Well I keep asking what makes someone a terrorist ?
It is a label not a recognised profession, many who have been called terrorists have later been seen as freedom fighters or great leaders.
Many who have been called freedom fighters or leaders have later been called murderers and terrorists.
Why is it alright to sympathise and pass on your get well wishes to one freedom fighter/terrorist/murderer but not the next ?
What right has the US or UK to call someone fighting for freedom in their own country a terrorist when we give state funerals to our own freedom fighters/terrorists ?
Nelson Mandella condoned killing in his fight for the freedom of black people in his native country, many people who have done the same are considered heroes by their nations, for example Sir Winston Churchill, President Truman, Margaret Thatcher.
I have already explained to you in detail what a terrorist is, am not going down that route again.
Mandella is in the same box as Jerry Adams as far as I and many others would say, and Mandella can count himself lucky that South Africa did not execute him for his crimes. I wonder why they did not. Was it possibly because the South African people would have made him into some kind of martyr?
Why do you keep bringing others into the equation? We are talking about a man who is seen by many as a hero, but has killed innocent people, by probably many means. Why do you constantly bring Thatcher into your debate?
Some of these subject move pretty fast . . . From "good luck" to this.
But interesting arguments, I obviously need to do some more indepth reading on the guy as my "BBC" gained knowledge doesn't really touh on the mass murderer bit !
So a question, for those that want to tar Mandela as always a terrorist can you accept that people get driven to do perhaps the wrong things for the right reasons. And how do you go about changing a system were you don't have vote or any clout but by turning to other means.
Are the people in Palistine all terrorist for fighting against the Israelies to improve their life.
Nelson Mandela may have done things that some see as wrong but I am sure the injustice to the black majority outweighs the acts that the ANC committed. Mandela has come out and rather than preach a one side argument appears to have helped create a country where everyone has a say.
Yes jut like the people of the United Kingdom which has as a nation used terrorist methods throughout it's history.
Whose own folk heroes are bandits, thieves and murderers
Who preached "innocent until proven guilty" whilst locking people in internment camps for years without trial.
Who even now invade Countries to stop them doing what we do everyday.
Who prevent Countries receiving medicine and food because their goals do not suit us.
What fine people we are to judge others.
You would support a terrorist government still active in terrorism but not an ex terrorist, what a hypocrite you are.
Star brought the name of Jerry Adams into the discussion, a man who despite what many believe (including me) has never been convicted of being a member of a terrorist organisation.
If you want to talk about how people view terrorists or those convicted of terrorist crimes or labelled as terrorists perhaps a better example would be Bobby Sands, especially as Nelson Mandella actually said he was affected by the death of Bobby Sands.
Sands died from malnutrition, he starved himself to death during the hunger strikes of the early 1980's whilst serving a prison sentence for his part in an bombing attack and subsequent shoot out with the RUC.
But not everyone saw him as a terrorist despite his conviction.
In Europe, there were widespread protests after Sands's death. Five thousand Milanese students burned the Union Flag and chanted 'Freedom for Ulster' during a march.
The British Consulate at Ghent was raided. Thousands marched in Paris behind huge portraits of Sands, to chants of 'the IRA will conquer'.
In the Portuguese Parliament, the opposition stood for Sands. In Oslo, demonstrators threw a tomato at Elizabeth II, the Queen of the United Kingdom, but missed (The 28-year-old assailant claimed that he had not aimed for the queen, but rather for a smirking British soldier).
In the Soviet Union, Pravda described it as 'another tragic page in the grim chronicle of oppression, discrimination, terror, and violence' in Ireland. Russian fans of Bobby Sands published a translation of the "Back Home In Derry" song ("?? ?????? ? ?????" in Russian). Many French towns and cities have streets named after Sands, including in Nantes, Saint-Étienne, Le Mans, Vierzon, and Saint-Denis.
In the Republic of Ireland, Sands's death led to riots and bus burning. The West German newspaper Die Welt took a negative view of Sands.
Africa
News of the death of Bobby Sands influenced the way in which political prisoners and the ANC in South Africa responded to their own situation, and inspired a new way of resistance.
Nelson Mandela was said to have been "directly influenced by Bobby Sands", and instigated a successful Hunger Strike on Robben Island.
In the USA number of political, religious, union and fund-raising institutions chose to honour Sands in the United States. The International Longshoremen's Association in New York announced a 24-hour boycott of British ships. Over 1,000 people gathered in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral to hear Cardinal Terence Cooke offer a Mass of reconciliation for Northern Ireland. Irish bars in the city were closed for two hours in mourning.
In Hartford, Connecticut a memorial was dedicated to Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers in 1997, the only one of its kind in the United States. Set up by the Irish Northern Aid Committee and local Irish-Americans, it stands in a traffic circle known as Bobby Sands Circle at the bottom of Maple Avenue near Goodwin Park.
The New Jersey General Assembly, the lower house of the New Jersey Legislature, voted 34-29 for a resolution honouring his "courage and commitment."
The US media expressed a range of opinions on Sands's death. The Boston Globe commented that "he slow suicide attempt of Bobby Sands has cast his land and his cause into another downward spiral of death and despair. There are no heroes in the saga of Bobby Sands." The Chicago Tribune wrote that "Mahatma Gandhi used the hunger strike to move his countrymen to abstain from fratricide. Bobby Sands' deliberate slow suicide is intended to precipitate civil war. The former deserved veneration and influence. The latter would be viewed, in a reasonable world, not as a charismatic martyr but as a fanatical suicide, whose regrettable death provides no sufficient occasion for killing others."
The New York Times wrote that "Britain's prime minister Thatcher is right in refusing to yield political status to Bobby Sands, the Irish Republican Army hunger striker," but that by appearing "unfeeling and unresponsive" the British Government was giving Sands "the crown of martyrdom."
The San Francisco Chronicle argued that political belief should not exempt activists from criminal law: "Terrorism goes far beyond the expression of political belief. And dealing with it does not allow for compromise as many countries of Western Europe and United States have learned. The bombing of bars, hotels, restaurants, robbing of banks, abductions, and killings of prominent figures are all criminal acts and must be dealt with by criminal law."
Some American critics and journalists suggested that American press coverage was a "melodrama". One journalist in particular criticised the large pro-IRA Irish-American contingent which "swallow IRA propaganda as if it were taffy," and concluded that IRA "terrorist propaganda triumphs."
Archbishop John R. Roach, president of the US Catholic bishops, called Sands's death "a useless sacrifice". The Ledger of May 5, 1981 under the headline “To some he was a hero, to others a terrorist” claims that the hunger strike made Sands "a hero among Irish Republicans or Nationalists seeking the reunion of Protestant-dominated and British-ruled Northern Ireland with the predominantly Catholic Irish Republic to the south."
The Ledger cited Sands as telling his friends: “If I die, God will understand," and one of his last messages to them being, “Tell everyone I’ll see them somewhere, sometime.”
In 2001, a memorial to Sands and the other hunger strikers was unveiled in Havana, Cuba.
Asia and the Middle East
In Tehran, Iran, President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr sent a message of condolence to the Sands family.
The government renamed Winston Churchill Boulevard, the location of the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Tehran, to Bobby Sands Street, prompting the embassy to move its entrance door to Ferdowsi Avenue to avoid using Bobby Sands Street on its letterhead. A street in the Elahieh district is also named after Sands. An official blue and white street sign was affixed to the rear wall of the British embassy compound saying (in Persian) "Bobby Sands Street" with three words of explanation "militant Irish guerrilla".
The official Pars news agency called Bobby Sands's death "heroic". There have subsequently been claims that the British foreign secretary has pressured Iranian authorities to change the name of Bobby Sands Street but this is denied.
In Israel/Palestine, Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in the Israeli desert prison of Nafha sent a letter, which was smuggled out and reached Belfast in July, 1981, which read;
"To the families of Bobby Sands and his martyred comrades. We, revolutionaries of the Palestinian people...extend our salutes and solidarity with you in the confrontation against the oppressive terrorist rule enforced upon the Irish people by the British ruling elite. We salute the heroic struggle of Bobby Sands and his comrades, for they have sacrificed the most valuable possession of any human being. They gave their lives for freedom."
The Hindustan Times said Margaret Thatcher had allowed a fellow Member of Parliament to die of starvation, an incident which had never before occurred "in a civilised country."
In the Indian Parliament, opposition members in the upper house Rajya Sabha stood for a minute's silence in tribute. The ruling Congress Party did not join in. Protest marches were organized against the British government and in tribute to Sands and his fellow hunger strikers.
The Hong Kong Standard said it was 'sad that successive British governments have failed to end the last of Europe's religious wars.'
A large monument dedicated to Irish protagonists for independence from Britain, including Bobby Sands, stands in the Waverley Cemetery in Sydney, Australia.
In the United Kingdom
At Old Firm football matches in Glasgow, Scotland, some Rangers fans have been known to sing songs mocking Bobby Sands to taunt fans of Celtic. Rangers fans are mainly Protestant, and predominantly sympathetic to the Unionist and Loyalist community; Celtic fans are traditionally more likely to support the Nationalist and Republican community. Celtic fans regularly sing the republican song "The Roll of Honour" which commemorates the ten men who died in the 1981 hunger strike, amongst other songs in support of the IRA. Sands is honoured in the line "They stood beside their leader - the gallant Bobby Sands." Rangers' taunts have since been adopted by the travelling support of other UK clubs, particularly those with strong British ties, as a form of anti-Irish sentiment. The 1981 British Home Championship football tournament was cancelled following the refusal of teams from England and Wales to travel to Northern Ireland in the aftermath of his death due to security concerns.
Cardinal Basil Hume, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, condemned Sands, describing the hunger strike as a form of violence. However he noted that this was his personal view. The Roman Catholic Church's official stance was that ministrations should be provided to the hunger strikers who, believing their sacrifice to be for a higher good, were acting in good conscience.
To me and to many other soldiers serving in the province at the time, Bobby Sands will always be remembered as one hell of a good dieter and should be in the guinness book of records and be the patron saint of Weightwatchers
