Even more offensive than watching the bad method acting by Obama—that Hollywood-style battery of cameras underlines the crass “celebrity” nature of this event—is the sanctimonious little caption as he is led around the compound: “He was shown around by a former prisoner.” I would have imagined that that moment was the perfect time for a former prisoner of a brutal regime to confront the head of a stratospherically more brutal regime with an awkward question or three.
For instance: “How DARE you come here and pretend to be inspired by the suffering and sacrifice of a political dissenter?” Or: “Can you do angry as well as you do solemn?” Or: “How do you sleep at night?”
But it looks like, for some people in South Africa, the commitment to human rights ended about twenty years ago….
Barack Obama ‘humbled’ by visit to Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island jail – video
President Obama said he and his family were ‘deeply humbled’ by their visit to the Robben Island jail where Nelson Mandela was kept for 18 years. Obama stood in silence for some moments in the cell where Mandela – who remains critically ill in hospital – was held. The US president wrote in the guestbook: ‘On behalf of our family, we’re deeply humbled to stand where men of such courage faced down injustice and refused to yield’
So no sense of perspective at all, Moz? No understanding of the symbolism of the first black leader of the US visiting the jail cell of the first black leader of South Africa?
The man presides over a vast gulag of illegal, secret dungeons and torture facilities; the man oversees and DEFENDS the use of drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, and Pakistan; the man pursues and harries political dissenters, journalists and truth-tellers with the malicious zeal of a Red Chinese prosecutor in the 1950s; the man visits a dying man who twenty years ago he would have denounced as a criminal and heaps empty platitudes on him.
And you lack the common sense or decency to perceive the monstrous hypocrisy of this?
Come on, Te Reo, stop kidding around.
No understanding of the symbolism of the first black leader of the US visiting the jail cell of the first black leader of South Africa?
Mandela’s family politely asked Obama not to visit Madiba. Massive protests greeted Obama when he landed in South Africa; law associations and union groups demanded that he be arrested as a war criminal when he landed, the same way another cynical violator of human rights, General Pinochet, was arrested in England.
Of course, you choose to ignore all that, and go with the spin. I am not surprised one little bit, sadly.
Nothing to do with racism – more to do with the one eyed leftist media for whom Obama can do no wrong. (Because he is Democrat & African American)
He has carried on many of the policies which he criticized Bush for, has overseen a massive and uncontrolled increase in US foreign debt, has overseen 5 years of recession and turpid growth, not to mention using the IRS to persecute his political enemies, and has been given a free pass from a compliant media.
Instead of treating his racial background as a side issue no the media have given him a free ride for many years despite showing many leadership flaws.
And don’t get me started on the Nobel peace prize he won – I mean what did he do to deserve that?
Actually, Jimmie, you deciding that my perspective on Obama is based on skin colour is racist, given that you have not one iota of proof that it actually figures in my thinking at all.
A simple apology and a promise to do better next time will suffice, ta.
So no sense of perspective at all, Moz? No understanding of the symbolism of the first black leader of the US visiting the jail cell of the first black leader of South Africa?
When you called Obama the first black leader of the US you weren’t meaning his skin colour? Um hello you introduced skin colour into the thread and now you have been fisked for it – apologies the other way methinks.
Actually, Jimmie, you deciding that my perspective on Obama is based on skin colour is racist, given that you have not one iota of proof that it actually figures in my thinking at all.
Hmmm. At 6:31 a.m., exactly 11 hours and 46 minutes earlier, you lectured us all that, instead of being appalled by the callous hypocrisy of that publicity stunt, we should be filled with awe-struck wonder at “the symbolism of the first black leader of the US visiting the jail cell of the first black leader of South Africa.”
That seems to be an instruction to ignore the war crimes and focus on the positive. It’s the kind of vacuous crap I would expect from a PR flack; I would have thought you, as a loyal Labour Party man, had at least some commitment to human rights and justice.
You are now denying your own words, in the very thread in which they appear. That’s brazen.
You lie.
No I don’t. Here are those words again: “No understanding of the symbolism of the first black leader of the US visiting the jail cell of the first black leader of South Africa?”
…your misunderstanding of the concept and associated hystrionics [sic] so often make me laugh.
Again, in this very thread, you move from simply defending a murderous hypocrite to defending some of the very murders that he oversees. But I’ll step back here and let you explain in more detail your stated enthusiasm for the “useful tool” of remote-controlled drone strikes.
The only useful tool here is the well known drone, M. Breen of Northcote. And that usefulness is somewhat diminished by his continued lies and misrepresentations.
There’s no hypocrisy in supporting drone strikes, Moz. Drones are a useful tool for eliminating identified enemies and a lot less dangerous for civilians because of their relative accuracy (compared to B52’s carpet bombing SE Asia for example).
Obama didn’t visit Mandela; you seem to have got that wrong. Same with the massive protests that didn’t actually happen. And there is no reasonable comparison between Pinochet and Obama. You’re a fool for thinking there is.
Drones allow people to be murdered at the whim of the US President. Anyone murdered is automatically considered a terrorist unless they can prove otherwise. They broaden acts of extra-judicial killing and make them much easier to carry out without any scrutiny or body bags. I can see quite a few reasonable comparisons between this and what Pinochet did.
You’ve linked to a Victor Jara tribute. That’s ironic, given that you would undoubtedly have repeated the brutal lies told about him forty years ago by the same people whose lies you have been repeating on this mostly excellent forum.
Victor Jara despised hypocrites, I think you should know.
Great, we can add Jara to the long list of people and concepts you only half understand. Thanks for the laugh, Moz.
You have been called on your hypocrisy. I guess it’s hardly surprising that you do not see the irony of someone approvingly pointing to a tribute to Victor Jara on the same day as he posts disparagingly about modern-day versions of Victor Jara.
I would have thought it was obvious to anyone who cared to think about experiencing prejudice and overcomming inherently institutionalised racism, but I’m not sure Morrissey is particularly good at checking his white privilege.
Really? on the other hand, the POTUS could have popped in and written something more like this in the guest book:
‘Hey Nelson, I’m sorry that you spent nearly 28 years in jail because the CIA told the South African authorities where they could find you. You can rest assured that it won’t happen again . . . . at least not to you.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jul/01/barack-obama-nelson-mandela-robben-island-video
July 3, 2013