause, including a prohibition of
discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation.
The
Westboro Baptist Church in the USA say
they thank God for killing Mandela. They claim that is because Nelson Mandela divorced and remarried. Extremely probably, they hate Mandela too for
abolishing the anti-LGBTQ laws of the Apartheid regime in South Africa.
Geert Wilders admirer Joost Niemoller claimed in the Dutch neo-nazi party
Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU) Facebook page on 6 December 2013 changed a South Africa to a “hell on earth”.
Constant Kusters, Nederlandse Volksunie fuehrer, proposes in the
election platforms of his party for the 2014 Dutch local elections, to
remove the name Nelson Mandela from streets, bridges etc. named after the South African freedom fighter in various towns in the Netherlands.
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Please do find to read:
- Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela – Madiba passed away
- Fareed’s take on Nelson Mandela
- Mandela Day by Simple minds in remembrance
- Politicians who opposed Nelson Mandela and supported apartheid
- Should Catholics Praise Nelson Mandela?
- Westboro Baptists ‘booking flights’ to protest Mandela’s funeral
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