[throwaway4666]

You'd be surprised at how popular Stalin seems to be in Russia and Central Asia countries. Forgot the link but I read that 45% of Russians have a positive opinion of him. Yes he did all those atrocities but more importantly he brought national pride. After all, he did win WW2 and turned the country into a world superpower that rivaled with the US for decades. As time passes the memories of the atrocities fade and the national pride grows. Just like the French praise Napoleon who led hundreds of thousands of young men to their deaths in ruinous wars, the British praise Churchill who orchestrated a famine that killed millions of Bengali people, Americans praise the slave-owning founding fathers, etc.

[ReticentVole]

Mao Zedong, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Mohammed, Nelson Mandela, all responsible for varying amounts of human death and suffering - yet revered or worshiped today.

[john4532452]

"Nelson Mandela" in the same line as "Genghis Khan". I am puzzled. That doesn't seem right. Citation Needed.

[hirundo]

Mandela's many years in prison were the result of his leadership of a "terrorist" organization that killed thousands, mostly fellow blacks, frequently in horrific ways. You're right that this was not on the scale of Genghis Khan's crimes. Yasser Arafat is a better comparison.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/africa/item/17106-...

[john4532452]

> killed thousands, mostly fellow blacks

Freedom is not free, that's a given.

Based on past experience in understanding other cultures as an outsider, i am pretty sure there is something else for disliking Mandela which can only be explained by a person from within who understands the different sections of the South Africa. Can someone shed light on this ? The above argument is very weak.