July 11, 2008
ON an overcast day in London's Hyde Park, dozens of the world's most
famous glitterati recently came together to join with a crowd of
50,000 adoring fans to shower Nelson Mandela with their love and
unquestioning devotion on his 90th birthday.
When presidents, prime ministers and Hollywood superstars line up to
wish you happy birthday, and when your bash is hosted by superhero
Will Smith, you know you've reached the very zenith of international
recognition and are already inscribed in the annals of hagiography.
There are very few international statesmen or women as famous as
Mandela. Since his time in prison and his subsequent presidency of
South Africa, he has superceded Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa and
pope John Paul II as the moral conscience of the world. All Mandela
has to do is to speak out against something he perceives as evil or
wrong, and it immediately becomes holy writ for journalists,
politicians and tens of millions of idolising disciples who see him as
a rock of integrity standing firm against a tidal wave of straw men.
While the rock concert was in full swing, I received an email from a
South African friend, somebody who has long been mystified by the
international reverence of Mandela.
"Why," my friend wrote, "are these kids cheering for him and treating
him like some messiah? Don't they know his history, that he was an
advocate of violence and sat idly by while his organisation committed
murder and torture?"
It's remarkable how time can ameliorate history. What the congregation
rocking in Hyde Park probably didn't know was that long before most of
them were born, Mandela was one of the leaders of the African National
Congress, who created an armed wing called the Umkhonto we Sizwe or
Spear of the Nation, which was dedicated to bombing civilian,
industrial, military and government targets. South Africa's Truth and
Reconciliation Commission has accused it of torture and executions
without due process.
And far from being a prisoner of conscience during his time as inmate
46664, Mandela was jailed for advocating the violent overthrow of the
government. In his quarter of a century in prison, Mandela refused to
publicly renounce terrorism as a weapon.
The universal hatred of the apartheid regime in white South Africa has
blinded us to the reality of the acts of murder, torture and terrorism
committed by the Spear of the Nation, which Mandela and his colleagues
presided over in their leadership of the ANC. This helps to explain
why, until the beginning of July 2008, Mandela was still on the US
list of terrorists.
Of course, it's easy to understand why Mandela is so revered. He's the
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and in the past four decades has
been awarded more than 100 prizes, citations and degrees. Nor should
his accomplishments since being released from his prison be
diminished.
More than any other, he is the leader credited with bringing down the
hated and racist apartheid regime.
But before he is accorded the same Mahatma status as Gandhi, who
peacefully reclaimed India from the British and a man whom Mandela
says was his guiding light and inspiration, it's important to examine
his record as a freedom fighter. What it shows is that like so many
black Africans fighting the evil of apartheid or colonialism, he has a
record of advocating and condoning violence.
During his presidency of South Africa, he deliberately courted leaders
of nations who abuse the human rights of their citizens. It's by
examining his often overlooked past that Mandela is revealed as
anything but a saint. And it's all too tempting to forgive him and his
colleagues their excesses because they were fighting a brutal and
oppressive white racist regime that treated blacks as subhuman.
But were we to justify the means in light of the end result, then we
would have to condone every act of terrorism and the carnage of every
freedom fighter's atrocity. Gandhi showed the world that non-violent
non-co-operation is a far deadlier weapon than bombs and bullets.
Since he stepped down from the leadership of a nation with rising
tides of crime and infection, his legacy can be divided between the
man who ended white racist rule and the failed leader who left South
Africa far worse off than when he was elected.
Yet he is still elevated to near sainthood by a largely unquestioning
West, an icon carried aloft on the idealism of the young and the
shoulders of those who hate racism.
Because of the reverence in which he is held, few in the media ask him
why it is that he has made a profession of befriending and supporting
those dictators who are the declared enemies of the West.
During his time as president, Mandela was a strong supporter of
Uganda's insane dictator Idi Amin, of Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat, of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, of Hafez al-Assad of Syria,
of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, of Fidel Castro of Cuba, of the
theocratic leaders of Iran, and many other dictators. This may be
viewed as guilt by association, but when he became president and
apartheid was demolished as an instrument of government, Mandela
rarely publicly acknowledged that it was the sanctions and
disinvestment by Western governments and corporations, and the voices
of men and women of conscience in the West, who had been largely
responsible for the overthrow of white rule.
Yet despite his nation's debt to America, Europe and nations that went
out of their way to oppose apartheid, Mandela has been hugely critical
of the West, associating instead with its enemies.
It's a pity that so few people looked beyond the iconic image when he
emerged from incarceration and questioned Mandela's actions and
principles. If they had they done so, it's likely that his 90th
birthday flock would have been much smaller.
Alan Gold is an author and was a delegate to the UN World Conference
Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.
Source: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24001171-17062,00.html
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