The Mandela Myth
by R.W. Johnson
How best to appreciate the huge world-wide acclaim for Nelson Mandela, the endless eulogies from politicians, TV and film stars, politicians, and other celebrities?
The beginning of wisdom is to realize that there has, for a long time now, been an enormous Western longing to find and celebrate a Third World leader and saint. Lenin, Stalin and Mao enjoyed such acclaim at various stages, but so did Nkrumah, Ho Chi Minh, Amilcar Cabral, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Hugo Chavez ,and various others. In every case, they were found to have feet of clay or worse.
In the modern era, two men have enjoyed uncritical acclaim: Gandhi and Mandela. Yet Gandhi was a failed lawyer who had to leave India for South Africa to make a living. He denounced railways, doctors, modern medicine, hospitals and most other elements of modern life. He also regarded South African blacks as mere savages and defended the Indian caste system. Similarly, Nelson Mandela had his full share of failings.
But in the case of Gandhi and Mandela, none of that seems to matter. This canonization seems to depend on a bottomless well of guilt about slavery, colonialism, and the mistreatment of people of color down the years, allied to a pursuit of the “noble savage” and a longing to discover that somewhere, somehow, the Third World has discovered a new model, a new way which will transcend our fault-riven capitalism and our dead-end communism. It is as if by devoting oneself to one of these superheroes, one can receive absolution from that crushing burden of guilt. One appreciates these feelings: they are widespread, real and powerful, and they are a discredit to nobody. Unfortunately, that is all they are. Reality is something else.
The key facts of Mandela's life are that in the 1940s he, together with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, captured the Youth League of South Africa's main black nationalist party, the African National Congress (ANC). At much the same time, the small but influential South African Communist Party (SACP) entered an alliance with the ANC and began to infiltrate it at various levels. In 1952 the ANC leader, James Moroka, was overthrown by these more radical forces, which judged him too conservative. His successor, Chief Albert Luthuli, was a Christian liberal but he was always aware that the Communists had overthrown his predecessor and he wanted to accommodate them rather than suffer the same fate himself. However, in April 1959 the ANC split, with many radicals walking out to form the Pan Africanist Congress, (PAC) led by Robert Sobukwe. The PAC angrily denounced the overwhelming influence of the SACP within the ANC, and demanded a party which was wholly African. Sobukwe was a talented and charismatic leader, and the PAC rapidly gained ground.
This panicked the SACP, then a mainly white, Jewish body. Two rising SACP leaders, Joe Slovo and his wife, Ruth First, had mentored and brought on the young Mandela, enrolled him in the Party, and positioned him as the obvious next leader of the ANC. The SACP decided that the only way to head off the threat from the PAC was to launch an armed struggle against the apartheid government. The Party accordingly set up Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, or MK). It was a 100% Communist organization and Mandela, who headed it, was then on the Party's Central Committee, a fact about which he lied both in court and later in his autobiography.
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Read more: nationalinterest.org
In the modern era, two men have enjoyed uncritical acclaim: Gandhi and Mandela. Yet Gandhi was a failed lawyer who had to leave India for South Africa to make a living. He denounced railways, doctors, modern medicine, hospitals and most other elements of modern life. He also regarded South African blacks as mere savages and defended the Indian caste system. Similarly, Nelson Mandela had his full share of failings.
But in the case of Gandhi and Mandela, none of that seems to matter. This canonization seems to depend on a bottomless well of guilt about slavery, colonialism, and the mistreatment of people of color down the years, allied to a pursuit of the “noble savage” and a longing to discover that somewhere, somehow, the Third World has discovered a new model, a new way which will transcend our fault-riven capitalism and our dead-end communism. It is as if by devoting oneself to one of these superheroes, one can receive absolution from that crushing burden of guilt. One appreciates these feelings: they are widespread, real and powerful, and they are a discredit to nobody. Unfortunately, that is all they are. Reality is something else.
The key facts of Mandela's life are that in the 1940s he, together with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, captured the Youth League of South Africa's main black nationalist party, the African National Congress (ANC). At much the same time, the small but influential South African Communist Party (SACP) entered an alliance with the ANC and began to infiltrate it at various levels. In 1952 the ANC leader, James Moroka, was overthrown by these more radical forces, which judged him too conservative. His successor, Chief Albert Luthuli, was a Christian liberal but he was always aware that the Communists had overthrown his predecessor and he wanted to accommodate them rather than suffer the same fate himself. However, in April 1959 the ANC split, with many radicals walking out to form the Pan Africanist Congress, (PAC) led by Robert Sobukwe. The PAC angrily denounced the overwhelming influence of the SACP within the ANC, and demanded a party which was wholly African. Sobukwe was a talented and charismatic leader, and the PAC rapidly gained ground.
This panicked the SACP, then a mainly white, Jewish body. Two rising SACP leaders, Joe Slovo and his wife, Ruth First, had mentored and brought on the young Mandela, enrolled him in the Party, and positioned him as the obvious next leader of the ANC. The SACP decided that the only way to head off the threat from the PAC was to launch an armed struggle against the apartheid government. The Party accordingly set up Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, or MK). It was a 100% Communist organization and Mandela, who headed it, was then on the Party's Central Committee, a fact about which he lied both in court and later in his autobiography.
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Read more: nationalinterest.org
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