MANDELA WORSHIP…AN ONGOING SERIES

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This was spotted by an eagle-eyed B-BBC reader, another shameless plug from the BBC for Nelson Mandela worshippers. It would be nice to see less politics injected into Sport.

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12 Responses to MANDELA WORSHIP…AN ONGOING SERIES

  2. hippiepooter says:
    February 15, 2010 at 2:40 pm

    DV, just because the BBC plugs someone doesn’t automatically make them bad.  You’re doing a huge disservice to the cause of BBC impartiality by citing this as bias.

    Everyone across the whole democratic spectrum cannot help but be moved by the magnificent job Nelson Mandela did of getting the whole of South Africa behind the Sprinkboks in the 1995 Rugby Word Cup.

    If Francois Piennar can give this great man a heartfelt thanks, I think B-BBC can to.

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    • Atheist Ranter says:
      February 15, 2010 at 5:50 pm

      There is always the possibility that the BBC are hoping to get NM to bend over during some of the floodlit games so that the sun shining out of his arse can save them a bob or two…

      Some of us know what he did in his early years….

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      • Grant says:
        February 16, 2010 at 10:30 am

        Quite, Mandela kept his hands clean, but got other people to do his dirty work. He is a fake.

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  3. Millie Tant says:
    February 15, 2010 at 3:09 pm

    I don’t know what connection either Morgan Freeman or Nelson Mandela have with the Six Nations rugby tournament. Is there one or is this just the BBC deliberately bringing in an African black “hero”, a black face and a black voice because of its misguided and pervasive obsession with skin colour and its prejudice against native events and people because of their skin colour?

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      February 15, 2010 at 3:59 pm

      There’s a movie out called “Invictus” about some historic Rugby tournament with Freeman playing Mandela.

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      • hippiepooter says:
        February 16, 2010 at 11:21 am

        Thank you Mr Preiser for striving to save B-BBC from this embarrassment.  I dont know if you’ve seen the film, I certainly made a point of doing so.  The films missed some bits out.  The truth is even more moving.

        I dont know if the condemnation of featuring Nelson Mandela/Morgan Freeman is down to ignorance of politics or ignorance of rugby.

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        • Millie Tant says:
          February 16, 2010 at 1:36 pm

          I am all for striving to save Biased BBC from the embarrassment of gushing over Nelson Mandela and a film.

          I don’t know whether your condescension is the result of ignorance of the BBC’s hero-worship or ignorance and intolerance of reference to that phenomenon.  

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          • hippiepooter says:
            February 16, 2010 at 7:16 pm

            What I am aware of is a very fringe detestation of Nelson Mandela as ‘official B-BBC policy’ that causes the concerns I first expressed here.

            Is B-BBC here to express a particular right-wing world view, or is it about exposing bias?

            Expressing a consensus on Mandela that is as broad as can be imagined doesn’t cause me a problem.  Because its the BBC they probably would stomp on anyone raising fact based criticism, and this is worth taking issue with, but all the mentions of BBC ‘Mandela Worship’ here have just seemed weird and pathological.

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        • David Preiser (USA) says:
          February 16, 2010 at 3:38 pm

          I haven’t seen the film, and probably won’t, either.  I was aware of its existence, and saw the obvious connection between that and Morgan Freeman’s appearance in conneciton with Mandela and the poem.

          Really, I don’t see this as some kind of egregious Mandela love from the BBC or anything like that.  It was just a sports event which happened to have an obvious historical connection.

          I’m not the biggets worshiper of Mandela, to be honest, but there’s no getting around the fact that he was basically the leader of the blacks who eventually won over the Apartheid government.  Sure, it’s very complicated, I know more or less what he and his cohorts and his wife got up to.

          So long as those who are always quick to condemn Israel’s birth because of the bombing of the King David Hotel and killing of British troops, and suggest that supporters of Israel today condone or excuse Jewish terrorism, also expend an equal amount of energy condemning Mandela’s ANC and the new version of South Africa, I have no problem with the BBC reporting this story the way they did.

          (Yeah, cue the charges of false moral equivalency.)

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  4. Grant says:
    February 16, 2010 at 6:07 pm

    The difference is that Israel is a pretty well governed democracy. South Africa is a corrupt ANC dictatorship.

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  5. Grant says:
    February 16, 2010 at 6:08 pm

    PS.    Ask any black South African who is not on the ANC payroll !

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