Trump predictably echoed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who expressed his at the “horrific, antisemitic” act. Time magazine promptly published a by Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt with the title: “The D.C. Jewish Museum Shooting Was Inevitable. The Time to Act on Antisemitism is Now.”

For Greenblatt, this “doesn’t come as a surprise” because the suspect was allegedly involved with “a range of radical causes.” Well ahead of the FBI,  ADL connected “Rodriguez, with a high degree of certainty, to a manifesto with the heading ‘Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home.’ They concluded ‘this was targeted antisemitism.’”

ADL draws its conclusion on the basis of “slogans commonly used by anti-Israel activists, particularly in more extreme, militant spaces“ such as “time to escalate.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Anti-Israel:

1. An increasingly common and historically comprehensible position of political opposition based on certain individuals’ moral condemnation of the extreme practice of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide practiced by the state of Israel.
2. A term equated with “antisemitic” by the Israeli government — but also by many in the US, Germany, the UK and elsewhere in the West — who see no problem with apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide and even mass starvation so long as it is practiced by the Jewish state.

Contextual note

Policing the English language to unearth antisemitic dog whistles has become an art form that appears to be evolving, perhaps even escalating. It’s good to know that all kinds of ordinary English words, like “escalate” may be cited as proof of deep-seated prejudices. Nevertheless, even in making this less than credible statement the ADL article proves more level-headed than Greenblatt when it correctly identifies these people as being “anti-Israel activists” without terming them antisemitic.

Among all nations, Israel possesses the exclusive privilege of being able to equate simple criticism — even of its most extreme, illegal and inhuman behavior — as a call for the total suppression of its people. Furthermore, it can reliably count on the president of the United States, whatever the party in power, and journals like Time to complacently echo its formulaic complaint.

Even before the FBI, ADL was the first to authenticate Rodriguez’s manifesto in which the alleged murderer recalled the facts that justify calling Israel’s action genocide. He equally expressed his frustration at the difficulty of persuading governments, media and ordinary people of the urgency of ending the slaughter. This makes it clear that this sacrifice of two lives is not about hating Jews as Jews (the classic definition of antisemitism). Instead, Rodriguez proclaims it as taking a historical stance on an ongoing catastrophe. In the manifesto, he cites the case of Aaron Bushnell whose violent crime, a public , was equally designed to protest Israel’s war on Gaza.

The ADL article correctly identified Rodriguez as “anti-Israel” before moving on to evoke what US politicians prefer to identify as the real problem: American antisemitism. As is now common practice, the article cites statistics such as the “1,702 antisemitic incidents in 2024.” It doesn’t distinguish between hatred of genocide and hatred of Jews.

Time considers the shooting “inevitable” not because of the emotion stoked by livestreamed genocide but by statistics concerning Jewish victims of violence. Who can deny antisemitism exists and has existed for a long time? It’s an eternal presence, like a wailing wall one can lean on. In comparison, “the Palestinian problem” will pass and the civilized (and mostly white) world will forget that it was ever there. Whereas antisemitism — to everyone’s relief — will always be at our side, ready to mobilize in case of ideological need.

Historical note

On a dedicated, the US State Department has posted “a , along with examples, of antisemitism since 2010.” The basic definition contains five different points. Only the last leaves us bemused: “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interest of their own nations.” This formulation violates the spirit and letter of the Constitution’s celebrated First Amendment. If it said, “accusing all Jewish citizens of systematically being more loyal…” it would become credible. But many people, wherever they live, may feel more loyal to another cause, clan, belief system or nation than to the government that has issued their passport. The First Amendment’s freedom of speech includes freedom to accuse other people of wrongdoing. If the accusation is false, it would be judged slander, not general prejudice.

The linguistic and logical errors in the State Department’s definition continue in the subsection labeled, “Demonize Israel.” It includes the crime labeled: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” Comparisons are common rhetorical devices that permit reasoned speech and reflective dialogue to refine our understanding of complex facts. It is illogical to suppose that one group of people may not, at some point, consciously or unconsciously, reproduce the behavior of another group of people. Explicitly excluding certain comparisons — whether true, partially true or false — is a violation of free speech.

Following the murders in Washington, Al Jazeera’s featured a discussion between three experts on the topic: “Does criticizing Israel amount to antisemitism?” Phyllis Bennis, a Jewish American writer and activist joined Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist, and Saba-Nur Cheema, a German political scientist of Pakistani Muslim heritage, to examine the significance of Rodriguez’s crime.

Bennis and Levy agreed on the obvious fact that Rodriguez, much like Bushnell, was making a personal statement, with no accomplices or support. He did so in defense of what he felt were victims of radical injustice perpetrated by a violent state. According to Bennis and Levy, Rodriguez’s act elicited no approval and only condemnation from pro-Palestinian movements.

Cheema alone sought to identify Rodriguez’s act as part of a collective strategy, which the other panelists emphatically denied. But Cheema went further. Over the protests of her two Jewish colleagues, she asserted, as if it was axiomatic, that Rodriguez’s anti-Zionism had to be deemed antisemitism. When the others reminded her of the genocidal context to explain why Israel’s critics focus on the behavior of the government and not on the identity of the people, she defensively replied, “We must resist the temptation to contextualize these killings.” Strongly held irrational beliefs often distrust context.

The best argument Cheema could muster was to assert that criticism of Israel is “a very clear way of antisemitism nowadays.” This supposedly means that antisemitism is a kind of default value, a background issue that simply looks for random occasions to express itself. Historical reality can then be written off as nothing more than a convenient pretext to do what Time called the “inevitable.”

After floundering a bit further, Cheema ends up contradicting her earlier contention when she says, “it’s the context we need to understand.” By this, she appears to believe that antisemitism from the past is the only context to take into account. It trumps manifest genocide taking place in the present.

Levy far more realistically points out that his nation’s “biggest success story” was “labelling criticism of Israel as antisemitism.” He castigates the cynicism of those who draw antisemitism out of their holster to shoot the term antisemitic at them as soon as they criticize the Israeli government.

This was a strange spectacle. A German of Pakistani Muslim origin attempting to school an Israeli and American Jew on the meaning of antisemitism. The fact is that many Jews in Israel, Europe and the US have no problem recognizing the terrifying reality of Israel’s political decisions and acts. In contrast, the German government and most “respectable” Germans have not only overidentified with Israel, which they see as a form of required penance for the trauma of their nation’s past crimes, their government has now endorsed a formal policy of against anyone, including journalists and noted experts, who deviate from the official unconditional approval of Israel’s acts.

Though this was never mentioned in the discussion, Cheema is married to Israeli-German educator and writer . Mendel has quite understandably been active as a prominent public figure keen on denouncing the very real right-wing antisemitism that has been expanding in Germany in recent years. But suggesting any kind of common ground between Germany’s own neo-Nazi antisemitism and the principled criticism of Israel by those, including Bushnell and Rodriguez, who engage in extreme acts out of despair in the face of genocide, is precisely the kind of dangerously abusive comparison the State Department condemns with regard to Israel and the Nazi regime. Israel and Adolf Hitler’s Germany do have something in common, as well as much that differentiates them. Bushnell and Rodriguez, for all the violence of their acts, have nothing in common with right-wing German neo-Nazis.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Murder in DC and the Grammar of Guilt appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Given the central role the United States has played in global politics since the end of World War II, we observers of history need to be regularly reminded of the lens through which the US foreign policy establishment sees the world. Every lens magnifies some elements and distorts others. A key part of 51�Թ�’s vocation is not only to expose its readers and contributors to the effects of the different lenses, but also to develop our collective understanding of how those lenses reflect and refract our perception of global reality. Mine is obviously very different from Gary’s or the State Department’s.

In a piece we published earlier this month, with the title, “The Middle East 2025: The Good, the Bad and the Tragically Ugly,” Gary offered us a wide-ranging review of the key dramas unfolding across the Middle East, North Africa and West Asia. The former diplomat sounded a note of guarded optimism when he observed that “the region remains as full of opportunity as it is fraught with external and internal political tension and conflict.” His dominant tone, however, is pessimistic: “Some of the region’s struggles are as far from resolution as they’ve ever been.”

Returning to the Beltway lens, US politicians possess a set of shared ideals, which they wield as if they were holding in their hand the gavel of universal justice. “Democracy” and “human rights” are the prominent concepts that permit State Department officials and pundits alike to categorize other nations and groups as being either “on the right side of history” or the wrong side. An extreme degree of wrongness places them in an “axis of evil.” Less radically, Gary calls the evildoers “the region’s troublemakers” and identifies them as: “Iran, Russia and the Islamic State.”

But all is not well even among those who are spared the epithet of troublemaker or wheel on the axis of evil. Summing up a problem that he sees as broadly undermining democratic governance throughout the Middle East, Gary offers us this truism: “Publics remain dissatisfied with their governments, almost none of which are accountable to their people.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

��Accountable to the people:

The basic principle of democracy that founds its theoretical moral legitimacy; also, the principle that can conveniently be discarded by ensuring that the kinds of people who are elected will never be held accountable for the worst collective decisions they irresponsibly make, including the overthrow of democratic leaders or foreign countries, waging and funding illegal wars and supporting genocide.

Contextual note

Gary finds one occasion to trot out the predictable bromide identifying Israel as “the Middle East’s lone democracy.” In his mind, it’s clear that if Israel is a democracy, it must be “accountable to the people.” Gary reminds us, however, that in practice, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is accountable not to the people as a whole (including Palestinians), nor even to the Jews, but to “right-wing factions” that now have “unprecedented influence in the Knesset.”

Israel’s proclaimed status as “lone democracy” deflects attention from the easily observed fact that it is an apartheid state openly conducting ethnic cleansing and systematic genocide. I agree that like “democracy” itself, those accusatory epithets are only “words,” which means they are “debatable,” designed, some will say, to “confuse the issue.”

In the nation’s moral system, thanks to the dogma of the first amendment of the US constitution, speech is free; words demand no accountability. Acts do, but for that accountability to be applied we must agree on the meaning of the words. The fact that observed acts can be dismissed as “mere words” brings home the real message: that accountability will always be elusive, especially when attempting to accuse a “lone democracy.”

Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide have an unquestionably negative connotation. That may explain why in an article about the current state of play in the Middle East, Gary never alludes to them. Instead, like Monty Python, he looks at “the bright side of life” in Israel. “Israel’s superior military prowess, technology, intelligence and firepower,” he tells us, “paired with indispensable support from America produced positive results across the region.”

It continues as Gary finds the persuasive words to make us believe. “For now, however, the ongoing negotiations between Tehran and Washington are an unambiguous good.” Really, Gary, I have to stop you there. Unambiguous? Just before this we learn that “it is almost inevitable that Israel, with the likely assistance of the US, will attack the Islamic Republic.” In a short space we jump from “unambiguous good” to “inevitable” transcontinental war! In such a case, I wonder if the survival of humanity hasn’t itself become a highly ambiguous proposition.

This is where the question of whether governments are effectively “accountable to their people” arises. We may legitimately wonder whether the problem is confined, as Gary seems to suggest, to the Middle East. Some would claim there’s a serious problem of accountability within the US itself, the beacon of democracy. It may soon be time for some new populist leader to stand up and campaign on the slogan, “Make America Accountable Again.”

Historical note

After noting that the strength of “Iran has been significantly diminished while that of another, Israel, has been elevated,” Gary reveals how the groupthink at the State Department and among US allies functions, especially when applied to judging the positive or negative features of unfolding events. “From the perspective of the West and its moderate Arab allies, all of this is good news.”

The keyword here is “moderate,” an epithet that has been routinely applied not only to autocratic regimes allied to the US but also to groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria and elsewhere in the region. As economist Jeffrey Sachs recently, the CIA’s operation Timber Sycamore, ordered by President Barack Obama, was launched to arm and train Syrian rebel groups fighting against dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime during the Syrian Civil War. Its principal objective consisted of aiding extremist, jihadist factions opposed to Assad. Syria’s current leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who overthrew the Assad regime last November, historically worked for both al-Qaeda and ISIS. Thanks to Timber Sycamore, those officially designated terrorists received indirect support from the US, who conveniently referred to the jihadist groups it supported as “moderate rebels.”

Every US regime has had to play a difficult and decidedly ambiguous role concerning the sides to back in recent wars in multiple Middle East countries. Gary respects that ambiguity, which has typically consisted of US presidents, independently of their party affiliation, aligning with every position taken by Israel while at the same time officially endorsing the idea, or vaguely formulated intention, of implementing a two-state solution. It’s something of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation, in which the good doctor attempts to play the role of an honest broker and the alter ego becomes an accomplice in atrocities. Gary dutifully reminds us that “Israel and Netanyahu bear their own share of the responsibility.” But at the same time, he studiously avoids mentioning the object of that responsibility: genocide or, at the very least, massive and persistent war crimes. Every recent State Department has done the same.

And he sticks to the script concerning the desired outcome with this undoubtedly accurate assertion: “Accepting the inevitability of a Palestinian state, as more than 100 foreign governments already have, would dramatically alter the political landscape, positioning Hamas and its extremist supporters as the enemies of peace.”

The real paradox — to the point of manifest absurdity — lies in the fact that the US has consistently used its veto at the UN Security Council to oppose every proposed resolution to grant statehood to Palestine. There’s no sign that that is likely to change under President Donald Trump.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Unintended Truth and Ambiguity in the Middle East’s Hall of Mirrors appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Plaut then goes on to explain the rise of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1912 as a unifying force for black South Africans against the increasingly oppressive white regime. Key figures like Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo emerged, advocating for more radical tactics and forming alliances with the . 

The 1960 Sharpeville massacre in which police fired at unarmed protestors after a stray shot from the crowd fired up resistance to the apartheid regime. Many ANC leaders opted for armed resistance, which was utterly ineffectual but led to a crackdown by the apartheid regime. It banned the ANC and jailed its leaders.

After a few quiet years, the 1970s saw a resurgence of resistance, with white students, including Plaut, supporting the formation of labor unions and the United Democratic Front. These organizations, along with international pressure and the ANC’s armed struggle, contributed to the eventual downfall of apartheid. However, the ANC’s tendency to consolidate power and control other organizations came to the fore, raising concerns about its commitment to truly democratic principles.

To its credit, the ANC represented all ethnicities and stood for equality for all. It opposed discrimination and championed democracy. The post-apartheid South Africa has had many challenges, but the values of democracy, rule of law and freedom of expression run strong. The history of a prolonged independence struggle against colonialism makes South Africa resilient and gives us reason for optimism regarding the future.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Making Sense of South Africa’s Rich History appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Who can forget that Jacob Zuma, the former president, faces of corruption, fraud, money-laundering and racketeering charges but is yet to be tried in court? Instead, the ANC has finally this week that the party lied to parliament when it described a publicly-funded swimming pool at Zuma’s private villa as a “fire pool” installed as a safety feature!

This year’s election will be tougher for the ANC than the earlier ones. Most recent shows that the party will get fewer than 50% of the votes. In South Africa’s proportional representation system, this means that the ANC will have to look for allies to continue governing. One outlier poll suggests that the ANC’s vote share would fall to . 

Rural realities and why the ANC pitch resonates

The black African population, upon which the ANC relies, still turns out and votes for the party, particularly in the rural areas. Under apartheid, the countryside, termed “homelands” or “Bantustans” were dumping grounds for black Africans. They could only legally leave these arrears if they could get one of the rare tightly-controlled permits. Today no such restrictions apply and there has been a migration to the cities. Yet the rural areas are still home to a third of the . 

It is here that the people still vote for the ANC in huge numbers. They have not forgotten the party that led the fight to liberate them from apartheid. The ANC-led government also brought electricity to remote areas of the country, built homes across hillsides and, above all, provided them with social security benefits. Entire families, often unable to find work, came to rely on the small, but vital payments to family members who are disabled or retired. 

The maximum monthly stands at 2 090 rand per month. That is just $122, but it keeps whole families from destitution. Maintaining this pension is vital and the ANC understands this well.

When elections come around, the ANC plays to all its strengths. The party still derives legitimacy from its decades-long opposition to the apartheid government and its previous great leaders, especially Nelson Mandela. However, the ANC’s primary appeal is simple: it warns the poor that they will lose their social security if another party comes to power. This is untrue but truth no longer matters to the ANC in its pursuit of power.

The ANC has employed this cynical tactic over several elections. A by the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Development in Africa (CSDA) carried out in the run-up to the 2014 election indicated that just under half of voters were not aware that the social grants that they received were theirs by right. 

The centre’s director, Leila Patel, said the finding was “worrying” as it meant that these voters — 49% of the respondents — were not aware of their rights. The potential for political abuse is large, given that just under 16-million grant beneficiaries are receiving social grants amounting to R121bn this year. Agriculture MEC [Member of the Executive Council – provincial Minister] in KwaZulu-Natal, Meshack Radebe, for example, said in April that “those who receive grants and are voting for the opposition are stealing from the government”. He said that those who voted for another party should “stay away from the grant”, as if social grants were gifts from the ruling party. In fact, these grants are funded by taxes in order for the government to meet its constitutional obligation to provide social protection.

Summarising , Professor Yoland Sadie described the role of social grants in deciding voter behaviour as important, possibly decisive.  

…social grants can provide an incentive for people to vote for the ANC, since a large proportion of grant-holders who support the party do not think that “they will continue receiving the grant when a new party comes to power.” A majority of respondents also agreed ‘that they would vote for a party that provides social grants’. Therefore, in a situation where one party has dominated the electoral scene for such a long time, and without having the experience of other parties being in power, it is difficult for voters to ‘know’ whether these benefits will continue under a different party in power – particularly if the official opposition has the legacy of being a “White” party.

Opposition tactics in 2024

The electorate has no shortage of parties to choose from in these elections. There will be more than 100 new political parties on the ballot, including ActionSA, the Patriotic Alliance, Rise Mzanzi. For the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance [DA], this will pose a challenge. The DA has its roots in the white, Progressive Party. For many years it fought apartheid with its sole Member of Parliament, putting up doughty resistance to racist legislation. Bitterly attacked by the government for her stand, she won widespread international appreciation for her performance from 1961-1974.

Since the end of apartheid, the DA has gone through several leaders, some of them black. Today is leader of the party and, officially, of the opposition. As a white politician he can (and is) dismissed as representing an ethnic minority. 

The DA has made no secret that it is organising a coalition of opposition parties to challenge the ANC. What Steenhuisen calls the “moonshot pact.”  The ANC has used this to suggest to the electorate that, if elected, the DA will return to the policies of apartheid. ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe hinted as much when he Steenhuisen of organising “apartheid parties” to remove the ANC from power. “Steenhuisen is trying the impossible. He’s trying to organise all apartheid parties and parties of Bantustans to form a group that will defeat the ANC,” Mantashe said.

To resist these allegations the DA has now hit back. It is targeting the issue of benefits and grants, using a Tweet.

Steenhuisen is making a well targeted pitch. All South Africans know that their electricity supply has collapsed, the police seldom answer calls for help and unemployment has hit families hard. Will this pitch erode the ANC vote among key constituencies, including the rural communities? It is too early to tell.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Why South Africa’s Poor Vote for the Now Corrupt ANC appeared first on 51�Թ�.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas crossed the Gaza–Israel border and brutally killed 1,200 people. Israel has responded with an assault on Gaza, leveling many buildings and killing 16,000 people so far. The fighting has displaced the great majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million population.

The war has been intensely polarizing, sparking a war of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli narratives and demonstrations in capitals across the globe.

51�Թ�’s Editor-in-Chief Atul Singh has just returned from London. There, he saw several demonstrations, with tens of thousands marching in favor of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli activists are also fighting a poster war in this historic city, tearing down one another’s leaflets even in posh neighborhoods like Hampstead. Within the center-left Labour Party, party leader Sir Keir Starmer experienced a full-scale revolt from pro-Palestinian members of parliament because of his refusal to call for a ceasefire.

From Amsterdam to Berlin, Stockholm, Rome and Madrid, this divide runs deep. Most Muslim immigrants are pro-Palestine while many rightwing Europeans are pro-Israel and anti-Muslim. In fact, Dutch voters gave anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders’s party the most seats in the November 22 elections.

Tensions are sky-high in the US, too. On November 25, a man shot three Palestinian youths in Vermont, paralyzing one of them. There have been shouting matches on Ivy League campuses. A Harvard professor even told Singh that the October 7 “needed” to happen because of the Israeli blockade.

Why is this war so polarizing? It’s the demographics

Israel has long since lost the perception war both in the West and in the Middle East. Sympathy, naturally, goes to the weak. The world can see that Israel has a powerful army and enjoys economic prosperity. Meanwhile, Gaza is tiny, intensely overcrowded and poor.

Of course, Arab and Muslim nations naturally sympathize with their ethnic and religious brethren in Gaza. However, Western societies now have much larger Arab and Muslim populations too. Gone are the days when Jews far outnumbered Muslims, for example, in the United States. So these nations no longer automatically look at Palestine from a Jewish perspective. They now have a more fragmented perspective. So, there are many more Americans who are ready to challenge Israel.

Immigration has brought in cultural and civilizational divides that were once foreign to the West. In the UK, Muslims and Hindus line up against each other politically. Muslims largely vote for Labour and Hindus vote for the Tories.

People identify more viscerally with others who look like them, speak their mother tongue or share their religion. Indeed, religion can often be the most powerful motivator of all. The founder of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud, thought that the sex drive was the basic motivator of human behavior, but history teaches otherwise. Nearly every nation, especially in Europe, has been riven by religious war, sometimes for hundreds of years. Religion captures the values and identities that human beings hold most dear, and people are willing to fight, die and indeed kill for that.

So, it is easy to understand how feelings over the war in Gaza would have been so high, even if Hamas’s October 7 attack were not so brutal or Israel’s response so destructive.

Divides between the old and young

In addition to the religious divide, there is also a generational one. In the West, young people increasingly perceive Israel as an apartheid state. Youth activists on college campuses and elsewhere have been vocal in supporting Palestinian statehood.

This is a view not shared by their parents. This generation is largely Baby Boomers, who were born and raised in the aftermath of World War II. The Holocaust is a much fresher memory for Baby Boomers. They remember how 6 million of Europe’s Jews were slaughtered and how many of Jewish survivors subsequently fled to Israel. So, they feel reflexive sympathy for the Jewish state. Likewise, anti-Jewish rhetoric from Hamas strongly reminds them of the Nazis.

On the other hand, young people are less likely to look at the situation from a postwar perspective. Contemporary race relations, consciousness of the oppression of minorities and the legacy of colonialism shape the lens through which they view Palestine. So, when they look at Palestine, they see an oppressed, brown minority being hemmed in by a rich, ethnically white European nation. In their eyes, the Jewish state is much stronger than the Palestinians and is gradually annexing more and more Palestinian lands. This is clearly the behavior of a colonizer.

Generational shifts cut both ways though. Ironically, colonial awareness has gone down in India at the same time that it has gone up in the West. In the 20th century, India was a young nation and an ex-colony. It had close ties with the Soviet Union and followed a socialist policy at home. Indians saw the US, UK and Israel as colonial oppressors, and sympathized with Palestine as a fellow colony. 

Today, although India is still officially a socialist country, the memory of colonialism has faded for many young people. Now, India is a swiftly developing and confident nation. Indians admire and want to emulate Israel, which has constructed a vibrant economy with technological prowess and entrepreneurial grit.

The Indian National Congress party represents the older, post-colonial mindset. Congress was once the dominant party of India. Currently, it is the opposition. Congress will not even condemn Hamas because it is afraid of losing the Muslim vote. Like the West, India is also deeply divided over Palestine.

[ wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Exclusive: Israel-Hamas War Divides Societies in the West appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The first is 1.2 trillion rand ($85 billion). It is the estimate of how much money has been lost to corruption. The government’s commission, chaired by Justice Ray Zondo, has been unearthing corruption on an industrial scale.

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Nelson Mandela himself pointed to this scourge back in 2001, when he : “Little did we suspect that our own people, when they got a chance, would be as corrupt as the apartheid regime. That is one of the things that has really hurt us.”

Yet the graft revealed by Zondo has been eyewatering. This is how The Washington Post the key finding: “[G]raft and mismanagement reached new heights during the 2009-2018 presidency of Jacob Zuma. While details remain murky, observers estimate that some 1.2 trillion rand ($85 billion) was plundered from government coffers during Zuma’s tenure.”

This is a sum that no middle-income country can afford to squander. Many hoped that President Cyril Ramaphosa could rectify the situation, but the glacial pace of his reforms has disappointed many who believed in him.

The other figure is 75%. It is the percentage of youths who are . While the ANC, and the well-connected elite that run the government, help themselves to taxpayers’ cash at will, the young languish without jobs.

Little surprise that the ANC’s appeal is fading. The party fewer than half all votes for the first time when the municipal elections were held in November last year.

Racial Classification in South Africa

Bad as this tale is, at least one could assure friends that state-enforced racial classification is a thing of the past. Gone is the notorious apartheid system that divided every man, woman and child into four racial : “African,” “Indian,” “colored,” “white.” One might have assumed that this madness was scrapped when white rule was eliminated in 1994 — or so one might have thought. Yet every South African is still racially classified by law.

Take one case. Anyone wanting to lease a state farm in August 2021 would be that: “Applicants must be Africans, Indians or Coloureds who are South African citizens. ‘Africans’ in this context includes persons from the first nations of South Africa.” No “white” South African — no matter how impoverished — would have the right to apply. Poverty is not a criterion; only race is considered. Even young men and women born years after the end of apartheid are excluded.

A complex system known as “broad-based black economic empowerment” (BBBEE) was introduced. Every South African is racially categorized and a system of incentives is applied across government and the private sector. White men face the greatest discrimination, African women the least.

Here is an example of how it in one sector. The Amended Marketing, Advertising and Communications Sector Code of 1 April 2016 specifies a black ownership “target of 45% (30% is reserved for black women ownership) which should be achieved as of 31 March 2018. The 45% black ownership target is higher than the 25% target of the Generic Code.” To win tenders or contracts, all enterprises must comply with the regulations.

Race Hate

At the same time, South Africa’s ethnic minorities face racial abuse and racial threats unchecked by the state. The radical populist Julius Malema made singing “Kill the Boers” a trademark of his rallies. In this context, the term “Boer,” or farmer, is about as toxic as the n-word is in the American South.

Malema is now on trial. Yet far from the state prosecuting him for stirring up race hate (a crime in South Africa), it was to an Afrikaans trade union to take him to court. Asked whether he would call for whites to be killed, all Malema say was that, “we are not calling for the slaughtering of white people … at least for now.”

The trial has had to be postponed because the prosecutor was so fearful of being ladled a “racist” for bringing the case that she .

Nor are whites Malema’s only target. Malema has South African “Indians” as an ethnic group, accusing them of failing to treat their African employees fairly. “Indians are worse than Afrikaners,” he in 2017. In another context, he to Indians as “coolies” — possibly the most derogatory term he might have used.  Yet the state fails to prosecute him.

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One final example. When President Ramaphosa was asked to pick the country’s next chief justice, the public some 500 names. The final four were Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, President of the Supreme Court of Appeal Mandisa Maya, Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo, and Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. All are fine legal minds. Not one of them is from among the country’s ethnic minorities.

This, despite the fact that some of the most eminent lawyers South Africa ever produced, who fought racial discrimination for years were not African. Men like George Bizos, Joel Joffe, Sydney Kentridge, Ismail Ayob, Edwin Cameron and Bram Fischer would probably not be selected today. Even Arthur Chaskalson, who defended the ANC at the Rivonia trial of 1963 and was chief justice of South Africa from 2001 to 2005, would probably be excluded.

Fighting Back

Glen Snyman — himself a “colored” or a mixed-race South African — has founded People Against Racial Classification to campaign against discrimination. “The government and private sector should deliver to all South Africans equally and not discriminate on identity,” he .

But racial classification has its supporters. Kganki Matabane, who heads the Black Business Council, that even though “democratic rule is nearly 27 years old, it is still too soon to ditch the old categories,” the BBC reports. “We need to ask: Have we managed to correct those imbalances? If we have not, which is the case — if you look at the top 100 Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies, 75% or more of the CEOs are white males — then we have to continue with them.”

The ANC’s most celebrated document was the Freedom Charter of 1955. It was the statement of core principles of the ANC and its allies and memorably promised that: “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.” With South Africa’s ethnic minorities continuing to face racial discrimination and exclusion from top jobs in government and even in the private sector, it is a promise more honored in the breach than the observance.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The courtroom in Jerusalem was small with whitewashed walls and a few simple, uncomfortable wooden benches. The air conditioner didn’t work well, so the room was either too cold or not cool enough. The atmosphere was very causal. No one announced or stood when the judge entered. The prosecution and the defense council were too busy with their papers, and the defendants—me among them—were caught by surprise as the door to his chambers opened and the judge entered and sat in his chair.

Under the circumstances, the whole thing seemed a waste of time. There I was, along with two other defendants, charged with participating in disturbances in a protest in the village of Nabi Saleh in the West Bank in 2012. Considering that during the month of October, armed Israeli vigilantes and soldiers have been killing and injuring young Palestinians wholesale and getting away with it, our trial seemed beyond petty—it was stupid.

The main witness for the prosecution was Yousef Nasser el-Din, a Palestinian Druze collaborator who serves as an officer in the Israeli Border Guards, or “Magav.” He is tall and fit-looking, with handsome features. He came wearing the distinctive olive green uniform of the Border Guards and he was carrying a loaded pistol on his belt.

Officer Nasser el-Din told the judge about the “Tsambar” hill where we were gathered. I had never heard this term prior to the trial; it is a Hebrew acronym that stands for “burning tires.” According to him, we stood on that hill, which the name suggests is used to roll burning tires down onto the main road, and onto advancing soldiers. The mob was calling out slogans in Arabic that were meant to incite for violence. “I understand and speak the Arabic language,” he reminded the court.

By the time it was my turn to testify, my attorney, Gabi Laski, looked like she was suffering from hypothermia. Someone asked to lower the air conditioner and the judge apologized, pointed the remote toward the air-conditioner and turned it off.

“What do you say to these accusations of mob-like disturbances that the previous witness described?” Ms. Laski challenged me.

“I am afraid the time allotted for this hearing will not allow me to recount all the lies told by Officer Nasser el-Din,” I replied.

When I was done answering, the judge, Ohad Gordon, looked at me closely. I was standing behind the small lectern that served as a witness stand, just a few feet from him. He leaned over, his face almost too young for his salt-and-pepper hair.

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“I want to make something very clear,” he said. “On the one hand, we are hearing descriptions of an unruly riot, stones hurled at the security forces and incitement for violence. You are describing a completely pastoral environment, people marching peacefully and then the army, for no apparent reason, shooting. You see, there is a problem here.”

I looked back at the judge, who seemed to me to be sincere.

“Your honor, you described it exactly as it is,” I said. “People marching peacefully and then the army, for no apparent reason, shooting; not only the place and the time we are discussing, but at every place and at every time, every Friday in the various villages in the West Bank. The attempt to paint the Palestinian popular resistance as a violent mob is deceitful, it is dishonest, it is a lie. People from around the world come to these villages to participate because the popular resistance is committed to nonviolence just as it is committed to resistance and freedom. Palestinian villages have become the international ‘Meccas’ for nonviolent activists. Again I say, your honor, you could not have described it better.”

The officer-collaborator, Nasser El-Din, also described the goals of the popular resistance in terms that are congruent with general Israeli thinking.

“The villagers are protesting because of a dispute surrounding who owns the rights to the spring at the foot of the village,” he said.

Free Palestine

The Israeli town of Halamish, where some of the most vicious fanatic Israelis live, has taken much of Nabi Saleh land, including the small spring. But Officer Nasser El-Din is a fool if he thinks Palestinians in Nabi Saleh or any other village are putting their lives on the line for a spring, or a well or even a settlement here or there.

The resistance is here to free Palestine and to give Palestinians the rights they deserve. And it will not end until this is achieved.

It is the same folly that leads Israeli security officials to think that more soldiers, more police, more checkpoints and walls will keep Israelis safe from the consequences of the occupation. If every inch of every street of every city and town were lined with soldiers, Israelis would still not be safe.

It is also the same folly that leads Israeli lawmakers to think they can legislate against the resistance. Legislating against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, legislating against stone throwing, legislating to loosen the shoot-to-kill guidelines, legislating to keep Palestine supporters out of the country. One wonders what they may think of next.

But the fact remains that you cannot legislate to end the resistance any more than you can legislate to legalize the crimes of Israel. Killing Palestinians in cold blood is a crime even if it is legal in Israel. The Palestinian resistance is legal and moral even if Israel calls it illegal.

But if there is one thing unique about Israel, it is that it’s stupid. Israeli governments always deal with small irrelevant issues that are devoid of context and avoid the real problems. Much like my trial, where they tried to place my co-defendants and I in the midst of an angry mob by showing a video where two young boys throw rocks at an advancing infantry platoon. Where, in fact, we were in the midst of a peaceful protest until the army came and all hell broke loose. But that is neither important nor relevant.

What is relevant and important is to end the siege on Gaza immediately and without conditions; to release all Palestinian prisoners immediately and unconditionally; and to dismantle the military apparatus that has been maintaining the apartheid regime in Palestine for close to 70 years.

Back to my court hearing, the young prosecutor, his black hair cropped short, seemed at a loss. He kept scratching his head until finally he looked at me and asked: “Why would the army attack, just like that with no reason?”

“That’s an excellent question,” I replied. “I suggest you ask the army.”

A final hearing and verdict will take place in a few months.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The post The Folly of Israeli Apartheid Knows No Boundaries appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Undoubtedly the most peculiar feature of the repressive system the Nationalist government set up in 1963 is that it put an inordinate, if not wholly unlimited, amount of power in the hands of a group of censors who saw themselves as the guardians of literature and, more specifically, an Afrikaner “Republic of Letters.”

This meant that the censors, who were, first and foremost, the agents of the government’s repressive anxieties about the medium of print (and film), and who were formally charged with the task of protecting the apartheid order from seditious, obscene, and blasphemous representations, were, at the same time, the apartheid regime’s literature police.

Historical Parallels

Calling this anomalous group of censors, which included influential literary academics, educationalists, and some writers, the “” carries certain risks, particularly in so far as the phrase conjures up a fantastically nightmarish Orwellian world and behind that the actual terror of censorship under the Soviet Union. Yet if any historical model is applicable to the South African case, then it is best to look to pre-revolutionary Russia, not to the Soviet Union, for a possible precedent.

Like the system established by the nineteenth-century tsars, apartheid censorship operated under a semblance of legality, not through a series of secret strictures and directives; it was essentially prohibitive, rather than prescriptive; and, most importantly, it functioned post-publication. Though had its own collaborationist publishing houses and writers’ groups, it had no equivalent of Glavlit, the Main Administration for Affairs of Literature and Publishing Houses, created in 1922, and no professional body comparable to the USSR Union of Writers, founded twelve years later, both of which served to reinforce a system of total control over the medium of print and, especially during the infamous era in the late 1940s – a strict aesthetic orthodoxy.

Unlike the Soviet regime, but like the earlier tsarist system, the apartheid bureaucracy was “essentially pragmatic,” as J. M. Coetzee put it, describing censorship in nineteenth-century Russia, in the sense that it required of the censors only “a capacity to sniff out contagion wherever it occurred,” not an elaborately articulated “theory of the censorable” and, in particular, “no aesthetic theory.”

And yet it is precisely at this point that the analogy with tsarist Russia itself begins to break down. If the apartheid censors were there primarily to protect the state from “contagion,” like their Russian precursors, they were, as they saw it, also there to safeguard literature from the “contagion” of the state, a complication that makes it difficult to see their role as “essentially pragmatic.” Though the archival evidence shows that blinkeredness, the vagaries of taste, and crude arbitrariness often affected their decisions, particularly on the question of what warranted protection as literature, it reveals that “aesthetic theory” of a sometimes fairly sophisticated sort played its part too. If this complicated the censor’s collaborationist expertise further still, it also raised questions about the status of literary experts in any legal or quasi-legal context.

A New Constitution

Since 1996, literature’s destiny in South Africa has been tied not just to a properly autonomous and still significantly transnational book trade, but to the chance of a multilingual constitutional democracy, of a unitary state with a strong internationalist orientation, of a reclaimed liberalism, and of a rights-based multi- or interculturalism.

At two key levels of legislation, however, it has also been linked to the inevitably uncertain guardianship of state-appointed literary experts. The of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, the supreme guarantor of its young democracy, includes a Bill of Rights, the most pertinent section of which states:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes—

(a) freedom of the press and other media;

(b) freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;

(c) freedom of artistic creativity; and

(d) academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.

2. The right in subsection (1) does not extend to—

(a) propaganda for war;

(b) incitement of imminent violence; or

(c) advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.

Given the history of apartheid , it is worth noting that clause 2 makes no reference to obscenity or blasphemy, or directly to sedition. Like all the rights in the founding Bill, those identified in section 16 are also subject to the proportionality clause (section 36), which allows for them to be restricted, under certain specified conditions, “to the extent that the limitation is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom.”

This further provision, taken together with the specific inclusion of the “freedom of creative activity,” effectively ensures that the state functions not just as relatively disengaged guarantor of the rights underlying the “culture of debate” but as a potential participant in the “debate of culture.” It opens up a future role for literary (and other) experts within state structures, not, of course, as shadowy censors, but as witnesses who can be called on to testify on behalf of particular works in open court or other tribunals.

In response to secularist, liberal, or literary arguments against censorship, the committee upheld the right of some adult readers to make their own judgements about the novel and Rushdie’s commitment to literature as a space in which, as he put it in an interview in September 1988, “there are no subjects which are off limits.”

This possibility was strengthened under the Publications Act, 1996, another key legal instrument reflecting the importance officially accorded to literature and the arts in today’s South Africa. The new Act radically modernized the legislation. It followed the Bill of Rights by criminalizing the distribution of any publication which “judged in context” fell under any one or more of the three exclusions stipulated under section 16 (2). Yet, in a more surprising move, which effectively privileged the constitutional guarantees covering the “freedom of creative activity,” it explicitly exempted, among other things, what it called “bona fide” literary publications. It also applied this extra safeguard to its own provisions regarding publications given an XX classification, which criminalizes distribution, or an X18 rating, which restricts its sale to adults.

In legal terms, then, the new Act represents an emphatic break with the past. Reflecting internationally agreed norms, and the guarantees enshrined in the Bill of Rights, it rejects censorship in favour of classification, focuses on relatively measurable questions of harm, avoiding any reference to value-laden ideas of blasphemy or moral repugnance (i.e. obscenity), and affords literature explicit statutory protection.

Reality of Implementation

Yet when it came to the question of how the new Act might be implemented, it was decided against a system “based solely on criminal law” via the courts and against the option of self-regulation by the relevant media industries along the model of the film classification boards in the UK, the United States, and Germany.

Instead, the task group appointed to frame the new legislation successfully argued for an “administrative structure funded by the State, but which functions independently of government, and which draws on available expertise.” As a consequence, South Africa now has a national statutory Film and Publication Board (FPB) as well as a Review Board, comparable to the Offices of Film and Literature Classification in Australia and New Zealand, which is empowered to appoint literary experts to assist in its deliberations.

For all the similarities to the apartheid bureaucracy introduced in the early 1970s, the new structure, which came into operation in 1998, is different in a number of crucial respects. For one thing, the panel set up to advise the president on the appointment of FPB members is obliged to invite nominations from the general public. Whereas the old system had been dominated by a group of government appointees, all male Afrikaners, the first chair of the new Board, Dr Nana Makaula, was one of South Africa’s leading black woman academics with a background in psychology and education. The more robustly independent FPB also appoints its own “classification committees” and, at their request, its own experts.

Finally, when it comes to publications, the FPB, unlike the apartheid censorship bureaucracy, which was for the most part a conduit for submissions from the police and customs, responds only to complaints from the general public. Film distributors, by contrast, are required to apply for classification in advance.

In the absence of a substantial archive of decisions relating to publications – since 1998 the FPB has dealt primarily with films, DVDs, and issues of child pornography on the Internet – it is not possible to say what long-term cultural consequences this new democratic form of guardianship will have for literature.

The Satanic Verses: A Word Crime?��

Yet if the one key case considered in the first decade of the new system is anything to go by, it is clear that the future will be neither wholly predictable nor uncontroversial. In February 2002, when the 14-year-old ban on Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was technically lifted under the terms of the new Act, many of the same local Muslim organizations who had campaigned against the novel in the apartheid era wrote to the FPB requesting that a ban be reimposed, some casting their objections in especially threatening terms.

Unlike the apartheid censors who originally banned The Satanic Verses on grounds of blasphemy in 1988, the new committee of experts considered both the text of the novel and the history of the furore it provoked in detail. Like their precursors, however, they accepted the complainants’ status as representatives and, as a consequence, the authority of their claim that the novel is “considered profoundly blasphemous and injurious by the Muslim community.” Yet they firmly rejected their view that The Satanic Verses still constituted a word crime.

Moreover, bearing in mind the terms of the Publications Act, it noted that “The Satanic Verses is without argument a bona fide literary work by a leading international literary figure.” For these reasons the committee concluded it was not “legally possible” to consider giving the novel an XX classification, which would, in effect, have banned it by “restricting all public access or possession.” In fact, as an unillustrated book, this would have criminalized its distribution only, which was prohibitive enough.

Yet, since few legal systems have, despite the changed media environment, entirely left behind the deeply entrenched anxieties about the medium of print, and none treat the freedom of expression as an unconditional absolute, adopting a policy of total disengagement in this area of the law is unlikely to be realizable in practice.

Strictly speaking, the committee had, at that point, fulfilled its obligations under the law. Yet, going against the precise terms of the Act, it decided to give the novel an X18 classification and, more controversially, to recommend that it “should not be for sale in public in South African commercial booksellers or any other commercial outlet, nor should it be available for borrowing from any municipal or public library” (this did not include legal deposit or university libraries).

As it noted, the restriction on display did not prevent a book-buyer from asking a local bookseller to order a copy for her, or, “given the transnational nature of the contemporary book trade,” from buying one for herself over the Internet. It did not consider the consequences of the curb on borrowing from public libraries, however, which effectively means only university students, or those who can afford to buy books, have relatively unhindered access to The Satanic Verses in South Africa today.

Despite this worrying omission, the ruling, which was accepted by the complainants and not contested by any other parties. In response to secularist, liberal, or literary arguments against censorship, the committee upheld the right of some adult readers to make their own judgements about the novel and Rushdie’s commitment to literature as a space in which, as he put it in an interview in September 1988, “there are no subjects which are off limits.”

In response to Muslim calls for an apartheid era ban to be reimposed, it offered not censorship (nor a reinstatement of blasphemy law) but recognition, at the level of the state, of the genuine offence many law-abiding South African Muslims feel the novel has caused them and their faith. In making this double move the FPB also implicitly acknowledged that literature, understood in Rushdie’s terms, has the power to produce shattering real-world effects.

Internet Publication

We cannot ignore the fact that in at least one important respect The Satanic Verses does not constitute a good test case for the new legislative framework in South Africa. Somewhat like D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the landmark British and US trials of the late 1950s and early 1960s, its status as a “bona fide literary work” was, like Rushdie’s reputation, too securely established by 2002. It is possible to imagine other kinds of writing, say, a parody of vicious racist thinking or of pornographic violence against children published by a previously unknown author on the Internet, about which it might, in principle, be impossible for any classification committee or group of literary experts to reach a consensus.

Internet publication is especially testing in this context because it need not necessarily bring with it all the extrinsic markers of literary prestige (imprint, book format, paper quality, etc.) associated with the traditional medium of print. In the face of these difficulties, which will no doubt become more acute in the future, it is clear that continued faith in the authority of literary experts looks wishful.

Yet, since few legal systems have, despite the changed media environment, entirely left behind the deeply entrenched anxieties about the medium of print, and none treat the freedom of expression as an unconditional absolute, adopting a policy of total disengagement in this area of the law is unlikely to be realizable in practice. It is also at least debatable whether or not, in a just society, it is desirable in principle. Indeed, when modern democracies recognize literature as a public good, or afford it explicit legal protection, as South Africa does today, it could be argued that the question of the state’s juridical relationship to the field of culture has to be asked anew.

*[This article has been adapted from , by permission of . Copyright © All Rights Reserved.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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On Sunday, we bid a final farewell to this generation’s most beloved leader. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, a man for the ages, will be laid to rest. Leaders and dignitaries from all over the world have flocked to little-known Qunu, in South Africa, to see Mandela return to his roots, to the home of his people and the place of his childhood. Last Tuesday, a sea of world leaders arrived in Soweto to pay their final respects to a leader whose appeal transcended race, borders and beliefs. People turned up in the thousands and even a heavy downpour did little to dampen their spirits.

The Boy From Qunu

Mandela was a worthy heir to Mahatma Gandhi. He lives on in the hearts of many. His story is woven in bright colors that will refuse to fade with time. So profound was his influence and the reach of his example, so consummate was his work in altering the arc of history that the whole world mourns his loss whilst celebrating his life.

Throughout generations, in Africa and around the globe, many have heeded the call to serve and fight for freedom. Yet some precious few stand apart. Mandela is unique even in this group. His courage of conviction was such that he was prepared to die. His loyalty to those around him was absolute. His integrity was legendary. Despite its best efforts, the apartheid regime could never co-opt him. He carried himself with much pride and grace. Yet he was modest, engaging and courteous. He was Africa’s most celebrated son, and one of the greatest leaders to have ever graced the earth.

In 1918, Africa’s most challenging century bore its greatest son in Transkei, South Africa. “Rolihlahla,” which means troublemaker, rose to face the harsh repression of apartheid facing his people. Burdened by the weight of destiny, he stood up to be counted and became a willing advocate against the senseless chains clamping down on the rights of his people. A man with a wealth of flaws, he chose to pick up the gauntlet of a people’s struggles and carry the burden of their hopes. By so doing, he acquired the status of a saint.

He lived up to the immortalized words that he uttered at his trial before conviction:

"During my lifetime, I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to see realized. But… if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

Chained But Free

Throughout his 27-year incarceration, Mandela remained unbowed by the backbreaking inclement habitat designed to shatter his resolve for the realization of an indivisible free nation. Through many a long day and night of confinement and the punishment of hard labor, he soldiered on and carried forth the indefatigable hope for a brighter tomorrow. In detention, he refused to settle for the allure of anything less than the Promised Land. Eventually, it was Mandela’s captors who recognized that they were in chains and set free a man whose spirit was always free.

Like the biblical David against Goliath, he unflinchingly took on the behemoth of intolerance and domination. He slayed the beast with the help of others — some well-known like Oliver Tambo, some who lived to see the day and fruits of freedom, and some who paid the ultimate price in terms of their lives for emancipation.

Father of the Nation

Upon his release, he opened the iron fist of oppression and by shaking hands with it, melted the grip of its ideology. By his indomitable courage, Mandela led his country to freedom. His empathy, compassion and magnanimity saved it from chaos, violence and civil war. A new and bright South Africa was thus born and Mandela came to be regarded as Tata, the father of this nation.

A nation is only as strong as its foundation. Mandela was the catalyst that brought divergent and apprehensive groups onto the negotiating table to hash out a new constitution. The negotiations demonstrated that unity was possible, true freedom for all was accessible, common ground was ample, and dialogue indispensable. Mandela inspired the promulgation of one of the most revolutionary constitutions in the world. Under South Africa’s constitution, the inherent right of equality of all people is sacrosanct — civil and political rights and socioeconomic rights are intrinsic.

During his "self-imposed" single-term presidency, Mandela focused on the task of uniting stubbornly disparate groups and peoples under the banner of a rainbow nation. Recognizing that healing and restoration was paramount, his government set up the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to enable the nation to examine and acknowledge its painful past. Citizens were encouraged to embrace each other in the light of forgiveness, and to create a harmonious and inclusive society.

Mandela demonstrated by word and deed that all races could coexist in a unified country, sharing the same fundamental values. The powerful symbolism of his incarcerators sitting in the front row at his inauguration, shall forever prove that the power of forgiveness enables people to bridge any gap and heal any scar.

By voluntarily serving for only a single-term — a rare act in history — Mandela set an example to leaders across the globe, that power was but a means to an end and that leaders were merely servants of their people. He showed that for democracy to flourish, power must be relinquished even before one’s allotted constitutional mandate. He demonstrated that stepping down from power is a moral imperative, even if the masses clamor for a leader to continue in office.

Across the globe, Mandela stood for the oppressed and downtrodden with disregard to political correctness. He made no alliances out of political expediency. Instead, he championed the cause of peace and security, freedom and self-determination, and the recognition of the inherent rights and dignity of all humanity.

Flaws

Admittedly, as with all great leaders, it is important to interrogate all aspects of Mandela’s legacy. Even though he was a model statesman and charmed the world and a nation, he was far from a model father to his children. He is known to have engaged in infidelity, and his three marriages bring to question his commitment to the institution.

He regretted not having done more to stem the tide of HIV infection in South Africa while he was in office. During the freedom struggle, he abandoned Gandhian non-violence, and was the co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) — the armed-wing of the ANC — which engaged in acts of violence.

The man maketh the legend. Nonetheless, it is important to distinguish between the man and the legend. As a man, Mandela is thus blameworthy. His blemishes must be spoken of for the wider society to cite, criticize and learn from, as well as for all to appreciate the fact that he too was immensely flawed.

Greatness

Mandela’s courage in fighting against injustice and his compassion — even for those who wanted him dead — makes him a great man. A tall and handsome man, he was that rare book that could be judged by both its cover and its contents. At once, warm, humble and delightful to all and sundry who were fortunate to meet him in person, Mandela was also unremitting, ferocious and singular in the quest of his life’s mission.

As the African story rattles on, with its record of less than stellar leaders, Mandela will forever be a source of pride to his continent and a symbol for all humankind. His story shall be told in schools, at the kitchen table, in the open fields, and by the fireplace. Songs and books will continue to be written about him. He leaves but lives, especially through the ideals of peace, love, liberty, equality and harmony for all.

Goodbye, Tata.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Those of us who were born in former European colonies have memories of our struggles for freedom seared into our souls. Just as Madiba heard the tales of “Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni,” fighting for their fatherland, I grew up with stories of the colonized who battled their masters and often lost their lives in the process. Madiba was spoken of in the same breath as Mahatma Gandhi.

Madiba continued the struggle that, as perhaps few know, Gandhi in South Africa. Gandhi was thrown out of a train by a white ticket collector in Pietermaritzburg on June 7, 1893, for having the temerity to travel in a carriage meant only for whites. The Indian barrister spent the night shivering in the train station and proceeded to launch nonviolent civil resistance movements against the South African government for the next 22 years. It was in South Africa that Gandhi began the work of dismantling the British Empire, and it was here that Madiba finished the job by destroying its last vestige — apartheid.

Colonization was inhuman. Those who were conquered lost their land, liberty and lives. Their dignity and identity were taken away from them. Madiba was Mandela’s Xhosa clan name, by which his countrymen know him. During colonization, natives frequently lost their language as well and, with time, their narratives. Christian missionaries worked hard to civilize natives, giving them names like Nelson.

The so-called rule of law imposed by Europeans was, in reality, a system that institutionalized inequity and made people slaves in their own homes. Native institutions such as the Thembu court of village elders that Madiba referred to as “democracy in its purest form,” were ripped apart and replaced by rapacious bureaucracies characterized by oppression and corruption. Apartheid was the last surviving example of colonization.

The memories of colonization and the struggle for freedom ran strong in my family. Even as a child, I grew up listening to stories about Gandhi. The fact that he eschewed violence and office, dressed in a homespun loincloth and died a martyr at the hands of a fanatic made Gandhi an iconic figure for my father’s generation.

In fact, my father’s first memory as a child is the day Gandhi died. It was the first day he went hungry. His mother was too distraught to cook. He was two days short of his fourth birthday, and even then, he realized that something momentous had happened.

I grew up watching Madiba and reading not only about his great achievements but also about his mistakes. Now that he is dead at 95, it seems the end of an era, and I have struggled to pen down my thoughts.

The era of independence

After World War II, one colony after another gained independence. It began with India under Gandhi in 1947 and intensified after the Anglo-French 1956 misadventure. The French tried to cling to their colonies more tenaciously than the British. France failed to realize that just as it did not like living under German rule, Algeria and Vietnam might have similar aspirations for independence. Britain kept playing up close trade ties and the security provided by its control of the seas to keep the colonies loyal to the Queen.

Still, it proved less sentimental about cutting them loose and initiated a massive wave of decolonization. In February 1960, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan gave a historic in Cape Town, South Africa, where he spoke about “the wind of change blowing through this continent.”As the 1960s saw a massive wave of decolonization, South Africa slipped into the pernicious system of apartheid, a system of racial segregation enforced through legislation by its white minority.

By this time, the free-market model had been discredited in former colonies. In the past, this model included the freedom to trade slaves and the subjugation of the non-white world. In truth, under colonial masters such as the British and the French, free markets were hardly free — or even markets at all.

The colonies had experienced this policy and were now seeking alternative economic systems to address their deep problems of poverty and inequality. Even if they did not embrace communism, they were attracted by leftist ideas because they wanted to create more egalitarian societies after years of deep inequity.

The US did not quite understand these aspirations across Latin America, Africa and Asia. In 1953, it the first democratically elected government of Iran on the behest of the British. Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh had wanted 50 cents on every dollar paid to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the forerunner of BP. It was the same deal that Saudi Arabia had with the American company, Aramco, but the British wanted colonial-era exploitation to continue. By backing the British, the US established itself as the new imperial power that wanted freedom for white Europeans but enslavement for non-whites around the world.

In Africa, the US supported the interests of its imperial European allies. It backed the brutal British repression of the Mau Mau Revolt in Kenya. Over 1 million Kenyans were herded into detention camps known as , and more than 100,000 of them died. The eight-year campaign of terror in the 1950s included beatings, torture and sexual abuse.

In the Congo, the US went further. In 1960, it actively connived with Belgium and the UK to engender the murder of , the prime minister who had just led Congo to independence. , the man whom the US backed, went on to rule Congo for over three decades, murdering his opponents, looting the country and establishing a personality cult that rivaled that of North Korea.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US also went on to play a in the 1962 arrest of Madiba. Henceforth, many saw the US as a white supremacist power and the CIA as an organization specializing in murder, torture and coup d’états.

The free-market model the US had been touting was now morally tainted. Washington was simply perceived as old European wine in a new American bottle, and the vast majority of former colonies were unwilling to drink it.

Coming of age��

The young Madiba was coming of age in the 1940s. As the rest of the world seemed to be marching to freedom, South Africa was turning back the clock. After the 1948 election, in which only whites were allowed to vote, long-standing discrimination was expanded and codified into legislation, inaugurating the apartheid era.

Madiba threw himself into the struggle to overthrow apartheid and embraced Marxism, partly influenced by friends and partly because the Soviet Union was supporting wars of independence in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The apartheid government cloaked its suppression of the black majority in the garb of an anticommunist struggle. The Suppression of Communism of 1950 led to the creation of a brutal police state where suppression became the norm.

In February 1955, Madiba in the protest that failed to prevent the demolition of the all-black Sophiatown suburb of Johannesburg. This proved to be a turning point. He that the African National Congress (ANC) “had no alternative to armed and violent resistance” “the attacks of the wild beast cannot be averted with only bare hands.”

After the on March 21, 1960, Madiba cofounded the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, or “Spear of the Nation,” which began guerrilla attacks against the apartheid government. On August 5, 1962, he was captured. �Ѳ��徱����’s conduct during the trial that followed made him a hero. Instead of defending himself, he set out to make a case for the moral bankruptcy of apartheid.

On October 15, he turned up in traditional garb, a made of leopard skin because, as he his white legal adviser, “I want our people to see me as a black man in the white man’s court.” He did that and more. In the years to come, the subsequent , named after the farmhouse where a number of ANC leaders were apprehended, would stand as a symbol of injustice throughout the world.

�Ѳ��徱����’s in the Rivonia Trial questioned the legitimacy of the court that was sentencing him. The trial had attracted enormous international attention, which might be the reason why Madiba was not sentenced to death. Instead, he was imprisoned for life, but only after his speech exposed the toxic nature of apartheid.��

He pointed out the terrible human and moral cost of white supremacy. He gave a harrowing account of how black Africans were denied schooling, jobs, liberty, the right to buy land and fundamental human rights. He pointed out how whites had dehumanized blacks by treating them as an inferior race. He called for equal political rights and declared that he was ready to die to achieve “the ideal of democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.”

On June 12, 1964, Madiba was to prison. He spent the next 18 years as Prisoner 466/64 on Robben Island, a South African version of Alcatraz. On this cold and windy island, Madiba lived in a damp cell measuring eight by seven feet and slept on a straw mat. He suffered verbal and physical abuse. He was not allowed to use sunglasses in the lime quarry where prisoners were forced to break stones in blinding sunlight, permanently damaging his eyesight.

It was in prison that Madiba grew to greatness. He began the “University of Robben Island,” an informal school where prisoners lectured on their areas of expertise and debated contentious topics. He grew eggplants, tomatoes and strawberries.

Even in captivity, he continued to fight on. He insisted that prisoners be treated with dignity. He refused privileges that were not offered to fellow prisoners. He hated shorts but continued to wear them until other prisoners were allowed to wear trousers too.

It was at Robben Island that Madiba started learning Afrikaans in an effort to reach out to his captors and to win their respect. It was here that this hot-tempered former boxer learnt self-restraint and patience. Even when he was not allowed to attend the funerals of his mother and his firstborn son, he behaved with extraordinary dignity. In April 1982, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison, where he created a roof garden and shared what he grew with his prison warders.

As South Africa erupted in turmoil and international pressure mounted in February 1985, PW Botha, the apartheid leader known as “the crocodile,” to release Madiba if he renounced violence and other illegal activity. The offer was a ruse to discredit the ANC and paint it as a terrorist organization. Madiba rose to the occasion and asked Botha to renounce violence, dismantle apartheid and unban the ANC. He demanded freedom for the people and that he could not “sell the birthright of the people to be free.”

At Pollsmoor, Madiba contracted tuberculosis because of dank conditions. Whilst he was recovering, the government moved him to Victor Verster Prison in December 1988. By this time, negotiations had begun between Madiba and the government, which decided that he should be moved to a closer location. Finally, at 70, he had some comfort in the form of a warder’s cottage and a personal cook.

As the Cold War was ending and communism collapsed in Europe, apartheid started coming apart. After years of rebuffing Madiba, Botha invited him for tea. FW de Klerk, his successor, released all ANC prisoners except Madiba. When the Berlin Wall fell, de Klerk realized that the game was up and met Madiba in December.

On February 2, 1990, Mandela was pardoned unconditionally, and all formerly banned political parties were legalized. On , Madiba walked out of prison after spending nearly 28 years in captivity.

Reconciliation, not revenge

When Madiba was released, South Africa was a tinderbox waiting to explode. Not only was there tension between the white minority and the black majority, but there was also tension between the ANC and the Inkatha party. For a long time, funded by the apartheid regime, it was led by Chief Mangosuthu Buthulezi, who tried his best to derail the process to build a new democratic South Africa.

Despite having spent years in prison, Madiba acted with incredible astuteness to navigate the tricky post-apartheid process. Although he clashed with de Klerk and even called for a UN peacekeeping force in South Africa to stop state terrorism, he was nimble enough to reach a compromise.

It is easy to forget how explosive the situation was during the negotiations. Even before talks began, de Klerk asked Madiba not to include Joe Slovo, the Jewish leader of the South African Communist Party, in his delegation. Madiba slapped de Klerk down. He told de Klerk that both of them could choose anyone for their delegations, and that de Klerk had no right to tell him who to include or exclude.

Madiba turned up with a multiracial delegation that included Slovo, while de Klerk’s crew consisted of 11 Afrikaner men. Negotiations were testy and were frequently in danger of breaking down. The combination of various parties and factions within them, tribal rivalries and a resentful white minority threatened to explode into a cornucopia of violence.

As de Klerk and Madiba clashed, violence did break out. Far-right Afrikaner parties and black ethnic-secessionist groups like Inkatha made common cause. More people died between 1990 and 1994 than in the thirty years before. One by one, all sticking points were addressed. It was the much reviled Slovo who came up with the idea of the “.” This led to the breakthrough of , when both sides agreed to a five-year coalition government following the first election. All sides agreed upon guarantees and concessions.

Today, de Klerk and his team pay tribute to Slovo, who would not have been at the negotiating table if they had their way. The Record of Understanding was on September 26, 1992, by the government and the ANC. Next year, Madiba and de Klerk were the Nobel Peace Prize.

The next phase of negotiations continued to be tough, and violence continued. When ANC leader Chris Hani was in April 1993 by a far-right white immigrant, it seemed that the country was headed for disaster. Hani was second only to Madiba in popularity. A member of parliament who opposed dismantling apartheid had lent his pistol to the murderer.

Madiba was also dealing with personal tragedy. The ailing Oliver Tambo, his closest friend who had carried the torch as president of the ANC when Madiba was in prison, on April 24, 1993. Speaking at Tambo’s funeral, Madiba appealed for calm. He asked all South Africans to stand together for “the freedom of all of us” and pointed out that it was a white Afrikaner woman who called the police and identified the assassin. �Ѳ��徱����’s handling of the situation was one of his finest moments and contributed significantly to the successful conclusion of the negotiations.

Historic presidency: Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The 1994 elections led to an ANC victory, and Mandela became the of post-apartheid South Africa. He graciously allowed de Klerk to retain the presidential residence, which he called Genadendal, an Afrikaans word meaning “the valley of mercy”. It was an extraordinary gesture, and the years that Madiba spent learning Afrikaans came to good use to empathize with the white elite that felt insecure in the new Rainbow Nation, a term coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Madiba showed tremendous magnanimity in meeting senior figures of the apartheid regime, that “courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.” He even the widow of Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid.

Perhaps his most symbolic act as president was the Springboks, the much-reviled national rugby team. Black South Africans loved football — or soccer, as the Americans would say. Cricket and rugby were white sports. Rugby, in particular, was like religion for Afrikaans: a game of muscular, masculine camaraderie in which they excelled. Much to the discomfort of many of his supporters, Madiba threw his support behind the all-white Springboks team that won the World Cup at home, forging a new identity for the country.

As president, Madiba shepherded the young nation through the drafting of a new constitution. It came into effect on February 4, 1997, and has been widely regarded as one of the finest constitutions in the world. It guarantees civil liberties for everyone, minority protection, separation of powers and an independent judiciary. 

The beauty of the Constitution is that it involved massive public participation. People shared their views and sent suggestions that were incorporated into the document. It includes a famous Bill of Rights that promises the right to equality before the law and freedom from discrimination, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, color, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth. Kader Asmal and Albie Sachs, two noted jurists of Indian and Jewish origin, respectively, authored the bill, demonstrating the diversity and inclusivity of the new South Africa.

�Ѳ��徱����’s greatest achievement as president was the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (). Headed by Archbishop Tutu, its goal was to investigate crimes under apartheid by both the government and the ANC. It was highly controversial. Many believed that it allowed people to get away with murder and more.

The premise behind the TRC was exceedingly simple: the new nation had to forgive the sins of the past to forge a more harmonious future. For two years starting February 1996, the TRC conducted hearings of rapes, torture, bombings and murder.

The TRC remains controversial to this day. Many believe that it allowed the perpetrators of injustice to get off scot-free and that South Africa ought to have had trials as were conducted in Nuremberg.

The reality is that the TRC could never have achieved racial reconciliation or pleased everyone. It did achieve its purpose of finding out the truth about the crimes of the apartheid era and certainly contributed to a peaceful transition of power.

Tryst with greatness but feet of clay

A true test of greatness is whether a person can walk away from power. George Washington could have died in office, but chose to retire to his plantation. Gandhi had a near-divine status in India and chose his simple abode over the trappings of power.

In a continent first ravaged by colonization and then by “big men” who clung to power until they died, Madiba set a glorious example by leaving office after a single term. He could have easily stayed on for another term — even for life — but he retired to a life of simplicity and discouraged the development of a personality cult. He started spending his holidays in Qunu, the place where he spent his childhood. The house that he built there was based on the same cottage where he spent his last days in prison.

Like all great men, Madiba had his flaws. Like Gandhi, he was not the best father and had strained relations with his children. His marital problems are , as is his reputation as a ladies’ man. His second marriage to Winnie Madikizela was tumultuous. She was a feisty opponent of apartheid, but the struggle took a toll on her soul. She turned violent and vindictive, was convicted of kidnapping and fraud, and after their divorce, she lashed out against him for letting “blacks down.”

Mandela’s fondness for fine scarves, beautiful ties, flamboyant shirts and well-cut suits made him a dandy. Many joked about the number of times he would change his clothes throughout the day. His hobnobbing with celebrities was at times excessive.

Other mistakes had greater consequences. He admitted that, as president, he could have done more to combat the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In the past, his abandonment of nonviolence gave the apartheid government an excuse to intensify its oppression. They shrewdly painted Madiba as a communist, and both the US and UK backed the apartheid regime until its last days.

In fact, it was only in 2008 that the US took Madiba off its of terrorists. The armed struggle of the ANC was ineffectual and put no pressure on the apartheid government. Gandhian civil disobedience would have served the ANC much better. The ANC needed to focus on its internal organization and plan its next mass movement instead of launching ill-conceived guerrilla attacks.

After Gandhi’s first movement ended in 1922, he patiently focused on preparing his next move, which he only launched in 1930. In an act of breathtaking symbolism, Gandhi conducted an epic to the sea to break oppressive salt laws. This triggered a movement of civil disobedience that captured the imagination of the country and did much to propel India towards independence.

Gandhi had studied law in England, earned his spurs in South Africa, corresponded with Russian writer and religious thinker , had a mentor like and was a deeply spiritual man.��

Madiba was a different kettle of fish. A former boxer, he was more impulsive and lacked the international exposure of Gandhi. Madiba was also a product of his time when the US and the UK stood discredited and communism and socialism held sway. He was unable to realize that the Soviet Union was a brutal totalitarian state and that communism was doomed to failure. To his credit, though, in later life he would prove non-dogmatic and abandon his Marxist ideas for pluralist democracy.

Africa’s greatest son

Just as Gandhi did not singlehandedly win independence for India, Madiba did not demolish apartheid alone. A range of reasons, such as the end of the Cold War, increasing unrest, international sanctions and exhaustion of the ruling elite, combined to bring down apartheid. Others like Tambo, Tutu and de Klerk played their part. Yet, it was �Ѳ��徱����’s magnanimity, empathy and vision that led to the birth of the Rainbow Nation. 

South Africa still has a multitude of problems. After more than a century of oppression, the country’s problems were never going to be solved in less than two decades. Poverty is rife, crime is rampant and corruption is endemic. The current president is building a worth an estimated $20 million and has tried to stop the press from talking about it.

The country is an ongoing experiment in democracy, and it is because of Madiba that it has been able to embark on such a journey. After nearly three decades in prison, a lesser man might have come out bitter or broken. Madiba came out of the fire as tempered steel.

Even in prison, he a meeting in 1985 with the then minister of justice, Kobie Coetsee. He did not inform anyone in the ANC about it, and he did so because he believed that at times “a leader must move ahead of his flock.”

As a free man, he behaved in a Gandhian manner, urging forgiveness and reconciliation. The Afrikaans that he learned in prison charmed sworn enemies such as Botha. Without Madiba, the post-apartheid negotiations would not have been successful, and the subsequent elections would not have been largely peaceful.

He had the magnanimity to praise former US President Ronald Reagan and former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, two leaders who were the strongest supporters of apartheid. When he went to prison, he was influenced by socialist economic ideas. When he came out and saw the collapse of the Soviet system, he was willing to embrace the free market and build bridges with the business community. Most importantly, Madiba exchanged the trappings of power for a life of simplicity, setting a new example for Africa.

What he means to us

I have spent the past couple of days reading every obituary of Madiba, and it made me realize why I do what I do. I found much of the coverage about the man superficial. Most writers refused to delve deeper into the complexity of �Ѳ��徱����’s life and the context in which he operated. Too many conveniently put him on a pedestal and refused to engage with his legacy. The Economist, to its credit, produced an over 3,000-word obituary written with its customary panache. Yet, as I read it, I could not help but wince.

Earlier this year, when Margaret Thatcher died, this 1843 publication titled its obituary, “”, and declared that “the world needs to hold fast to Margaret Thatcher’s principles.” No mention was made of Thatcher’s support of apartheid. Bobby Sands, the member of the Irish Republican Army who died of a hunger strike in prison, was forgotten. He died because Thatcher would not countenance demands such as the right of free association with other prisoners and to organize educational and recreational pursuits.

The Economist has been a brilliant voice, but it is the voice of the Empire, and a strong British leader like Thatcher evokes subliminal nostalgia. The newspaper tries to condone her support for apartheid by blaming �Ѳ��徱����’s commitment to armed struggle, conveniently ignoring that she had no objections to the violence unleashed by the apartheid regime. 

When , the wife of , was killed by a parcel bomb in Mozambique, Thatcher said nothing. She had no objection to the attempted murder of by a car bomb that left him without an arm and an eye. For those of us who come from the erstwhile colonies, Gandhi and Madiba are freedom fighters, and it is their principles instead of Thatcher’s that the world needs to hold fast to.

The point that I am making is about narratives. All of history is mythology, and all of the news is fiction. For too long, the colonizers have told the story of the world. A look at the past issues of The Economist reveals that it never examined apartheid or condemned it in the same way as it deplored communism.

Even when talking of Madiba, it patronizes his “sub-Marxist drivel” whilst ignoring the ignominious record of the British government in supporting apartheid. It mentions Madiba and Gandhi in the same breath as Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle and Jack Kennedy when enumerating the greatest statesmen of the 20th century.

From my point of view, only Roosevelt can be compared to Gandhi and Madiba. Although indubitably brilliant, Churchill was an imperial racist. He that if granted independence, Indians would slip “into the barbarism and privations of the Middle Ages.” De Gaulle was far too authoritarian, capricious and selfish. He withdrew from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), plunged the European Economic Community (EEC) into crisis, tried to maintain France’s imperial role, treated student uprisings brutally and resigned only after losing a referendum. Kennedy does not have any substantial achievements to even merit consideration. Glamor alone does not make a man great. Roosevelt, with his New Deal, Atlantic Charter and support for the creation of the United Nations, is the only one who makes the cut.

I am making a simple point: the work of Gandhi and Madiba stands unfinished. The quest for freedom includes the expression of one’s narrative. The story of the world, which has long been told by a chosen few, now needs to be told by the world itself. In a 1994 interview, the legendary African writer Chinua Achebe quoted a — “that until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.” Through 51�Թ�, we are setting out to ensure that “the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail—the bravery, even, of the lions.”

 Madiba, we owe this to you!

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Nelson Mandela: Mahatma Gandhi’s Heir and Africa’s Greatest Son appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Background

When Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela��was born in 1918, South Africa was a country entirely different from what it is today. Since colonial times, people of color in South Africa were seen as second-class citizens despite the clear non-white majority.

In 1948, when the National Party (NP) was elected, it institutionalized racial segregation with a policy of “apartheid.” Public services, resources and even living areas were allocated based upon race. Anyone not classified as white had to deal with being treated as inferior.

Like no other, Mandela’s life had always been closely connected to the history of South Africa and the struggle for racial equality.��Already before the NP came to power, Mandela had joined the African National Congress (ANC) which fought for the rights of South Africa’s non-white population. He quickly climbed the ladder of the party’s hierarchy and when apartheid was implemented, Mandela opposed it.

The more resistance against unequal treatment grew, the more the apartheid government tightened their grip. Mandela and some other leading ANC members were arrested multiple times. He was eventually sentenced to a lifetime in prison in the Rivonia Trial of 1964 and sent to the infamous Robben Island, where he would spend the next 20 years.

However, Mandela continued his struggle to end apartheid from within his cell and became a symbol of the fight for racial equality. He was seen as one of the world’s most famous prisoners, with people worldwide supporting his release.

The impression Mandela made on the world was not only due to the cause he was fighting for, but also because of the way he handled the consequences that came with the struggle. Even during his overall 27 years in prison, he maintained his poise and did not turn bitter. He was offered conditional release multiple times, but stayed true to his beliefs.

When he was finally released under internal and international pressure in 1990, the end of apartheid subsequently followed. And even after Mandela was elected as president of South Africa in 1994, he maintained a course that fostered reconciliation between different ethnic groups in the country rather than promoting revenge for all the years of oppression. He retired after one term in office, but remained politically active and engaged in the fight against HIV and Aids.

At the age of 95, Mandela passed away at his house in Johannesburg, South Africa on December 5, 2013.

Why is Nelson Mandela Relevant?

Over the years, the ANC may have lost some support amongst South Africans but “the father of the nation” never did. In all the years since he left office, Mandela remained one of the most well-known and beloved public figures in South Africa and beyond.

When news of his death reached the public, it spread like wildfire. The world collectively mourned and heads of states across the globe condoled. Meanwhile, South Africans gathered in front of Mandela’s house to express their grief over the loss of the country’s “greatest son,” as incumbent President Jacob Zuma had called him.

It now becomes clear that Mandela was more to South Africa and the world than just a former president. He has become a symbol of what one can achieve with true dedication to a cause, and a moral authority whose name inevitably stands tall alongside other freedom fighters, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Without Mandela, South Africa will surely be a different country. However, his role in shaping the nation and the impression he made on the world will never be forgotten.

*[Note: This article was updated on December 9, 2013.]

The post The Legacy of Nelson Mandela appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The leftists are claiming that their support for the coup and their alliance with the Mubarakist comprador bourgeoisie are actually anti-imperialist in nature, and are rallying against the Western media for its current “Orientalist” coverage of their coup (as if the western media has ever been anything but Orientalist in its coverage of our part of the world at all times), which they deem hostile, and for Barack Obama’s possibly having to cut off military aid in keeping with US laws that prevent him from extending aid to coup leaders in the Third World (Carter and Reagan found a way around this in the 1970s and 1980s, when they subcontracted Israel to aid America’s anti-democracy allies in Central and South America and in Apartheid South Africa, and Obama will find a way too). At any rate, US military aid to Egypt for 2013 was already disbursed and the 2014 aid is not scheduled for a Congressional vote until the fall. Not to worry though, top  diplomats are lobbying the White House and the US Defense Department to continue military aid to Egypt.

Another legitimate argument that the liberals and leftists offer is that when they and others staged an uprising in January and February 2011, that led to the removal of Mubarak and the take-over by the army who ruled the country directly afterwards, few referred to what happened as a “coup” but called it a “revolution,” whereas now that there was another massive uprising and the army also intervened but without designating themselves as rulers, many are claiming this as a “coup.” This, of course, is correct though not accurate, as it sidesteps the central issue. In February 2011, the army refused to obey the orders of an unelected dictator by not shooting at civilians, thus helping to topple him, while in July 2013, they overthrew a president that more than half the Egyptian electorate voted for in democratic elections.

The coup-supporting liberals and leftists are mad at the Americans and crying imperialism for the alleged failure of the Americans to support their revolt against democracy, unequivocally oblivious, it seems, to how much the Americans had actually helped in brokering the coup behind the . Publicly, Obama has been attempting all kinds of verbal acrobatics to accommodate the liberals and leftists by not calling the coup a coup. Their misplaced anger at the Americans, however, is not necessarily anti-imperialist, but is rather elicited by a narcissistic injury that the United States (like the Egyptian Army) had allied itself, if temporarily, with the Muslim Brotherhood and not with them, even though the US (like the Egyptian Army) had clearly abandoned the Brotherhood and given the green light to the coup. Their fulminations are their way of courting the Americans back to their camp where the Americans already are. The Wall Street Journal has already expressed its hope and expectation that General Sisi will be Egypt’s . Some amongst the liberals are complaining that had the Republicans been in power, they would not have given this “soft” response to their coup that the Democrats have allegedly shown. But the Americans have not tarried at all in this regard.

The Americans are allies of all parties in Egypt and they are willing to let Egyptians choose who will rule them so that the US can then give them their marching orders as they did with Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood. All the Americans care about is that their interests are protected, and no member of the current anti- or pro-Morsi coalitions has dared threaten those interests. They are all vying to serve American interests if the Americans would only support them. In the last two and a half years, the Americans have been floundering, trying to determine who among those competing to serve them in Egypt will be most successful in stabilizing the country so that the US can continue its dominance as before.

Nazis, Islamists, Liberals, and Leftists

For a year, we have been told that Morsi is Hitler, the Muslim Brotherhood are Nazis, and that they are consolidating their power so that they could later crack down on everyone else. Perhaps they were planning to do so, but no shred of real evidence has been produced to prove this. What happened, however, was the exact opposite; it was the coalition of liberals, Nasserists, leftists, Salafists, and the Mubarak bourgeoisie who called for, and cheered and supported, the coup by Mubarak’s army. Unlike the Brotherhood, who never controlled the army or the police, the latter two continue to be fully answerable to the Mubarakist bourgeoisie with which the liberals and leftists are allied.

Egyptians have been flooded with images that the “Islamofascists” were going to destroy the culture of Egypt and its identity with their intolerance, narrow-mindedness, lack of inclusivity, and anti-democratic policies. But it has been the liberals and the leftists, perhaps some would call them the “secularofascists,” who proved to be less open, less tolerant, and certainly less democratic than the “Islamofascists.” In the United States, the saying goes that “a conservative is a liberal who got mugged,” indicating in a proper American classist manner that the mugging of a well-to-do liberal by the poor turns the liberal against them, thus becoming a conservative. In the case of Egypt, one could easily say that “a secularofascist is a liberal democrat who lost to the Islamists in democratic elections.”

The army coup, which the leftists, among others, support, was not a coup by middle rank socially conscious anti-imperialist army officers who were supported by progressive anti-capitalist forces to overthrow imperial and local capitalist control of the country and the dictator that runs it (when the Free Officers staged their coup in 1952, within a few weeks they enacted laws that undercut the feudal lords of Egypt and redistributed the land to the poor peasants), but rather by top army generals who receive a hefty sum of US imperial assistance annually, and who have always been the protectors of Mubarak and his bourgeoisie. It is this army leadership that overthrew a democratically elected president — his incompetence and services to local and international capital notwithstanding.

Some of the leftists who are cheering on the coup seem to feel that their mobilization was successful because people are now educated and aware of their rights, which the Muslim Brotherhood was undercutting. But the education that the members of the anti-Morsi coalition have been subjected to, including the workers and the poor who joined its rallies, is an education imparted to them by the Mubarakist bourgeoisie through their media empires. It has not been an education emphasizing the Brotherhood’s neoliberal anti-poor policies, stressing workers rights, peasant rights, the right to a minimum wage, etc.

The Mubarakist media empire’s imparted education is an education that is not for the liberation of the poor, the workers, the peasants, and the lower middle classes of Egypt from capitalist and imperial pillage of their country and livelihoods, but rather one for the liberation of the “secular” Mubarakist bourgeoisie and its partners from the competition of the neoliberal Muslim Brotherhood bourgeoisie and its Qatari sponsors.

That the king of Saudi Arabia and the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, the sponsors with the Americans of the Mubarakist bourgeoisie, were the first to send their congratulations to the coup leaders, minutes after the coup took place, clarifies who, they believe, was liberated from whom. Within hours of the coup, the Mubarakist bourgeoisie also celebrated. On Thursday, July 4, Egyptian singer Mohammed Fu’ad, who had cried on TV two and a half years ago to express his sadness and despair over the toppling of his beloved Mubarak, was invited to open the Cairo stock market, which has been gaining billions of pounds since the coup. If the Qataris and the Muslim Brotherhood bourgeoisie won the first battle against the Saudis with the fall of Mubarak and then the second battle when the Brotherhood was elected, the Saudis and the Mubarakist bourgeoisie intend their latest battle, which they won by the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood, to be the final victory in the war for Egypt.

The goals of the Egyptian uprising from the outset, included social justice as primary. Both the Mubarakists and the Muslim Brotherhood have a unified policy against the social justice agenda of the uprising. But the anti-Brotherhood coup, which has driven and will drive many of their supporters to openly violent means now that peaceful ones have been thwarted, has transformed the uprising from one targeting the Mubarakist regime and its security and business apparatus to one that has joined Mubarak’s erstwhile war against the Muslim Brotherhood. If the goals of the liberals and the leftists are to bring about a real democracy with social security and decent standards of living for the majority of Egyptians who are poor, then the removal of the Brotherhood from power by military force will not only prevent this from happening, but is likely to bring about more economic injustice and more repression.

Whether the leftists’ and the liberals’ calculations, that their alliance with the Mubarakist bourgeoisie and the army is tactical and temporary and that they will be able to overcome them and take power away from them as they did with the Muslim Brotherhood, are a case of naive triumphalism or of studied optimism will become clear in the near future. What is clear for now, however, with the massive increase of police and army repression with the participation of the public, is that what this coalition has done is strengthen the Mubarakists and the army and weakened calls for a future Egyptian democracy — real or just procedural.

Gripped by popular fascist love fests for the army, Egypt is now ruled by an army whose top leadership was appointed and served under Mubarak, and is presided over by a judge appointed by Mubarak, and is policed by the same police used by Mubarak. People are free to call it a coup or not, but what Egypt has now is Mubarakism without Mubarak.

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By Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills

Nelson Mandela’s leadership has been justly celebrated. He is rightly recognised as one of the great figures of our time. Many will also ask how South Africa will fare without Mandela and if his passing might mark a new stage for the country. That answer is already largely in and it is not particularly attractive.

Mandela left power in 1999, graciously serving only one term and thereby consolidating South Africa’s democracy. Since then, he has largely been out of the spotlight and even before his debilitating illnesses, has not played much of a public role. His chosen successor, Thabo Mbeki, served as president until 2008 when the ruling African National Congress (ANC) decided to recall him and was succeeded by now President Jacob Zuma. Since apartheid formally ended in 1994, about 40% of the population has been born. The post-Mandela era has been upon South Africa for some time.

High Points of Post-Apartheid South Africa

The accomplishments of post-apartheid South Africa should not be understated. The country has managed to maintain political stability and retain the institutions of democracy that were established nearly 20 years ago. Most other African countries had already succumbed to a round of one party or military rule at a similar point in their post-independence history. South Africa has managed to deliver health, electricity, water and education to millions who were previously systematically denied. A burgeoning black African middle class has emerged. Economic growth has been positive and steady (although not spectacular).

South Africa has played an important role in African affairs, including peacekeeping in some difficult spots that the rest of the world has preferred to avoid. But recent years have been less impressive than when Mandela was president, and there are real concerns about the road ahead. Mbeki was a colossal failure in some regards, most notably in refusing to address the Aids pandemic that affects South Africa. His policy failures, despite that South Africa’s medical establishment was probably better equipped to address Aids than almost any on the African continent, led to perhaps 300,000 preventable deaths.

President Zuma seems mainly interested in his own self-aggrandisement. Certainly, the rise in corruption has been palpable. There was considerable corruption during the white regime (especially when sanctions-busting encouraged a climate of breaking the rules generally) but things have got worse. For instance, South Africa was ranked 34th in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index in 1999, the year Mandela left office. In 2012, the same survey ranked it 69th.

From High Ideals to High Living

The high ideals of the ANC have, it seems, been replaced by high living. It looks increasingly like a legacy party, trading much more on its past accomplishments than its future promise. To date, it has not been challenged decisively both because it has extremely broad support (more a church than a party) and because it did deliver political freedom without paying the cost of a bloody rebellion. That should change.

The Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition, has been a voice in the wilderness for years but has come to control the Western Cape Province, in good part because of a good record of service delivery when its leader, Helen Zille, was mayor of Cape Town. Its trajectory from under two percent of the vote in 1994 suggests that its aim to increase this from 17% now to over 30% in the forthcoming 2014 election is not far-fetched. More recently, Mamphela Ramphele, a significant figure in the struggle against apartheid, founded Agang, another political party that has been a scathing critic of Zuma.

Both of those parties have their problems — the DA still has the reputation as a white party while Ramphele is seen as trying to settle old liberation politics scores (she was the mother of Steve Biko’s children, when Biko was seen as a competitor to the ANC). But the day when the ANC will face a real opposition capable of defeating it in a free and fair election is coming. No doubt, the prospect of such a loss will increase corruption within the ANC as it uses all available patronage levers to stay in power.

At the same time, the Zuma government has not been able to adopt reforms that would put a dent in South Africa’s extraordinary unemployment. Nearly 37% of the country’s 50 million people are unemployed, and this figure is twice as high among youths. Until now, the government has reduced poverty and shored up political support through extending welfare. Social grant beneficiaries increased five-fold between 1997 and 2011 to number 16 million, more than twice those paying personal income tax. But while poverty fell dramatically, unemployment doubled and the burden on the taxpaying population increased to unsustainable levels.

Tipping Point?

Not only are there more people on welfare than employed, but in 2013 the government overtook the private sector as the single largest employer — a tipping point if ever there is one. There are real limits to the government’s ability to further redistribute from rich whites to poor, not least since this wage bill is paid for by private sector taxes. And the economy has been burdened by related challenges of low growth, direct investment, and productivity.

On the eve of the transition, it was widely noted that the ANC would have to rework its relationship with the unions because the relatively high wages that the employed in South Africa received would serve as a deterrent to potential investors. That advice was not heeded. South Africa has a wage scale that makes it uncompetitive globally, while keeping many impoverished because no one can afford to hire them.

It would have taken near perfect leadership by Mandela’s successors to solve even some of the extraordinary problems inherited from apartheid. In fact, South Africa’s leaders since 1999 have been poor and represent a sharp decline from the example Mandela set. The issue facing South Africa is no longer racial reconciliation: the white population has either left, made their peace with the new order, or have nowhere to go.

Might fundamentally South Africa create an economy and political system that allows the hopes of the peaceful transition from apartheid to be realised? The answer to date is no. South Africa will need to find a leader not in the heroic mould of Mandela, but someone who is capable of creating a political constituency to overcome the corruption and old politics that is holding the country back from realising the great man’s vision.

*[Note: Jeffrey Herbst is the president of Colgate University and Greg Mills heads the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation. This article was originally published by the .]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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By Francis Njubi Nesbitt

"Who is this man Mandela?" The US News & World Report asked in January 1990. Apparently no one knew much, since the magazine could only come up with three short paragraphs about the ANC leader. This sketch of Nelson Mandela's life seemed to be drawn from a Who's Who collection, detailing his early education, legal practice, and arrest by South African authorities in August 1962. Referring to him a as a "living legend," a "martyr," and "saint," the article noted that "Mandela has not been photographed or quoted directly since his final statement from the dock."

Nobody knew what Mandela looked like after 27 years in prison. Yet, the effort by South Africa's apartheid government to ban his image and words backfired as Mandela acquired a near-messianic aura. 

The "Free Mandela Campaign," launched after he was charged with sabotage at the "Rivonia Trial" in 1963, became one of the most visible international human rights movements of the 20th century. The United Nations General Assembly repeatedly called for his unconditional release. Trade unions, political parties, and student groups around the world joined the campaign to free the leaders of the ANC. 

In 1984, both houses of the US Congress adopted a "Mandela freedom resolution." Mayor Eugene Gus Newport of Berkeley, California, proclaimed June 9, 1984, to be "Nelson and Winnie Mandela Day." Detroit's city council adopted a resolution on September 10 of that year calling for the freedom of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. On October 11, anti-apartheid organizations in the US presented the United Nations with petitions for the release of Nelson Mandela signed by over 34,000 people.

The imminent release of what the London Times called "the colossus of African nationalism in South Africa” sent media around the world into a frenzy. "Waiting for Mandela" became the standard headline. In an article titled "Awaiting Mandela," The Economist wrote: "The man jailed a quarter of a century ago on sabotage charges now holds the key to peaceful resolution of his country's racial conflict." Nevertheless, the magazine managed to spend most of the editorial giving credit to apartheid leader Frederik Willem de Klerk for his "reforms." Returning to Mandela at the end, the editor observed: "Prestige apart, this is true: when arrested 25 years ago, Mr. Mandela was merely one of the party's four provincial leaders."

The Voice of Freedom

"Nightline makes history," Ted Koppel declared from Cape Town where he had relocated to cover Mandela's release live. Koppel hosted a "town meeting" before the event, where de Klerk's henchmen were given an opportunity to promote the new, "reasonable" face of apartheid. 

From the beginning, however, it was clear that the US media was out of its depth. The Mandela story did not fit into the neat news routines of the United States. First, the release was delayed by several hours, throwing everybody's deadlines off. Then, organizers allowed members of the South African Communist Party to hang the red flag on the podium and make "radical" speeches. Finally, Mandela's first speech in 27 years began with 15 minutes of salutations to all the dignitaries assembled and freedom fighters past and present who had made that moment possible. 

But it was Mandela's visit to the United States some four months later that most highlighted how much America had yet to learn about the anti-apartheid leader.

Nelson and Winnie Mandela arrived to a tremendous reception at John F. Kennedy International Airport on June 20, 1990. An estimated 750,000 New Yorkers lined Broadway for a "ticker-tape" parade usually reserved for returning war heroes and sports teams. 

Mandela rode through New York in a specially built bulletproof vehicle nicknamed the "Mandelamobile" by New York police. That night, 100,000 people jammed Harlem's Africa Square to hear Mandela speak at the same podium where Malcolm X had called on the South African government to release Mandela, two decades before. New York also honored the ANC leader with a rally of 80,000 at the Yankee Stadium, complete with a rock concert and vendors selling Mandela T-shirts, Mandela flags, and Mandela caps. Introducing Mandela, the equally legendary Harry Belafonte said there had never been a voice more identified with freedom. Rising to the moment, Mandela donned a Yankees cap and broke into an impromptu rendition of the toyi toyi, a South African victory dance. Time editors, astonished at the reception, titled the next issue of the magazine, "A Hero in America."

During his 11 days in the United States, Mandela visited eight cities, made 26 televised speeches, attended 21 meetings and fund-raisers, and addressed five news conferences. 

The interviews sometimes produced dramatic confrontations. In a pointed exchange with Koppel during a nationally televised "town meeting" at City College of New York, Mandela defended his right to meet with leaders of "rogue states" like Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, and Muammar Gaddafi. "They support our struggle to the hilt," Mandela told Koppel and proceeded to lecture him on gratitude and self-determination. "Any man who changes his principles according to whom he is dealing," he told Koppel to applause from the audience, "that is not a man who can lead a nation." Koppel was speechless. Breaking a protracted silence, Mandela laughed, asking: "I don't know if I have paralyzed you?" Members of the Jewish Congress at the "town meeting" argued that Mandela's support for the PLO was unacceptable, but quickly added that they appreciated Mandela's statement that he supported Israel's right to exist.

The Castro issue proved less amenable to Mandela's charm. On June 28, the Cuban-American mayors of Miami and surrounding cities refused to meet with Mandela because of his statements about Fidel Castro. The airwaves of Spanish-language radio in Miami were filled with attacks on Mandela for his comments. Outside Miami Beach Convention center, African-American activists faced off with Cuban-Americans during an appearance by Mandela, attended by some 5,000 cheering admirers.

This snub from Miami's Cuban-American community led to a three-year boycott of Miami's tourism industry by African Americans organized by the Boycott Miami: Coalition for Progress, which announced in 1993 that Miami had lost over $50 million in revenues from cancellations by black businesses. The boycott ended in August 1993 after an agreement that called on Miami's business community to commit to black empowerment through providing loans, bonding, insurance, and contracting opportunities. 

In Washington, Mandela's schedule included meetings with the President George H. W. Bush in the White House, and a rare nationally televised address by a foreigner to a joint session of both Houses of Congress. During this address, Mandela called on the United States to maintain sanctions until apartheid had been dismantled. He linked the anti-apartheid struggle to that of American freedom fighters like John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and Paul Robeson. In Atlanta, he paid tribute to the leaders of the civil rights movement and laid a wreath on the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr. 

"Can't Touch This"

Mandela's final stop in the United States was in Oakland, California, which was widely known as the "cradle of the divestiture movement." Congressman Ron Dellums was ecstatic about the visit. "I was elated when he agreed to come to Oakland to attend a rally in our municipal stadium," he said. "With tens of thousands of community activists filling the ball field and the stands, Mandela was greeted with thunderous cheers. Being able to bring Mandela home to my community and introduce him to my people brought to my mind the words of a popular rap tune 'Can't Touch This.'"

Nowhere had the anti-apartheid movement taken hold like in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the mid-1980s, longshoremen refused to unload South African cargo at Bay Area ports. Cities like Oakland adopted some of the toughest divestment laws in the country. In Berkeley, students boycotted classes, built shanties, occupied buildings, and were arrested in efforts to get the university to divest. In 1986, California Governor George Deukmejian signed legislation proposed by then-Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) allowing the state's pension fund to divest its $13 billion in assets. Over 100 US companies, including IBM and Coca Cola, followed suit.

American conservatives, meanwhile, maintained a hard line against Mandela and his "maintain sanctions" campaign. President Bush and his aides in the State Department used every opportunity to praise de Klerk. At a press event during Mandela's visit, Bush took time to discuss his warm regard for de Klerk, even though the questioner had not asked about him. The White House had also tried to invite de Klerk for a state visit several times, only to reverse itself because of popular opposition. According to The Washington Post: "Mr. de Klerk can depend on a warm center of support in the White House. While Mr. Mandela has been a hero to the masses, Mr. de Klerk is officialdom's champion."

The Post argued that Bush's regard for de Klerk was based on a "habit" of supporting South African whites. Summing up Bush's position, the newspaper concluded: "Although American officials admire Mr. Mandela, they believe Mr. de Klerk is more important, and his departure from the scene would most upset prospects for peaceful change."

Forbes also joined the bash-Mandela club with an article by Michael Novak titled: "No Hard Questions Please, Nelson Mandela and the US Media." Novak accused reporters of "racism" and "double standards" for supposedly placing Mandela above criticism. "If Mandela were white — if he were Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Fidel Castro or even Mikhail Gorbachev — his substantive views would certainly have been subjected to criticism." Novak also claimed that Mandela was merely a pleasant face of a "secretive and extremist organization" that "maintains a close alliance with the Communist Party."   

US News & World Report argued that the visit was "an unalloyed triumph within black America," but added that "much of white America wasn't paying serious attention. A riveting interview with Ted Koppel on ABC, broadcast during prime time, drew a meager 9 percent share of the television audience… Mandela discovered the same lesson as Gorbachev on his last visit: It's hard for any foreign visitor to fire the American imagination these days." 

Free at Last!

South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994. The election featured the incumbent National Party’s F.W. de Klerk, Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party, and Mandela of the African National Congress.

On May 2, 1994, de Klerk conceded defeat, saying Mandela had "walked a long road and now stands at the top of the hill. A traveler would sit down and enjoy the view but a man of destiny knows that beyond this hill lies another and another… As he contemplates the future I hold out my hand in friendship and cooperation." 

Hours later, Mandela claimed victory at a Johannesburg hotel. In a gracious speech, Mandela congratulated de Klerk and the people of South Africa, calling the moment "a joyous night for the human spirit." On May 6, the Independent Electoral Commission announced its final vote tally: 62.6 percent for the ANC, 20.3 for de Klerk's National Party, and 10.5 percent for Inkatha. On May 8, planes approached South Africa from all corners of the earth bearing the largest gathering of black heads of state ever. Three of these planes carried the 44-member official US delegation led by Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and a congressional delegation. The overwhelmingly black delegation marked an historic stage for African-American participation in US foreign policy.

Vice President Al Gore emphasized the African-American connection in official remarks generally ignored by the mainstream US press. "The transition here and the civil rights movement in the United States have been closely intertwined longer than many realize," he said. "The lessons of the spirit which came out of America's civil rights movement have been vigorously exported to South Africa and have, in turn, been taken to the United States."

The ceremony was followed by an African and African-American healing ceremony at Johannesburg's integrated Marker Theatre, where poet Maya Angelo and South African artists raised up the names of the ancestors who had made the moment possible. Al Gore raised up the names of Du Bois and the African Methodist Episcopal Church and other African American activists, who had participated in the struggle. "To the United States, this transformation has special significance. After all, for years, Americans agonized over the horrors of our own apartheid. And the struggle for justice in South Africa and in the United States has in many ways been one struggle."

*[Note: Francis Njubi Nesbitt is a professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University. He is the author of Race for Sanctions and has published numerous book chapters and articles in academic journals. This article was originally published by ].

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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