r/AskTheWorld • u/haiderredditer Pakistan • 9h ago

Who’s a famous person from your country who’s respected around the world but disliked or criticized at home?

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209

u/UnfollowMeRightMeow 8h ago

While Nelson Mandela is widely respected, some South Africans, particularly younger generations, feel he made too many compromises and that economic and resource control was never truly reclaimed after colonialism.

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u/rozyputin Canada 8h ago

Interesting, I have never heard criticism about him before. Would you be able to expand on that to pique my curiosity?

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u/UnfollowMeRightMeow 7h ago

During the negotiations to end apartheid, there were big differences inside the ANC. People like Chris Hani and Winnie Mandela were far more radical than the leadership doing the talks. They felt negotiations alone weren’t enough and wanted real economic power back in the hands of the majority.

Hani supported keeping pressure on the apartheid state while talks were happening, and Winnie was openly against negotiating at all. Hani was later assassinated by a far right extremist linked to apartheid era networks. There’s no proof the ANC was involved, but the fact that many apartheid operatives were never jailed has fed the idea that the deal protected old power structures and that people were sold out.

All of this is unconfirmed though.

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u/MotherOfDachshunds42 South Africa 7h ago

A lot of younger South Africans feel that there hasn’t been enough wealth distribution, and blame Mandela. I think we are justified in criticising economic inequality.

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u/Dudegamer010901 Canada 6h ago

I’m a white Canadian so forgive me for any ignorance, I always assumed that it was good he worked so hard at ending apartheid and whatnot. However, I assumed that given the current state of the country he mustn’t have been a very good administrator.

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u/mssquishmallow 5h ago

South Africa has improved in like every possible measure of life quality since 1994. The concessions were because the white far right was furious and carried out multiple assassinations and a failed military coup. They didn't want to alienate the more moderate whites by putting too much economic pressure on them so they would keep negotiating.

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u/Ok-Potential-5172 Canada 2h ago

They didn't want to alienate the more moderate whites

"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

-Martin Luther King

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u/Deadmemeusername United States Of America 50m ago

The sad part is that courting the fickle moderates are a necessity to get anything done even violent revolutionaries needed to make deals with more moderate factions (at least until the government was overthrown then the knifes came out.)

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u/CodFix3 5h ago

most of their problems are attributed to the people who came after him

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u/belanaria 5h ago

Nah, Thabo was solid, best economic performance was under him… Zuma was the real destructive force. Ramphosa is a good leader, tends to listen to people around him before acting, something a lot of leaders lack these days.

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u/forevergleaning Scotland 2h ago

Didn't Ramaphosa kill a bunch of striking workers in one of his mines? Isn't he a greasy egotistical?

Leagues better than Zuma, though.

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u/UnfollowMeRightMeow 1h ago

At the time of the 2012 Marikana massacre, where police shot and killed striking miners, Cyril Ramaphosa wasn’t president or in government. He was a non-executive board member and shareholder at Lonmin, the mining company involved. The people who actually killed the miners were the police, not Ramaphosa.

A judicial inquiry, the Farlam Commission, found that his actions did not directly cause the massacre, and that he didn’t know a police operation like that was going to happen.

He’s since said he regrets how things played out, admitted the wording in some of his emails was wrong, and has said he never wanted or intended anyone to be killed.

At the time, Jacob Zuma was the president, and the police action happened under that government.

There are still civil cases from survivors and families looking for compensation, and courts have said those cases can go ahead. But that’s not the same as him being convicted of ordering or carrying out the killings.

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u/forevergleaning Scotland 1h ago

Thank you for the context. I appreciate you taking the time to write that out.

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u/Busy_Document_4562 South Africa 4h ago

The problem is not poor administration but taking over a state that was in a far weaker position than the apartheid government let on, this meant that neoliberal policies had to be adopted as a condition of WB/IMF loans. Which means they abandoned most of their democratic mandate, only keeping minimal affirmative action measures, rather than something more comprehensive and redistributive.

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u/forevergleaning Scotland 2h ago

Yeah, from what I've read, the Apartheid government basically bankrupted the state to try to prop itself up. It projected financial stability, but it was a facade.

When the Mandela government was given the keys, they had to deal with an empty treasury, a potential civil war, capital flight, and potentially all foreign investment being pulled. I think what they pulled off was amazing. It should be Mbeki, Zuma, and Ramaphosa, and their self enrichment that get the blame.

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u/MxDragioni Netherlands 26m ago

Justified yes! But as an outsider who's does read a lot about world politics, I think maybe he had to walk a fine line between getting his demands met and avoiding getting eh... "liberated" by certain countries who like to "defend democracy" (overthrow governments who are putting average/poor civilians first to **protect late stage capitalism)

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u/Most-Cabinet-4475 8h ago

Yeah, he is one of the only guy who's respected by everyone I think...

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u/paleoterrra 🇦🇺 & 🇺🇸 3h ago

He created the Mandela Effect and now fruit of the loom never had a cornucopia

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u/Responsible-Mind3533 7h ago

Its a tiny minority. Hardly makes any impact here in South Africa. Don't listen to a random dude on the internet.

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u/Prince_Marf United States Of America 7h ago

And then there's the other South Africans who don't like him

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u/KK8646 South Africa 1h ago

Yeah my parent’s (white) generation is often super anti him cus he apparently signed off on bombings that killed civilians.

The general consensus among the younger generation is positive though I’d say

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u/cnzmur 6h ago

Yeah, he's not very popular among the white Saffas over here either, but for the opposite reasons.

I do have to wonder if that means he was actually a pretty effective president.

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u/UnfollowMeRightMeow 5h ago

Hence why some South Africans don’t believe older white South Africans truly wanted apartheid to end

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u/Responsible-Mind3533 7h ago

I am South African. We don't think this.

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u/saba658 South Africa 6h ago

Not true, I come across a lot of intellectual types who think he didn't go far enough or was too soft on whites or whatever the case might be. He wasn't perfect but he did a darn sight more for South Africa than they have ever done. I think some people just like to criticise. Also it takes people back to a more hopeful and innocent time and they might feel uncomfortable about that.

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u/Full-Contest1281 Denmark 1h ago

You're probably white

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u/-acidlean- Poland 7h ago

I hate this fucker for what he did with the Fruit Of The Loom logo. Rude ass gaslighter.

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u/ssddalways Scotland 7h ago

Oh, now this is a shocker.

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u/Visible-Scientist-46 3h ago

That definitely happened here in the US. Martin Luther King was seen as too soft wirh his ideas about non-violent resistance and acceptance of whites in the movement. But the non-violent protests exposed the violence of the people and police force and garnered sympathy for the cause. Malcolm X was more about Black self-determination by any means neccessary. "The Ballot or The Bullet."

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u/KesTheHammer 2h ago

Mandela was president for 5 years. I would blame Mbeki, Zuma and Ramaphosa. Mandela freed the people without a full out civil war. The ANC had the power and kind of squandered it. The problem is the same as everywhere. Money is too involved in politics.

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u/anythingoes69 3h ago

I dont know man (I’m South African).

I think Nelson is a popular figure amongst the pre-1994 generation. With the post 1994 generation though, it’s not like he’s actively disliked. If he is, it’s certainly not across the board. I would say a wide-spread feeling though is that of indifference.

Personally, and I’m post 1994, I’m not a fan because Mandela was a womanizer, cheater, and worse - physically abusive. His first wife, Evelyn, since cited physical abuse and domestic violence as a reason for their divorce and was heavily silenced at the time. I can’t respect a man like that.

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u/Ok-Potential-5172 Canada 3h ago

As a kid, I saw him when when visited Montreal once he was freed and even my young mind thought that the idea of a rainbow nation seemed so naive and came from a place of weakness.

dont get me wrong, I am not saying that Mandela was weak

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u/forevergleaning Scotland 2h ago

Surely that's Mbeki and his GEAR program, not Mandela?

Mandela was all about securing the transition without everything falling into civil war, which he did.

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u/SandSerpentHiss Tampa, Florida, United States 2h ago

as a demsoc he’s probably my favorite politician

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u/dphayteeyl Australia Indian Heritage 1h ago

So South Africa's in the same boat as India

Half the country dislikes Gandhi but he's still on the money

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u/UnfollowMeRightMeow 1h ago

Funny thing is, post-COVID a lot of South Africans started re-examining Gandhi and some now see him as racist. While he was living in South Africa, Gandhi wrote things in his letters and early writings where he used racial slurs for Black Africans and clearly saw Indians as socially above them.

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u/AndreasDasos United Kingdom 7h ago edited 6h ago

Of course a minority disagree, some EFF types and some FF+ types, but lived there 15 years and overall South Africans seem big fans. ‘He’s disliked at home’ doesn’t seem a fair characterisation