As a native South African (now in the US) I will say this, I used to be embarrassed about telling people where I was from (back when I was a little girl), but when I took the time to learn about the history of what has happened and who causes the pain and problems, it became apparent to me that every culture/society/country/whatever, has evil people on both sides of any argument.
We had a few South Africans at school in the mid-eighties, and almost everyone of them would, if asked by a stranger, claim to be Zimbabwean so as not to cop any flak since most of us couldn’t really tell the difference between a South African and Zimbabwean accent.
To the folks thinking I’m being racist: it is possible to criticise a black man without being racist. Yes, really. What I’m criticising has absolutely nothing to do with race, and everything to do with the (MAN) illusion that media has perpetuated, and that naive people like yourselves maintain - as well as how he let the country down. Because I sincerely believe he did. I think if he’d taken the time in prison to educate himself about a certain disease (as well as any number of other issues) tearing its way down to his corner of the continent, and then stood and made all the well-meaning speeches he’s making today (10 years too late), maybe SA wouldn’t be in the epidemic it is. Further, if he’d taken more interest in the economics of the country instead of just idyllic privileges in a constitution that smiles so wide its head falls off, “his people” might not still be living in the same abject poverty they were before he “saved them”. I maintain that for the majority of his supporters, life has not changed, and that for many it in fact got worse (you want to talk about latent hatred?).
If someone a little younger than he was, say with longer hair, a paler complexion and a tie-dyed (as opposed to paisley) wardrobe, came out of prison spouting the claptrap about peace and loving children the way he has, they’d be written off as a hippy and nothing more. He is more talk (and fund-raisers and parties and conventions and summits) than anything else. What did he achieve, really? SA is a mess, and it’s a reflection of the job he did. If he’s such a masterful peace negotiator, how is it that he hasn’t solved a crisis in ANY other country? He didn’t even solve one here, he supposedly averted one. If you take away the hype the media presented (“one boer one bullet” didn’t get famous on its own), it’s doubtful whether the threat of civil war even existed outside the minds of paranoid whites. Were I to ever meet the sod, I’d ask him if he’s ever used his Nobel Peace prize as bog-roll, because that’s what I think it’s worth.
bayonet1976 touched on another interesting issue, namely Mandela’s questionable political leanings. There have been numerous times when his policies regarding Gaddafi, Castro and others have seriously jeopardised the country’s relations with the US -a relationship far more important and beneficial then what the “rebel” countries could offer. That smacks of blind, irresponsible self-interest.
And, unfortunately, given the direction his successor has headed in (as well as the telling attitude towards Mugabe), I don’t think the “Why didn’t SA follow Zimbabwe” question can be answered yet.
For the record, I think “race” is an utterly ridiculous concept that needs to be destroyed. Had he come out of prison saying that, he would’ve been my hero.
Mandela is a hero, not because of what he did, but because of what he came to symbolise. Does he personally deserve all this hero worship? Well, possibly not. He has been through a lot of unjust persecution, but so have a lot of South Africans. But some people accomplish a lot by just being a symbol.
His position is not unusual. Many have similarly reached an elated status through being a symbol of something rather than achieving much themselves. I believe we can use a certain low-ranking female US soldier as an example. She never did much to warrant being a heroine compared to any other soldier, but there she is.
I also can’t understand a few comments in this thread. Guess what guys, you can be a full-on communist and still be hero to many. It doesn’t make you a horrible human being either. Winnie, on the otherhand, is a different kettle of fish. A better example of corruption by power and reputation by association you’d couldn’t hope to find.
Nor do I follow the equation that Questioning Mandela hero-worship = Support for apartheid and racism that some posters have touted. The OP put forward a valid point and others have given knee-jerk responses that suggests some things are not be questioned.
Well, firstly the “Hero or Zero” phrasing strikes me as so extreme as to legitimately raise questions. If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen as the saying goes.
Second, like Boo, your careful phrasing reminded me of a certain kind of SAfrican white expat that one runs into. That does not make a criticism illegit, but the reality is there.
True enough.
I rather suspect it has a great deal to do with his race, but what can we say.
This particular criticism is emblamatic then of the bizarre yardstick for your criticisms so far.
(a) To the best of my knowledge his jailors on Robin Island were not the most magnimoniously accomodating sorts who stocked extensive libraries on all matter of subjects.
(b) AIDS up to 1990 had not yet hit SA like it had its northern neighbors. Certainly a man sitting in prison, under strict control and observation may be forgiven for not being 100% up on the social changes ongoing in his time imprisoned - for political crimes above all.
© It strikes me that Mandela is not a medical doctor so may also be forgiven for not being an expert nor 100% up on all matter of things.
(d) It strikes me as rather drippingly hypocritical to launch this as a criticism of the man. His field was politics, and if he overlooked this, well, again he at least is not willfully blinkered as Thabo is.
(e) It strikes me as fundamentally hypocritical to launch into an attack on this ponit given among the core reasons for HIV issues in Southern Africa being among the worst in the world (and nota bene, orders of magnitude worse than West Africa, for example) is Apartheid’s systematic (i) underfunding of black health care (ii) utter disregard for Africans living conditions (iii) Bantustan policy engendering fundamentally inhuman conditions and also the migrant labor patterns that are widely said to have helped drive HIV infections in Southern Africa.
Again, this strikes me as bizarrely misplaced.
Mandela helped lead the ANC away from its rather socialist orientation and helped preserve the private sector in South Africa from expropriationist reaction.
While not an economist, he seems to have done a fine job of management overall given the constraints and conditions, if we take indicators during his period, and again in the context of his reconcilliation policies, helped prevent an explosion and utter expropriation of the wealth White South Africa had busily expropriated (as well as built) from Black South Africa.
However, Apartheid gifted any post-Apartheid system with an economy with deep issues in regards to (legally enforced) mal-distribution of wealth, opportunities and deep sociologial issues in re education and blind hatreds.
Again, given the context, Mandela seems to have done, for a human being with flaws, a really masterful job.
Certainly perhaps more could have been done, but then what was realistically possible, politically?
Sure, we can talk latent hatred, but what is the context?
Certainly for a large percentage of Black South Africa, life has not changed enough, but the world rarely transforms itself peacefully. No magic wands to suddenly make a deeply dysfunctional and racist economic system just become all peaches and cream.
Add to thatopposition from the unreformed and other issues, and again, what does one expect. From a real world, not mythological leader?
And race has nothing to do with your comments?
As for the claptrap, well that claptrap helped insure that the “one settler, one bullet” solution that many a victim of Apartheid rightfully might claim as a short term answer to their problems was not sought.
Perhaps he should get some bloody credit for you and your kind not swinging from a tree, as far too many people who let the fundamental evil of Apartheid live on and profited from the same, likely deserved in some moral calculus. But that solution was a worst of all worlds solution, and Mandela, with the help of De Klerk and a few other key actors, led South Africa away from the abyss.
Right, it has nothing to do with how fucked up it was under Apartheid, and all the systematic economic distortions that this system imposed on South Africa for a good 40-50 years.
Indeed, it’s all Mandela’s fault.
Nah, I am definately in Boo’s camp.
[off-topic]One of the saddest things about the current ANC government is that they are showing signs of just this sort of thinking - not about Mandela, but toward criticism of their policies. Fortunately there are people like Patricia De Lille who have impeccable “struggle credentials” around who are unforgiving in their criticism of all and sundry[/off-topic]
Grim
What do you mean?
Winnie and Mandela divorced after his release. They had, as one might guess, “grown apart” in the long years of imprisonment.
Further thought.
As your other criticisms, this rather strikes me as hysterical exageration.
I can’t recall any serious rift between the US and SA since 1990, his giving respect to Qadhdhafi and Castro hardly cost him very much and strikes me as being rather prudent.
Small symbolic nod to old comrades in the struggle, keeps up a degree of street cred with the more radical. No real engagment with either on substantive grounds in economics nor politics, just symbolism useful to the tiersmondistes. Something State et al understand very well. Statesmanship, not self interest per se, clefer statesmanship.
It may be contrasted with Mbeki’s rather less clever positioning in re Zimbabwe and Bob, as well as some other key points.
Attack Thabo, that has rather more basis.
As a matter of the genetics, yes, but the reality is the social world of South Africa was is and will be race driven for some time, and piously pretending to be race blind in the face of a system driven by race would have been pure idiocy.
I think his popularity is in part because there is no other black African leader worthy of praise right now. He’s the acceptable face. Thabo Mbeki has turned out to be a disappointment with his crazy ideas on Aids and HIV, and it’s all downhill from him really across SubSaharan Africa. Too bad Steve Biko and Jerry Rawlings aren’t still around.
Really? I am sure you must be informed to make such judgements, so please do tell me what make President Abdoulaye Wade so evil in your book? Or for that matter his predecessor Abdou Diouf? Or President Toure or his predecessor President Alpha Oumar Konore? How about President Kufour and his predecessor, Rawlings? Now I can understand not being estatic about Obansanjo, but I wouldn’t say he’s utterly unworthy of praise.
Shall I go on?
A symbolic nod to Castro is all fine and good, but there were a whole lot of people who stood up for Mandela, on the basis of his status as a political prisoner. Then he turns around and gladly shakes the hand and kisses up to someone whose record for political repression should make someone of Mandela’s stature more than a little bit pissed off. It’s just wrong.
Coll…I already mentioned Rawlings. As for the others, I don’t claim to know enough to judge them , but then again I was only tabling a theory. Not beating off.
Well, then it stands to reason you didn’t know enough to table the theory either.
That’s a good and valid point, however realpolitik sometimes is ugly. It may be the political calculus was such that it was an advantage, despite the morality.
Coll…I tabled a theory expecting someone to offer an alternative view, in a semi-civilized, non-self-righteous, unemotional way. Maybe that’ll come along later. Till then, thanks for your time.
By the way, I should add I am not one for hero worship at all, it is distortive. I would simply argue that benchmarking Mandela against the real world, not an ideal world, he’s a “hero.”
Obviously not perfect, no one is, but positives far outweigh the negatives.
And the point of this hand waving response is what? I fail to the “emotion” in my noting several leaders for you to learn about and take a chew at.
If you lack the benchmarks for putting forward a theory on some basis other than pure stereotype and ignorance, perhaps you should refrain from comment.
It strikes me in the end that it is fairly clear that (a) South Africa was and is a famous place, one of the few in all of Africa people had some passing knowledge of versus the blank slate of the rest - see your own comments (b) Apartheid was a globally reviled and infamous system © Mandela was part of ending that. No further theory is needed. Simple information.
“Hero or average guy” doesn’t have much of a ring, does it.
I rather suspect it has a great deal to do with his race, but what can we say.
I can say you should reread my post?
(a) To the best of my knowledge his jailors on Robin Island were not the most magnimoniously accomodating sorts who stocked extensive libraries on all matter of subjects.
He was a lawyer and well aware of his rights, and his warders were equally aware of that situation. He and a number of others did take up other studies (of their choice) while incarcerated.
**(b) AIDS up to 1990 had not yet hit SA like it had its northern neighbors. **
That’s exactly my point.
(c) It strikes me that Mandela is not a medical doctor so may also be forgiven for not being an expert nor 100% up on all matter of things.
He was aware then, as he is now, that he had the ears of a number of people who simply wouldn’t listen to anyone else the way they would listen to him… he could’ve used that power in more positive and responsible ways.
(d) It strikes me as rather drippingly hypocritical to launch this as a criticism of the man. His field was politics
and politics and disease-control are mutually exclusive? Good thing I never tackled the issue of how he let crime explode out of control, that would almost suggest justice falls under governmental jurisdiction too.
**(e) It strikes me as fundamentally hypocritical to launch into an attack on this ponit given among the core reasons for HIV issues in Southern Africa being among the worst in the world **
how so? because it means he’d have to take some responsibility for it?
**is Apartheid’s systematic (i) underfunding of black health care **
and what did he do to improve it? I doubt health care in this country has ever been so tattered, particularly in rural areas. It’s thoroughly shocking what state of affairs those (government-funded) “hospitals” are forced to run under.
and also the migrant labor patterns
ah, the lax immigration laws and the myriad of problems subsequently introduced. Are you on some kind of can-opening spree?
**However, Apartheid gifted any post-Apartheid system with an economy with deep issues in regards to (legally enforced) mal-distribution of wealth, opportunities and deep sociologial issues in re education and blind hatreds. **
It most certainly did. and the solutions that since emerged are proving largely inadequate. Solutions effected by…
Mandela seems to have done, for a human being with flaws
Wait a minute! You just said Mandela has flaws! You bloody racist!
Sure, we can talk latent hatred, but what is the context?
A large population who felt that after a leader with the same skin colour came into power, would suddenly have their living standards bumped up many notches. It didn’t happen, for the obvious reasons you mentioned, and this left them with resentment aimed at the only target they know.
** No magic wands to suddenly make a deeply dysfunctional and racist economic system just become all peaches and cream. **
They never understood that, and Mandela never took the time to set them straight. He just let the expectations keep on expecting.
And race has nothing to do with your comments?
in that analogy, it obviously did…
** can’t recall any serious rift between the US and SA **
you mean besides the period where the rand was plummeting substantial percentages on a daily basis, and US companies had second thoughts about establishing (or reestablishing in some cases) their presence in SA…
Small symbolic nod to old comrades in the struggle
It goes a little deeper than symbolic nods…
South Africa was is and will be race driven for some time
He guaranteed that. he need not have been wholly race blind, but suggesting to people that the way forward was to take race out the equation might have put SA on an altogether different path. Possibly even, a true example to the world.
The knee-jerk “you’re a racist. Yeah I hear you saying you’re not, but you are” comments are tiresome. I’m trying to criticise a leader that no one else seems to find fault with.
Rider excellent point - Mandela is the best poster-boy Africa has to offer. And that’s all he really is. A symbol to put on a poster.
Well, you make your rhetorical bed, you have to sleep in it.
You can say it, however I believe my level of literacy is such that it’s not necessary.
Yes, they did, that does not mean any they had perfect access to information nor a means of really effectively judging things like social change. Indeed, that’s rather hard to do.
Well, no, your point is you wish to blame Mandela for not having perfect future vision in a single area and use it to tar him generally.
As to your first assertion, well unless there is some record of the information available and so forth, we just have pointless whinging on. It may very well be a fair and moderate thing to complain that Mandela could have reacted better in the 1990-1998 period, for example, once he was out and about, however this bit regarding the prison is pure trash.
No one is a perfect master of all subjects. Disease control is an issue rather far removed from the normal realm of political concern, as opposed to economics.
As for the crime rate, well, again the characterization “let” strikes me as discussable.
Because the basis upon which you have begun your criticism lacks a degree of realism and seems largely aimed at a rather irrational attempt to trash the man, rather than a rational and moderate examination of the possible in the context of actual knowledge and capacities.
Ah, so in order to be a hero the political leader must also magically rearrange an entire system with magical funds?
One does not upend decades of underinvestment and misallocation of resources with a presidential pen.
That is, in light of budgetary and other constraints, including multiple claims on funds and a need to invest in maintenance of infrastructure to attract capital investment, how should he have done things differently. Reference to actual budget constraints would be nice.
Ahhh, yourself, no I refer to housing permits and racially reserved areas of residence. The migrant labor system in the Southern Cone dates to the British Colonial period, and to racialist policies wiCh aimed at preventing black urbanization. Controls attempting to keep blacks in Bantustans or reserved ‘tribal’ areas, far away from centers of production. Issues internal to South Africa, as well as cropping up regionally.
Benchmarked against what real world alternatives? Whinging on against some as of yet undescribed fictional ideal world is all well and fine, however as far as I can tell SA managed to prevent during his period massive capital flight, more or less increased competitivity, increased foreign investment… etc. Nothing magical, but all largely very decent macro economic policies.
Feel better now?
It’s called human nature, and it has happened in every system transition. Exagerated expectations always result.
The resentment is pre-existing, whether it can be worked down is a matter of future policies.
Assertions.
I find it hard to argue about simple hand waving assertions.
You are aware that the USG does not direct US company FDI nor control Rand exchange rates.
Or are we also confused about economics, besides politics?
In any case, I believe you speak to the global 98 crisis, yes? Otherwise, I am afraid I need data and context to know what period you refer to.
You’r a naive dreamer if you think one man, even of Mandela’s stature could undo the centuries of racial prejudice that mar South Africa. The mere position is ridiculous bordering on inane.
See my comments to Rider.
At the end, he walked away from political power voluntarily. That was pretty cool. Makes a bloody good statesman though.
Mandela is a fantastic human being, but nobody is beyond criticism. I don’t think the accusations of racism against the OP are entirely fair, to be honest. Mandela proved himself to be a great man very late in life, but the cult following was already in place by then (hey, I was part of it too in the 80s. Freee-eeee…). Luckily, it transpired that he was deserving of this, IMHO. It could just have easily been the case that he wouldn’t have been able to live up to the hype. He did though, and that is cool.