Apple pays tribute to Nelson Mandela

126 Comments

“Apple’s home page has been updated with a tribute to former South African President Nelson Mandela, who died earlier this week,” Rene Ritchie writes for iMore.

“One of the greatest leaders of our era, Mandela went from imprisoned radical to head of state during the course of his lifetime, and through the sheer power of his will, heart, saw his country out of the dark ages and on its way towards the light when it could so very easily have descended into chaos,” Ritchie writes. “I’m not certain how many consumer electronic companies donate their home pages to such tributes, but I don’t expect it is many. Mandela obviously inspired Apple, as he inspired a people and a nation. He can and should inspire a world. In his memory, where you see hate, offer love. Where you see pettiness, provoke greatness. When called upon to lead or to choose leaders, understand what true leadership is, and the respect, compassion, and courage required of it.”

Read more in the full article here.

“Nelson Mandela was deeply respected in his homeland, and almost worshiped by many for his definitive role in ending white rule and installing multiracial democracy,” Rick Lyman writes for The New York Times. “But he was never above reproach, political observers say.”

“Mr. Mandela was a politician, among the most transformative of his era, but still a politician. As such, he went through the usual ups and downs that characterize any political career,” Lyman writes. “‘Nelson Mandela was not a saint. We would dishonor his memory if we treated him as if he was one,’ Pierre de Vos, a law professor, wrote on Friday in The Daily Maverick, an online magazine in South Africa, arguing that Mr. Mandela’s genius lay in his willingness to bend and compromise. ‘Like all truly exceptional human beings, he was a person of flesh and blood, with his own idiosyncrasies, his own blind spots and weaknesses.'”

“Some criticized him for what they saw as an overeagerness to placate the country’s white power elite in the transition to nonracial democracy in the early 1990s and, thereafter, with being more interested in keeping economic power brokers happy, albeit with a few new black faces in the group, than in delivering economic equality to the vast majority of those still living in poverty,” Lyman writes. “Once the political squabbles of Mandela’s era fade, though, the museum-approved, sanctified image of him is likely to take firmer hold, observers say, though it may not grow as strong as the one of him abroad. ‘To idealize a great political leader — to try to take that person out of politics and the humanity out of that person — is in the end a futile or even contradictory endeavor,’ Anthony Butler, a University of Cape Town political science professor, wrote in his column in the June 28 issue of South Africa’s Business Day newspaper.”

Read more in the full article here.

 

Apple Inc.'s website pays tribute to Nelson Mandela
Apple Inc.’s website pays tribute to Nelson Mandela

[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]

126 Comments

      1. Weep and wail, weep and wail incessantly. The piece of filth that was Mandela is dead.
        Some things you did not know about the best kaffir ever born:
        He was a communist
        He was a serial adulterer
        He sang songs, in public, saying, “kill whites”
        He was a cuckold. Multiple cuckold
        He personally authorised the killing of innocents (black and white) in Talban type street bombs
        He was married to a woman who beat a 12 year old boy to death with sticks.
        She advocated burning people to death by hanging auto tyres round their necks, filling them with gasoline and lighting them. She enjoyed that. Had orgasms just thinking about it.
        His son in law is a fugitive from USA justice facing rape charges
        His daughters are serial fraudsters
        His grandson is a wife beater, a grave robber a scamster and is running to avoid prosecution. He does not pay for his children’s welfare. A bit of arrogant filth in the family tradition.
        His wife was convicted of fraud. (Runs in the fambly)
        He insisted on white Afrikaner doctors, lawyers and caregivers
        His children stole from him
        He registered two trusts, one “Mandela children’s fund” (a charity) and another Mandela’s children trust” for his kids. Funds from the charity were paid into the fund for his children
        The artworks he “signed” were executed by others, so he is a fraudster himself
        His son died of AIDS which, according to his successor, was a non extent disease invented by whites to disparage noble kaffirs.

        All the above are documented truth (except the Obama bit which I threw in for fun) and have been reported.

        Reply

      2. Apparently, you failed to realize that ‘old fat guy’ was speaking for most of humanity who recognize how the US dragged its feet (during the reign of certain presidents) on supporting the anti-apartheid movement. The US was seen as a supporter of racism around the world.

        Reply

        2. how many black people have been elected prime minister of Canada?

          hypocrisy |hiˈpäkrisē|
          noun ( pl. hypocrisies )
          the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.
          ORIGIN Middle English: from Old French ypocrisie, via ecclesiastical Latin, from Greek hupokrisis ‘acting of a theatrical part,’ from hupokrinesthai ‘play a part, pretend,’ from hupo ‘under’ + krinein ‘decide, judge.’

        24. 3I3c7ro,

          Assuming you’re not lying, what in the world to you and your children have to do with anything?

          Go to any scientist and ask him if that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered a scientific sample.

          Sheesh!

          I you want to see “people as people” (whatever that empty platitude means), then show your stuff by moving to South Central Los Angeles.

          Go ahead. Make some new friends. They can play the knockout game on you face, and if you have a daughter, they’ll have fun with her too.

        25. You mistake cultural norms for racial characteristics. If you paint everyone with the same brush because you see a group of people behaving badly, you have not given people a fair chance. Look at the best of people and look at the worst also and consider the range of characteristics between those extremes. We are all capable of much more than we show at the present time with education in the virtues and values taught by all the world’s religions. Mankind’s growth is dependant on this type of spiritual education.

        27. Science does not support your racist opinion. Cultural values are taught to all people and differ. Education in the values and virtues taught by all religions can propel mankind to greater heights. Although individuals have differing capacities, each and all races have equal capacities and capabilities when properly educated in the arts and sciences. Science proves this repeatedly.

    2. Remember that back in the 1980s Africa was slap bang in the middle of the USA’s global power game with the Soviet Union. South Africa’s apartheid regime had by far the most powerful military on the continent (even possessing nuclear weapons) and was staunchly in favour of the USA. Reagan had to keep them onside in order to keep all the Soviet-backed regimes south of the Equator on their toes.

      It was all a different world back then. You can’t impose today’s values on it. Some things just had to be done however distasteful.

      Reply

      1. We did a lot of ugly things to prevent communism from overtaking the whole world. Look at the devastation wrought in nearly very country that communism touched, and you can understand why we fought to oppose a world wrapped behind a curtain of iron.

        It was only last week that thousands were forced to watch in a big stadium as 80 were executed by shooting them so full of machine gun bullets that they were difficult to identify afterwards.

        Reply

        1. Maybe… what we did had something to do with containing communism.

          Maybe… communism as an economic and social system eventually collapses under it’s own weight, as a theory that is unsustainable in the real world.

          Regardless, some politicians will claim credit for the course of history, even if what they did had little to do with the outcome.

          Above all, Mandela was a pragmatic and insightful leader. Sure, he was briefly a member of the communist party when they opposed the apartheid regime. But when he became president, he endorsed free market principles. Sure, he advocated violent struggle, but maybe when your people are being slaughtered around you, that becomes your only choice.

          After only 19 years, his dream for South Africa has not yet been fully realized. After all, after 237 years, we are still trying to realize the vision of our Founding Fathers.

      2. Dave H
        “Remember that back in the 1980s Africa was slap bang in the middle of the USA’s global power game with the Soviet Union.”

        I am sorry friend – but that is being an apologist. The excuse of defending against communism to excuse the moral action is unforgivable. Besides, it never was more than an excuse.

        We were supposed to be the bastions of liberty – for all. Yet we backed the slaveholders against the oppressed – for clearly and unrefutablely the majority was being repressed.

        In the end, the apartheid government oppressed the people, and when they turned for help we turned away. Why should they not have turned to those who would help them? Would you have done otherwise?

        So we drive them to the russians and then support the evil government in the name of anticommunism. What a two-faced approached.

        Reply

        1. You also overthrew democratically elected governments and replaced them with brutal dictatorships that immediately started murdering their populations. The USAs actions weren’t anything to be proud about, but the end result was. Despotic regimes were toppled the world over once the fight was over, many of them once Soviet backed governments whose rule only could have ended with the fall of the USSR itself.

          Criticising the USA during that time is exactly the same mistake as calling Mandela a terrorist. Sometimes you have to cross an ethical line to get the right result. Even Churchill knew that when he ordered the carpet bombing of German cities.

    4. And the Republicans? How quickly we forget even recent history. The Republicans voted with the majority Democrats to overturn successfully Regan’s veto of a bill to sanction the white South African regime. I’m no fan of certain current Republicans, but let’s remember that broad generalizations are very dangerous and counterproductive to critical thinking.

      Reply

    1. Mandela started off as you say (once again because of the times he lived in), but grew wiser with age and became a unifying force for his nation. There were many within the ANC that wanted to take revenge on the white population the moment they achieved power. Mandela famously said “let bygones be bygones” and instead promoted reconciliation. He ensured that the new South African constitution and flag made it quite clear that the country had to include ALL South Africans, Boers and all. Compare that to other post colonial leaders such as Idi Amin or Robert Mugabe and you can see why Mandela is so respected. Without him South Africa would have become a much darker place, and might not even exist as a country now.

      Here’s to the crazy ones and all that.

      Reply

      1. Exactly. It’s easy to dismiss him as a ‘terrorist’ and forget the evils of apartheid, and that they were at war at the time.

        He more than made up for it with the rest of his life and he should be honored as the great man that he became.

        But the brainwashed, morons like Ralphy, can keep spewing their insane hatred.

        Reply

  6. When I saw that he died the other day, I was elated that the world had one less communist/terrorist puke soiling the earth. But I also knew I’d need to stay away from the TV and radio for a few days, as the predictable leftwing genuflecting contest would last through at least Sunday.

    Saint Mandela? Good riddance!

    Reply

    2. The apartheid National Party government started the terrorism. They were the ones that opened fire on peaceful protests, and led to the ANC forming an armed wing. Seriously, you need to read up on the backstory rather than just parroting some nonsense posted on Free Republic.

      Reply

    4. @mcguffin

      You stupid, nasty little man. We’re talking about a country where ANY white person could demand to see the papers of any black, where not having the right papers to be in that spot at that time meant immediate arrest, where NO BLACK had the vote, where the whole society was segregated.

      Yes, Mandela advocated violence for a while, in response to the massacre of dozens of unarmed protestors, including women and children. THERE WAS NO DEMOCRATIC PROCESS TO ENGAGE IN… what would you have him do? But even at that, he later changed, and regretted it. He led a reconciliation when (I think) most people on this planet would have let a bloodbath against the former oppressors.

      While we’re at it — what do you think of the Founding Fathers? Bunch of violent terrorist commies, fer sure.

      Reply

      1. @John Smith

        People like mcguffin are too ignorant to realize that to King George the band that started our revolution were all terrorists.

        The mcguffin crowd do not really believe in democracy. Essentially they are un-American.

        Reply

        1. Thanks for being honest. I now know that anything you may post on this subject in the future is tainted with KKK leanings and can be ignored for the ignorant drivel it is.

        3. Interesting. You’re not even putting up the standard BS disclaimer about “American blacks”; you’re making a sweeping statement about an entire ethnic group. For you, it’s not cultural, it’s genetic.

          You should be permanently banned from MDN… that is, if the people who run it (??) actually give a shit.

        5. “I’ve studied all about it. You haven’t. I win.”

          Wow! That’s deep. What – five years old?

          Actually, if you had studied all about it, you’d know that the amount of genetic diversity that accounts for the various visual differences we see is utterly miniscule, and that there is also MASSIVE overlap between the supposedly different groups.

          On overlap — Love that one recently where the “whites-only” guy found he had a substantial percentage of “black” genetic material.

        6. I’ve studied about it and you haven’t. Don’t try to Google-argue with me. I can spot it a mile away. Blacks are dumb, primitive, and violent. Experience and science says so.

          If you think I’m wrong, I can live with that. So move to Detroit and make yourself some new friends.

        8. Boris – you can keep spewing all of the vile, misguided hatred that you want.

          But apartheid was evil, and it needed to be eradicated.

          And thank you to Nelson Mandela for helping to get to end it and also move SA past it with forgiving and healing. He was a hero and his passing is met with sorrow.

        10. Ban me? For what? What forum rule did I break Would you point it out for me?

          I stated my case, and you stated yours. Why should your’s be a free opinion but mine needs to be banned?

          I’d be thrilled if you could explain yourself, hotshot.

          You want to ban me because I said something you don’t like?

          Is that really how you think it should work?

          You’re a punk and a coward — but most especially you’re a fascist.

      1. McCarthy was right, communism was rampant in the US government at the time and even lead to traitors giving nukes to soviet Russia who pointed them at us. He’s a hero and anyone who uses his name as a pejorative is either ignorant or far worse.

        Reply

    6. @borismcguffin

      You are such a brainwashed-simpleton.

      Do some actual research and learn some real history.

      But please stop spouting the lies that you’ve been brainwashed with.

      Reply

      1. Yes! Yes! I mean, where do I get off not being led around by the nose by the thought police. Political correctness got us the current detritus polluting the oval office, and here you people are have emotional meltdowns because I dared not to worship saint Mandela. He used to necklace people.

        Reply

    10. Selective much.

      I remember when the South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS) sent a t-shirt that had been impregnated with acid to the six-year old daughter of the BANNED journalist Donald Woods thus causing her to be severely burned and finally pushing the Woods family to leave the country.

      #1) The terrorism of which you write was present on both sides; the apartheid South African state and the ANC.

      #2) If the South African apartheid regime was a bastion of freedom and democracy, how do they get away with banning a man – Woods – from pursuing his chosen profession? Where was their commitment to freedom of speech or freedom of the press?

      #3) Given the number of black males who either threw themselves down multiple flights of stairs or out of windows whilst under the supervision of the South African police (such as Steve Biko), one could argue that the SA state had long since elected to act outside the legal frameworks expected of civilised nation-states, they had opened themselves up to terrorism as a response.

      #4) What sort of nation-state allows its security forces to send acid-soaked t-shirts to little girls in order to frighten the parents? I believe a terrorist state, but you may think differently.

      The only reason that an American would criticise Mandela and the ANC for terrorism whilst ignoring the part played and provocation of the apartheid South African state is if they tacitly object to black majority rule and secretly wish that the US nation-state had or indeed still would practise federally-mandated segregationism and disenfranchisement as seen in the old South Africa.

      Reply

  8. Mandela served 27 years in prison, … An international campaign lobbied for his release, which was granted in 1990 amid escalating civil strife. Mandela published his autobiography and opened negotiations with President F.W. de Klerk to abolish apartheid and establish multiracial elections in 1994, in which he led the ANC to victory. As South Africa’s first black president Mandela formed a Government of National Unity in an attempt to defuse racial tension. He also promulgated a new constitution and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Continuing the former government’s liberal economic policy, his administration introduced measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty, and expand healthcare services.

    Reply

  9. Nelson Mandela was a mixed bag.

    During the violent part of his campaign, he killed dozens, if not hundreds of people, including women and children. That’s why he was put in jail.

    His trial was deemed fair and his punishment was for appropriate for his crimes, which is why Amnesty International never called him a prisoner of conscience and never advoacted for his release. The government was willing to release him from jail if he would have renounced his muderous tactics. He never did.

    Later he did change and say white South Africans as part of his country. I find that imcredble, and he was to be commded for that.

    MLK he was not.

    Reply

    1. Botha’s offer to Mandela was too one sided for anyone sensible to accept, and Botha knew that when he made it. Botha made the mistake of trying to capitalise on Mandela’s refusal and effectively admitting what the ruse was about to the South African Parliament, namely trying to shift the blame for Mandela’s imprisonment onto Mandela and the ANC rather than the National Party. In a bid to get sanctions eased The ANC would have remained outlawed, apartheid would have remained in place, and the National Party government would have been under no obligation to change the status quo. Mandela rightly refused.

      Reply

    3. Horatio,

      How dare you not toe the line.

      Can’t you see that all of the self-appointed Good People™ on this thread will simply not tolerate disagreement or a dissenting viewpoint?

      They are “independent thinkers,” seeing as how they are parroting the politically correct narrative spoon-fed to them by the popular culture.

      While those of us standing athwart have been “brainwashed,” or so I’ve been told. Behold the logic of THAT.

      Reply

  13. Fascinating to see all these low class racists crawl out of the woodwork this weekend to heckle and spew insults. Nelson Mandela was a great man. Instead of calling his people to rise up and exact revenge on their tormentors, which some would say he was morally entitled to do, he did the opposite. He could have easily become a Mugabe or a Castro, or a Stalin, but he didn’t. Without him the apartheid regime would have eventually been violently overthrown and then you’d have reason to cry. South Africa is not perfect, but it is much better off today due to this man and his efforts. So what if he was a communist at one time. He governed no differently than any Western democratic leader. He maintained the capitalist free market system, which is not what an actual communist would do. So stop your crying that apartheid was dismantled, and have some respect for the dead. You racists, especially Boris, are vile and disgusting.

    Reply

    1. Dear Wil,

      Your opinion is irrelevant and I don’t care what you think. You, like about 97% of everyone else here, just go with the flow. It’s the herd mentality. The popular culture leads people around like you around by the nose. People who are easily manipulated and very ill-informed — vulnerable to politically correct propaganda.

      Show me your stuff and move to South Africa. Or else Detroit.

      Reply

  14. mcguffin — Your views are so profoundly stupid. Through the ages and in the modern world, we can see incredible contributions to various fields of human endeavor by various cultural groups. We can also see amazing examples of horror, stupidity and bone-deep ignorance… in every cultural group.

    Who do you want to take as an examples? If you confine the view to uneducated poor people in Mississippi, you won’t have much of a support for your idea of white supremacy. If you look at people in India, you’ll find a percentage of Ph.D’s that puts any white, western nation to shame. Math and Astronomy in the Middle East. Civilization in China while your ancestors ran around in animal skins and blue mud. As inordinate percentage of the most brilliant scientists have been Jewish. (That probably burns you.) As a somewhat brownish race — like the Hispanics you probably despise — the Ancient Greeks are the founders of the civilization lived today by “real” white people.

    And what the heck is so profoundly wonderful about these supposedly superior white people?
    – There ability to kill masses of others
    – The proliferation of “Wal-Mart People”.
    – The pissy, small-minded, whining and vitriol displayed all over the Internet on every topic imaginable.
    – Their ability to poison the planet, themselves and their own children.

    Truth is, every (apparent) group is riddled with sociopathic destructive jerks, and every (apparent) group is riddled with regular folks. And every “race” can produce brilliant people, when they grow up in at least a semi-sane and supportive environment with education. I am very, very sure there are enormous numbers of black people all over the world who are far smarter than you who have attained far, far more than you ever will.

    Reply

    1. Don’t know how to break it to you, hotshot, but the hundreds of thousands of technologies required for you to post stupid things on the internet were overwhelmingly invented by white people. And those that weren’t, were developed by Asians.

      If we had to depend on blacks, you’d have to communicate by playing rhythms on a hollowed out log drum.

      Reality is not politically correct.

      Reply

      1. LOL. Take the blinkers off you fool. You may have erased the many technology and computing inventions made by African-Americans over the past few decades from your own mind, but they still very much invented them 🙂

        Here’s an example to get you started. Google “Mark Dean IBM”.

        Reply

  15. “In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation as to why it is considered so important. The specific nature of a MacGuffin is typically unimportant to the overall plot. The most common type of MacGuffin is an object, place or person. However, a MacGuffin can sometimes take a more abstract form, such as money, victory, glory, survival, power, love, or even something that is entirely unexplained, as long as it strongly motivates key characters within the structure of the plot.”

    I knew you couldn’t be real.

    Reply

  16. Weep and wail, weep and wail incessantly. The piece of filth that was Mandela is dead.
    Some things you did not know about the best kaffir ever born:
    He was a communist
    He was a serial adulterer.
    He sang songs, in public, saying, “kill whites.”
    He was a cuckold. Multiple cuckold
    He personally authorised the killing of innocents (black and white) in Talban type street bombs
    He was married to a woman who beat a 12 year old boy to death with sticks.
    She advocated burning people to death by hanging auto tyres round their necks, filling them with gasoline and lighting them. She enjoyed that. Had orgasms just thinking about it.
    His son in law is a fugitive from USA justice facing rape charges
    His daughters are serial fraudsters
    His grandson is a wife beater, a grave robber a scamster and is running to avoid prosecution. He does not pay for his children’s welfare. A bit of arrogant filth in the family tradition.
    His wife was convicted of fraud. (Runs in the family).
    He insisted on white Afrikaner doctors, lawyers and caregivers.
    His children stole from him.
    He registered two trusts, one “Mandela children’s fund” (a charity) and another Mandela’s children trust” for his kids. Funds from the charity were paid into the fund for his children.
    The artworks he “signed” were executed by others, so he is a fraudster himself.
    His son died of AIDS which, according to his successor, was a non exitent disease invented by Whites to disparage noble kaffirs.

    Reply

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