Watching the events of this past week, I can't help but feel a bit nauseated by so many mindlessly worshipping this Mandela figure as some sort of black Jesus. Apartheid was evil, I get it. No argument here. But it seems to me there were many forgotten characters in the battle against apartheid, less radical,morally superior - and lighter in skin tone, though not of consequence.
Mandela was an avowed communist in his early days. A marxist-leninist. Not explicitly after his imprisonment and fall of the soviet union, but his rhetoric and politics were a softer more easily digestible form of soviet communism. Mandela claimed to be a champion of human rights and democracy, yet accepted money from and paid lip service to dictators all over the globe. Castro, Gaddafi, Suharto, that dictator of Nigeria (?) Mugabe off the top of my head. His wife, Minnie, supported the practice of necklacing, wherein a tire is filled combustible fluid, placed around the neck of an enemy and ignited to cause an excruciating form of death. Mandela himself admitted to signing off on terrorist acts while in prison and never renounced violence, unlike MLK junior to whom he was unjustly compared. These facts and others have been sanitized from western media outlets, our politicans are afraid to say anything critical, out of fear rather than respect.
Now look at what has become to South Africa. The golden opportunity of apartheid-free South Africa has been a huge let down with every metric showing a reduction in quality of life. Even institutional racism, which was once directed by the government at blacks is now directed to whites in the form of radical affirmative action and expropriated farm land. Neighboring countries like Zimbabwe are even more extreme, with the government supporting violence against the white minority. So much for the 'rainbow nation'.
To me, Mandela is the saner second cousin of Hugo Chavez. Zuma is the Maduro idiotically presiding over the ruins of a once up-and-coming nation.
I am against apartheid and racism, as I'm sure everyone with an IQ high enough to be posting here is. Am I alone in not liking Mandela so much? Have I got any of the facts wrong?
-1kgcoffee
