very old black man who used to be a terrorist dies

[HairOfTheDog]

I did some reading about him last night after seeing OP refer to him as a terrorist. That's when I discovered he had been on the terrorist watch list until 2008. Much of what I read was news to me. I really never knew how unfavorably he was looked upon by some high profile people.

Oh, yeah.

Plenty of western leaders loved the hell out of the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Ferdinand Marcos...as long as they were furthering our best interests in their countries and collaborating against mutual enemies with us behind the scenes.

But, when their own people rose against them and started publicly making substantiated allegations of widespread abuse which gained attention in the global media and weakened their leaderhships, they became "tyrants" or "terrorists". Of course, those western leaders who'd supported them had no idea about their former allies' domestic policies. No idea.

Mandela went from terrorist to hero for some of those same western countries and leaders as the philosophies and practices of apartheid, Mandela's object of protest, became the subject of greater global awareness and opposition.