Right-Wing Respectability (RIP Nelson Mandela)

jamin | December 9, 2013 | 0 Comments

On the heels of just learning that the Republican Party either supported no intervention in World War II, supported Hitler, or didn’t think that Hitler was that bad of a guy, he just kept taking over countries, swearing to eventually stop (but never did), we were hit with news last week of Nelson Mandela’s death. (Back to Hitler, though. Thank God for Franklin Delano Roosevelt for indirect intervention in my existence. Hitler actually had plans to put world leaders in isolated towers in the countries he conquered. A man is going to take over the world and make you his footstool, and y’all just want to let him? Okay, Republicans.)

Now, it’s bad enough that news outlets have obituaries ready for publishing for high-profile people, and CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the rest put out their Mandela memorial pieces within minutes of the news hitting. It’s bad enough that instead of saying RIP Mandela on Twitter that some people took that moment to make “poignant” statements like “We cannot let his death stop our fight for freedom.”

Shut UP! Just tweet “RIP Nelson Mandela” and be done with it. Ain’t nobody got time for you to use this moment as your social media come-up.

This is the face he’d make for that “tribute”.

What makes this saddest of all is reading the right-wing comments, tweets, and opinions on Mandela’s death. Yes, it’s terrible that the media is focusing on his life after prison and trying to neuter him, but I don’t forget why he went to prison in the first place. He was the leader of the African National Congress and used various methods to fight against Apartheid (rule by the white minority in South Africa – it was like a harsher version of U.S. Jim Crow segregation laws), and was once condemned by every Western leader available for comment when he was fighting and was in prison.

These right-wingers called Mandela racist, insinuated that Apartheid wasn’t that bad and not racist, and said Mandela should have rotted in jail. How can you call someone racist who was oppressed under a racist national policy? Yes, he targeted white people who were oppressing the majority over which they ruled and denied rights. BECAUSE THEY WERE THE OPPRESSORS. What is with this revisionist history of white people in South Africa who just showed up peacefully one day and legally purchased land from the inhabitants and lived in peace, until one day the natives turned on them? Stop that. Now.

No, Mandela wasn’t a purely innocent man and I don’t view his armed insurrection to make a point and fight for freedom all that different from America’s Revolutionary War. When people are oppressed enough and tired of it, they revolt. It can be violent and isn’t always like Gandhi and MLK, Jr.

So, may Madiba rest in peace. He lived a full life, 27 of which was imprisoned, but his capacity to forgive his oppressors and tormentors really speaks highly of his character more than any righteous viciousness or political success he had later in life. He truly made his country and the world a better place.

Do you think of Mandela as a hero, villain, or redeemed anti-hero?