A disappointingly simplistic opinion piece was published in The Australian today by author Alan Gold who is described as an “a delegate to the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa” to give him some sort of credibility over a subject he seems to know sod all about.
Gold writes of his bemusement that the world would celebrate the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela and how world leaders and the rich and famous all make a bee-line to be seen anywhere near him.
He writes, “what the congregation rocking in Hyde Park probably didn’t know was that long before most of them were born, Mandela was one of the leaders of the African National Congress, who created an armed wing called the Umkhonto we Sizwe or Spear of the Nation, which was dedicated to bombing civilian, industrial, military and government targets.
“South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has accused it of torture and executions without due process.”
Gold seems to have attended the Andrew Bolt school of opinion writing where you present so-called facts by hiding the whole truth. What he doesn’t say is that Mandela and his fellow ANC founders and lawyers such as Oliver Tambo worked as hard as they could to use the South African legal system to fight Apartheid, only for blacks to lose all their rights to due legal process.
It was only as a last resort, when all the hurdles meant that even to speak out meant jail, did the ANC embark on a campaign of civil disobedience, with option that would resort to terrorism against structural targets - and not specifically aimed at killing people.
Gold also fails to mention that the torture and executions associated with the ANC mostly happened many years after Mandela was incarcerated.
He also says this: “But before Mandela is accorded the same Mahatma status as Gandhi, who peacefully reclaimed India from the British and a man whom Mandela says was his guiding light and inspiration, it’s important to examine his record as a freedom fighter. What it shows is that like so many black Africans fighting the evil of apartheid or colonialism, he has a record of advocating and condoning violence.”
Again, Mandela only ever condoned violence as a last resort, and only after the white government denied the ANC of all possible political and legal avenues, people were jailed without trial and teenagers were being shot in the back for protesting.
Gold continues: “During his presidency of South Africa, he deliberately courted leaders of nations who abuse the human rights of their citizens.”
Shit, and no Australian or Westen government has ever done this?
And more bullshit from Gold: “It’s by examining his often overlooked past that Mandela is revealed as anything but a saint. And it’s all too tempting to forgive him and his colleagues their excesses because they were fighting a brutal and oppressive white racist regime that treated blacks as subhuman.”
Yes, which is why when he did came to power the first thing Mandela did was create “the rainbow nation” and embraced the white South Africans, knowing that turning the tables of them would have resulted in South Africa becoming a bigger basket case than Zimbabwe is today.
Gold concludes, “It’s a pity that so few people looked beyond the iconic image when he emerged from incarceration and questioned Mandela’s actions and principles. If they had they done so, it’s likely that his 90th birthday flock would have been much smaller.”
What Gold fails to realise is the reason that Mandela is so revered is for his capacity for forgiveness, and his ability to look forward in the interests of peace rather than look back through vengeance. But then when you’re willing to look back and bend the truth this is probably a very difficult concept to understand.
