I cannot apologise for fighting against apartheid': Robert McBride defends Durban bombing

[irBosOtter]

Once a terrorist always a terrorist

 

[Cray]

It was a general thing, they used necklaces not as actual punishment but as implements of terror to literally scare up support.

Am well aware.

 

[Excalibur]

So the people who were being systematically killed just decided to become killers of innocents themselves... and in so doing became the very thing that they despised and were fighting against. Instead of rising above, they chose to stoop down to the same level, and thereby proved that they were actually no better and no different. There are no winners in war. Just lots of dead people.

And the ANC... once they had a taste for blood... allowed that thirst for vengeance to continue on AFTER the democratic elections, and it has now turned our nation into one of the bloodiest on the planet.

you were not oppressed and instead were beneficiary of others' oppression so it's very easy for you to sit on your high horse and pontificate and prescribe how exactly the weak being oppressed by the full might of the state should respond. You and other denialists live in cloud cuckoo-land, there's no element of reality in your outlook.

 

[Stonemason]

So, guilt by association - by that rationale any wife or child of anyone working for the apartheid government would have been a legitimate (not innocent) target? What actual crime did they commit that is deserving of murder?

Are you really trying to defend this?

Yes, I am defending this.

The ANC and the PAC took it even further. They indiscriminately killed civilians whether they were associated with the government or not. Look at the Magoos Bar bomb, Amanzimtoti bomb, the Church street bomb, the many Wimpy bombs the Sterland bomb and the St George's church massacre. All of them targeted civilians.

Schoon was actively involved in the war effort in Angola, she was teaching Cuban soldiers English in order to help them in the fight against South African forces. She was a legitimate target and the TRC agreed. It was reckless of her to have her children in a war zone.

Everything has two sides. While I am prepared to let bygones be bygones, many others on this forum would rather believe fake news than accept that it was a terrible time in our history which we should do everything in our power to prevent from happening again.

 

[Excalibur]

“I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment.”

 

[IT_Steven]

Wonder if some people here would still be singing the same tune if today their family got blown to smithereens because someone deemed this the best way of "responding" to the oppression by the current ANC regime on them.

 

[rambo919]

you were not oppressed and instead were beneficiary of others' oppression so it's very easy for you to sit on your high horse and pontificate and prescribe how exactly the weak being oppressed by the full might of the state should respond. You and other denialists live in cloud cuckoo-land, there's no element of reality in your outlook.

The same can be said for the so called black diamonds, wealth built on legalized theft and oppression.

 

[konfab]

you were not oppressed and instead were beneficiary of others' oppression so it's very easy for you to sit on your high horse and pontificate and prescribe how exactly the weak being oppressed by the full might of the state should respond. You and other denialists live in cloud cuckoo-land, there's no element of reality in your outlook.

"Apartheid made me throw hand grenades and shoot assault rifles into a church"

When you say there was no other way other of escaping oppression other than burning people alive, you imply that victims of oppression are not agents with their own free will, but objects that are there to be acted upon by their betters.

It is exactly why people absolutely ridiculed Hansie Cronje when he said the devil made him fix those games.

 

[Excalibur]

The same can be said for the so called black diamonds, wealth built on legalized theft and oppression.

Hahahaha are you MyBroadbanders real people living in South Africa or you are just online personas?

 

[rambo919]

Hahahaha are you MyBroadbanders real people living in South Africa or you are just online personas?

You are either putting on an act or have no idea the trouble brewing outside of your little protected bubble.

 

[Cray]

Yes, I am defending this.

The ANC and the PAC took it even further. They indiscriminately killed civilians whether they were associated with the government or not. Look at the Magoos Bar bomb, Amanzimtoti bomb, the Church street bomb, the many Wimpy bombs the Sterland bomb and the St George's church massacre. All of them targeted civilians.

I never disputed that the ANC and PAC did reprehensible things, I take issue with the idea that gets thrown around here that the Apartheid government were somehow above such things as targeted executions and the murder of innocent people ...

Schoon was actively involved in the war effort in Angola, she was teaching Cuban soldiers English in order to help them in the fight against South African forces.

She was a legitimate target and the TRC agreed. It was reckless of her to have her children in a war zone.

Unless you count an entire country as a war zone that is BS, her child wasn't killed in a crossfire between two armies - she was killed as a bystander due to a targeted assassination attempt, that letter-bomb could have reached her anywhere in the world....

The TRC also granted McBride amnesty, so by that standard you support their finding to grant amnesty to Mcbride on the basis that Magoo's was a legitimate target...?

Everything has two sides. While I am prepared to let bygones be bygones, many others on this forum would rather believe fake news than accept that it was a terrible time in our history which we should do everything in our power to prevent from happening again.

We agree on that at least...

 

[LazyLion]

you were not oppressed and instead were beneficiary of others' oppression so it's very easy for you to sit on your high horse and pontificate and prescribe how exactly the weak being oppressed by the full might of the state should respond. You and other denialists live in cloud cuckoo-land, there's no element of reality in your outlook.

Sorry, but your little tedious whine here is rejected with contempt. You know absolutely nothing about me or my family and what we did and did not benefit from. And neither do you enjoy the privilege of an explanation either.

There is no justification for murder... ever. And you insult the memory of thousands (actually millions) of "oppressed" South Africans who also rejected murder as a solution.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

McBride was sentenced to death and spent time on death row, he was released from prison in 1992 after the conclusion that his acts were politically motivated

fahk me, someone phone up Janusz Waluś, he should never have gone to prison!?!

 

[ponder]

fahk me, someone phone up Janusz Waluś, he should never have gone to prison!?!

The one apparently was following higher up orders while the other wasn't, that's the only difference.

 

[rambo919]

I never disputed that the ANC and PAC did reprehensible things, I take issue with the idea that gets thrown around here that the Apartheid government were somehow above such things as targeted executions and the murder of innocent people ...

Though I don't disagree with you there is a big difference, the NP did it in secret and no one defends it unless.... let's not go there.

Letter bombs though is nothing in comparison to their bigger counter parts made SPECIFICALLY to target innocents and everyone defends them as part of the "glorious struggle". Both sides committed terrorism yes but the scale is tipped massively towards the revolutionaries in terms of actual atrocity. Even that would be fine would it not be for the continued defense as legitimate warfare but attack the NP actions for being worse somehow.

You cannot directly compare letter bombs with car bombs without being disingenuous, you don't seem to be doing that at least.

And then there is also the constant fighting and killing BETWEEN revolutionary factions, blacks have always killed more blacks than whites did. Myself though I don't sanction all their previous actions I have much more respect for the IFP than the ANC, they at least were/are not completely nuts. The more radical factions I have zero respect for.

 

[Lupus]

So, exactly the same as most of what the allies bombed during WW2.

It's all the same.

What you want to do is debate the end justifying the means, and leave emotion out of it.

Which is the same as what the Axis did? Or did you forget the Blitz? The bombing of Warsaw? Yes Dresden was pretty destructive and the allies didn't need to drop that many incendiary bombs.

 

[MidnightWizard]

The killing and cannibalising of Irish nun Sister Aidan Quinlan in the South African township of Duncan Village, East London, at the height of the African National Congress’s (ANC) 1952 Defiance Campaign, is an event that has long been difficult in the telling. Although widely reported in the media at the time, it has been largely downplayed in the historiography of that period. However, recent anniversaries have revived narratives of her death and invited considerations of what it means for South Africa today. This article seeks to extend that trajectory by providing an account of events surrounding her death, considering the way in which they have been recorded (or not recorded) in historical texts, and suggesting reasons for the silences. These reasons include sensitivities around the topic of cannibalism, reluctance to obscure the deaths of scores of other people who were shot by police that day, and fear of sullying the ANC’s heroic narratives of the liberation struggle, and of perpetuating racist stereotypes.

The Death that Dare(d) Not Speak its Name: The Killing of Sister Aidan Quinlan in the East London Riots of 1952

 

[pinball wizard]

Which is the same as what the Axis did? Or did you forget the Blitz? The bombing of Warsaw? Yes Dresden was pretty destructive and the allies didn't need to drop that many incendiary bombs.

Hiroshima? Nagasaki?

 

[Lupus]

Hiroshima? Nagasaki?

Tokyo? Combined more civilians were killed in that bombing than Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Bombing against Germany totalled 400k but both sides bombed the hell out of each other.

 

[Cray]

Though I don't disagree with you there is a big difference, the NP did it in secret and no one defends it unless.... let's not go there.

Letter bombs though is nothing in comparison to their bigger counter parts made SPECIFICALLY to target innocents
and everyone defends them as part of the "glorious struggle". Both sides committed terrorism yes but the scale is tipped massively towards the revolutionaries in terms of actual atrocity. Even that would be fine would it not be for the continued defense as legitimate warfare but attack the NP actions for being worse somehow.

You cannot directly compare letter bombs with car bombs without being disingenuous, you don't seem to be doing that at least.

The NP didn't need to act like terrorists within SA, they controlled the army and the police -outside SA borders is where they started to use bombs to hit targets in other countries...

In terms of bombings, yes the ANC relied on bigger and more indiscriminate devices (which horrifically claimed many innocent lives) - the SA government didn't need to bomb people within SA, they simply deployed the army and kicked people's doors in...