The Great Communicator makes a point.

[rubato]

Ronald Reagan and the conservative wing of his party hated Nelson Mandela, and hated black South Africans. Pulling as hard as he could do undo the one thing which eventually brought SA to its knees, the disinvestment movement and economic sanctions. :

Ronald Reagan was angry. It was October 1986, and his veto against the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act had just been overridden — and by a Republican-controlled Senate, at that…. Conservatives believed the U.S. had no business hectoring the South African government over apartheid. Senator Jesse Helms (R–N.C.), the Senate’s leading race-baiter, took the Senate floor to filibuster on behalf of the apartheid government of South Africa. Helms was an old pro at using the filibuster: he had launched a similar one three years earlier against establishing a national holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. He was joined by like-minded conservatives including noted segregationist Strom Thurmond (R–S.C.) and future presidential hopeful Phil Gramm (R–Texas) in voting against the bill’s final passage. Over in the House, Representative Dick Cheney (R–Wyo.) joined the minority in opposing the Anti-Apartheid Act. In earlier battles over South Africa, Cheney had denounced Nelson Mandela as a terrorist and argued against his release…

Reagan took his case directly to the people on a live TV broadcast. He echoed Crocker in urging Americans to be patient with South Africa’s apartheid government. Reagan argued that sanctions would disproportionately hurt black South Africans without significantly undermining apartheid, and blamed black extremists for contributing to the violence. Change, if it were to come at all, would happen incrementally. He believed he had sold his case effectively, and considered the matter closed…

Under considerable pressure, Republican moderates rallied. Thirty-seven (37) out of 53 Republican senators joined their Democratic colleagues to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act over Reagan’s veto. Conservatives fumed, but they were powerless to stop the law from passing. It was the first time in the 20th century that a presidential veto on a foreign policy issue had been overturned…
[RINOs!] That CSpan clip is a nasty flashback — an old actor churning out a pudding of every rightwing cliche and scare story, cloaked with the thinnest skin of Reasonable Realpolitik.... He mouthed all those lies so earnestly. Like the Teabagger Wizard of Oz — a snakeoil salesman to the end. He inspired adulation in a limited (in every sense) circle, but he’ll only be remembered by future generations for the damage he did. Unlike Mandela…

Click through to the video if you have 28 minutes to hear elaborate justifications for supporting Aparthied and reducing pressure for change.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/12/t ... ndela.html

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Actually the video conks out after only 20 min but if you screw around with it there is more.


yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

The sanctions had the effect of making things significantly worse for South Africa's blacks, and we were working cooperatively with that regime in other parts of Africa. There are times when you have to hold your nose and tolerate conduct you don't like, in view of the Bigger Picture.

A few thoughts from others:

For in declaring, "we must stay and build not cut and run" from South Africa, Reagan, whose first duty was the defense of his nation in the Cold War with the Soviet empire, saw not only the moral issue but the strategic imperative.

In 1986, there were 40,000 Cuban troops in Angola, where South Africa was a fighting ally and backer of anti-Communist Jonas Savimbi.

In Zimbabwe, Robert "Comrade Bob" Mugabe, having butchered thousands of Ndebele of rival Joshua Nkomo, was communizing his country. Southwest Africa and Mozambique hung in the balance.

Reagan was determined to block Moscow's drive to the Cape of Good Hope. And in that struggle State President P. W. Botha was an ally.

Second, as Reagan declared, the sanctions ban on sugar imports would imperil 23,000 black farmers, and cutting off Western purchases of natural resources would imperil the jobs of 500,000 black miners.

"The Prime Minister of Great Britain has denounced punitive sanctions as immoral and utterly repugnant," said Reagan in July of 1986, "Mrs. Thatcher is right."

"Are we truly helping the black people of South Africa -- the lifelong victims of apartheid," said Reagan in his veto, "when we throw them out of work and leave them and their families jobless and hungry in those segregated townships? Or are we simply assuming a moral posture at the expense of the people in whose name we presume to act?"

Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi had come to see Reagan to implore him to block sanctions, as they would harm his people.

[Lord Jim]

I don't know why you bother, Dave...

Personally I don't see much point in responding to (or even bothering to read any more of) a post that begins with something as ignorant and ridiculous as "Ronald Reagan hated black South Africans"...

Sure, you can point out the factual larger historical context, (as you have done) or talk about Reagan's appointment of Ed Perkins, or point out the central role that the demise of the Soviet Union played in bringing the White business community in South Africa to the point that they were ready to make a deal...

But all of that would assume that this thread was started in order to have a debate and discussion; when in fact it's nothing but another of rube's innumerable troll threads...

[Big RR]

"Are we truly helping the black people of South Africa -- the lifelong victims of apartheid," said Reagan in his veto, "when we throw them out of work and leave them and their families jobless and hungry in those segregated townships? Or are we simply assuming a moral posture at the expense of the people in whose name we presume to act?"

Somehow, I think that is a question to ask the disenfranchised blacks and their recognized leaders, not some question we comfortable white people should be answering for them. Imagine during our revolution if france asked if they were truly helping the rebels by giving money for the fight to continue, thereby assuring that the economy would be worse, etc. Indeed, it reeks of the premise of apartheid, that those people are in no position to know what is best for them.

I agree stupid/unwise decisions are made on both sides of the aisle, but the stupidest, and most arrogant, is to presume we know what is best for someone we've never met.

If you want to justify supporting the SA apartheid government by pointing to cold war issues, go ahead; I don't agree with you about the justification, but there's no point arguing it now. But if you want to support it by saying it's the white man's burden to look out for those poor people who can't think for themselves (and are deluded by their leaders), I think it's ridiculous.

[Crackpot]

Do you know it's Christmas at all?

[Big RR]

no, but if you hum a few bars perhaps I can fake it.

[Joe Guy]

[Big RR]

One of my favorites; thanks.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Pulling as hard as he could do undo the one thing which eventually brought SA to its knees

Ah the white man's burden! Of course, the "one thing that eventually etc etc" couldn't possibly have been the black struggle in South Africa could it? Those bunnies couldn't even get their schoolchildren out of the way of police bullets for goodness' sake!

No, it was all down to noble unhued people like rube and me refusing to purchase South African er.... something or others .... Outspan oranges and jolly well forcing USA and UK companies to disinvest - or at least change their name from Barclays to ABSA.

And there was some guy named Mandela who did something or other but that was AFTER whitey brought the Nats to their knees.

That must be why the N8 into Bloemfontein just last year was lined with ANC 100 year Anniversary posters saying "Thank you Cuba", "Thank you Malawi", "Thank you Zambia", "Thank you Angola" and so on. Somehow they forgot the sign for "Thank you USA" or "Thank you UK" - must have been using that same interpreter as at the funeral.

Meade

[Crackpot]

I think I'm sensing some sarcasm there......

[rubato]

Pulling as hard as he could do undo the one thing which eventually brought SA to its knees

Ah the white man's burden! Of course, the "one thing that eventually etc etc" couldn't possibly have been the black struggle in South Africa could it? Those bunnies couldn't even get their schoolchildren out of the way of police bullets for goodness' sake!

No, it was all down to noble unhued people like rube and me refusing to purchase South African er.... something or others .... Outspan oranges and jolly well forcing USA and UK companies to disinvest - or at least change their name from Barclays to ABSA.

And there was some guy named Mandela who did something or other but that was AFTER whitey brought the Nats to their knees.

That must be why the N8 into Bloemfontein just last year was lined with ANC 100 year Anniversary posters saying "Thank you Cuba", "Thank you Malawi", "Thank you Zambia", "Thank you Angola" and so on. Somehow they forgot the sign for "Thank you USA" or "Thank you UK" - must have been using that same interpreter as at the funeral.

Meade

The governments of the US and UK mostly supported Aparthied as Reagan and Thatcher did by opposing the one thing which was successful in ending it.

Some citizen groups in the US, like the student movements at Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Stanford, who drove disinvestment helped them and Mandela acknowledged the debt when he visited the Bay Area.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Ah the student-movement-at-Berkeley's burden! The good citizens of California and the USA - they were the ones who toppled apartheid! Watch for the unknown story tonight on your local PBS (hint: the P stands for Public) broadcaster. Oh wait - my post doesn't really need to be changed one bit since I never mentioned the governments of the USA or the UK. Nor did the ANC - shame they forgot the Berkeley people though. That Mandela - forgave racists AND said thanks to Californians - he truly was a tactful man.

Still - now I know de troof. Whitey (well, Sullivan too) ended apartheid by using the ONE thing that was successful in ending it and it's a wonder Mandela didn't entitle his book "Long Dependence on de Baas for Freedom".

(CP - you may think that but I could not possibly comment)

What's beyond doubt is that the flight of capital from SA, the non-governmental forms of economic boycott in the USA and UK (as well as elsewhere in countries that actually mattered monetarily) did significant damage to the SA economy. Whether this truly fractured the Afrikaner laager is debatable - it did help non-Afrikaner anti-apartheid opposition to appeal to pragmatism in loosening restrictions in the country. I'd say the ONE thing (if there must be ONE) actually was the trades union movement which pressured capital enough to create the 1985 State of Emergency and COSATU leading to the true tri-partite alliance of the ANC, COSATU and SACP (not to forget the black consciousness movement). It also helped that Afrikaners in power had begin to recognise in the late 70s that the inevitability of history was against them and their struggle to reach 1994 was to find some way to not be annihilated - Nelson Mandela provided that way.

IMO

[Sue U]

I think Meade has it about right. IMO. Although the political and economic isolation that comes with divestiture and sanctions, as well as the worldwide media and public opinion campaigns spotlighting the atrocity that was apartheid, also had to have been demoralizing to the NP and particularly PW Botha (I hope it's what gave him his stroke).

[Rick]

Somebody dropped a Krugran in a SA (salvation army) bucket a cuople days ago.

Just sayin...