Nelson Mandela: Some Sour Notes Amid The Chorus of Praise

Mandela and Castro

My impression of Nelson Mandela, the late president of the nation of South Africa, is not entirely positive.  Most people seem to see the man with the kindly, smiling face as a hero for black civil rights in Africa, a revolutionary against racial apartheid.  My take on the man is that he was anti-American, anti-white, often violent, and whose political organization, the African National Congress (ANC) was a Marxist and  terrorist organization supported by the Soviet Union.  Following are some more sour notes.

From Chronicles Magazine:  Nelson Mandela, RIP or RIH?

Are Black South Africans better off than they were in the bad old days? (Forget about South African whites: Most of them, if they could get visas, have fled the country.) It would not seem so. The South African economy is in ruins, the rule of law has so broken down that Johannesburg is recording murder rates several times the rate in Mexico City, and young black professionals are leaving in droves. Interviewed even on NPR, they explain there is no future for them in South Africa. - See more at: http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2013/12/06/nelson-mandela-rip-or-rih/#sthash.Ghd9NIKB.dpuf

From American Renaissance: White Genocide With a Whimper:

Nelson Mandela is dead, and South Africa without “Madiba” will be much the same as it was before: a wreck of a country with slowly collapsing infrastructure, high crime, and the slow-motion genocide of Afrikaners [white South Africans].

None of this much matters to the opinion makers of what used to be the West. For them, the true hallmark of leftist totalitarianism isn’t brutality—it’s kitsch, and we’ll see plenty of that. Mandela will be on every magazine cover, the Internet will be drowning in sentimental schmaltz, and Facebook will be littered with sanctimonious status updates.

The truth is, the saintly visage of Mandela—all crinkly eyes and warm smiles—conceals a violent past as a terrorist.

Mandela sought support from America's enemies, like communist China, communist Cuba, Egypt and East Germany.  He is well known for anti-American rhetoric and his support for Communism.  See The Other McCain's take on this here.

For much of Nelson Mandela's life, he was dedicated to terrorism and violence against whites  He was anti-American and was openly allied with communist and other totalitarian regimes.  To his credit, he was more or less peaceful after becoming the first black president of South Africa.  It is for that reason I cannot completely condemn the man.  However, I cannot embrace him either.  Or as Thomas Fleming put it:

The best I can say of Mr. Mandela is that he was the Lafayette or Kerensky of the South African revolution, a self-serving but well-intended fool who could not see what horror he was inflicting on his country.

Update:  American Power joins the Sour Note Chorus:  Nelson Mandela, Terrorist and Communist.