Nelson Mandela was freed from prison 18 years ago today. Nearly 2 years ago Barack Obama visited Robben's Island Prison which was South Africa's version of Devil's Island French penal colony or our Alcatraz penitentiary. Robben's Island Prison most famous inmate was Nelson Mandela who spent almost 30 years there. Barack Obama like Nelson Mandela did for his country brings a new more positive era to American politics while both Hillary Clinton & John McCainonly offer more of the same failed agenda. Senator Obama is the only candidate that offers any hope whatsoever for the people of this nation. I have supported Obama for president from the very beginning although I would have preferred Dennis Kucinich but I didn't want to waste my vote.
Obama visits former Mandela prison
August 21, 2006
Senator Barack Obama started a two-week tour of Africa on Sunday with a visit to Nelson Mandela's former prison island, paying tribute to the "incredible courage, resilience and hopefulness" of the anti-apartheid movement.
The only black member of the U.S. Senate and one of the Democratic Party's rising stars, Obama said the two-hour visit to Robben Island made him realize that everyday worries in the United States were "fairly trivial stuff compared to the very elemental, basic struggle" of Mandela and other former inmates.
The senator was guided around the island by Ahmed Kathrada, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 with Mandela and other leaders of the resistance to white racist rule.
Kathrada was classified as Indian which - according to apartheid's laws - made him superior to black South Africans. He was allowed to wear long trousers and socks and got bigger helpings of food.
Mandela, Sisulu and all the black detainees suffered the humiliation of wearing shorts and petty discrimination like not being allowed syrup or jam at breakfast, he said.
"It is a reminder of the extraordinary struggle that not only Mandela went through but people all over the world go through to obtain things that we take for granted," said Obama. "To stand in Mandela's cell and have a sense of the incredible courage, resilience and hopefulness of these men puts into perspective the work we do back home."
Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress, was released from prison 18 years ago today, after 27 years of incarceration. Mandela was imprisoned after his arrest in 1962 on charges of sabotage in association with his work fighting apartheid in South Africa. In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first South African president democratically elected in a multi-racial election. He served as president of South Africa for five years before he retired in 1999.
In many ways we have obviously come a long way in regards to race in this nation. Sadly we have allowed right wing racists to proceed with their agenda of hate disguised as drug warriors. In the USA we incarcerate nearly 4000 black men for every 100,000 of them in the population. Just to give you an idea of how extreme this number is , our closest competitor for incarcerating black men was the pre-Nelson Mandela white ruled Apartheid South Africa. The White supremacist rulers of South Africa incarcerated 729 black men for every 100,000. In the land of the Free we jail five times as many black men as the only country in the world that proudly advertised a racist political policy of apartheid.
Unfortunately as it stands today there are more people of African descent imprisoned in the United States than in all of the continent of Africa's Prisons combined. Statistical evidence from the UNITED KINGDOM's KING's College of LONDON International Centre for Prison Studies that reveals that although the United States of America has only 4% of the world's "Black" population it contains over half of the Earth's "Black" Prisoners. There are nearly 2 Million "Blacks" imprisoned worldwide with over 1 Million of them being African Americans incarcerated here in the USA. The reason I use the term "Black" instead of African is because North Africa is mostly inhabited by White Arabs while Sub Saharan Africa is almost entirely populated by Black Africans. I also wanted to make it very clear who is being unjustly imprisoned here in the United States.
In the USA there are now over 1 Million African Americans in Prison. In the United States there are approximately 39 Million citizens of African descent comprising 13% of the overall population however African Americans make up 50% of America's total Prison Population.
Unfortunately here in the United States strengthening and expanding the criminal justice system has become the alternative to our government funding social programs to reduce income disparity, poverty, and landlessness. The American Dream has been replaced with a living nightmare of under-funded schools and over-policed neighborhoods. I guess one could definitely say that the Prison Industry's donations sure have paid off for GOP.
The Republican 'party' NOW stands for the BIG LIE, it stands for CRIME and DEATH, for GENOCIDE and PERVERSION, for TAXATION and GRAFT, for the FED and FINANCIAL RAPE, for DOMESTIC SPYING and the PATRIOT ACT, ...it stands for the end of LIBERTY and of our CONSTITUTION. Above all, it now stands for WAR.