When people hear “Nelson Mandela” what are the ideas that jump to mind? He’s the man who stood up and fought for freedom, justice and equality in his country, and was imprisoned for 27 years.
He’s the man who got out of prison, became the first South African Black President and forgave those who oppressed, enslaved and turned the blood of the Black people into streams; he’s regarded as an exceptional strong nice person, the man of peace and for peace.
Nonetheless, I notice that in South Africa lived two Nelson Mandela. The first Mandela is the one who bravely and heroically fought the Apartheid regime and spent 27 years of his life in prison; the second Mandela is the emasculated one that lived after the prison.
1-The first Nelson Mandela
The first Mandela was the man of the people, the one who knew what Blacks were going through, knew what they needed and what to do for them, and did it admirably.
This Mandela knew very well the cruel and destructive pain from the venom of apartheid, and stood up for the oppressed. As Steve Biko, Thabo Mbeki, Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani, etc. all anti-apartheid politicians, Nelson Mandela refused to let his oppressed people down.
This Mandela understood that a stable prosperous and peaceful country must have as ground foundation Justice and Freedom for all, and fought for that. This Mandela was a pragmatic great nationalist and patriot; he was an incomparable true humanist and African hero.
2-The second Nelson Mandela or the fall of a charismatic leader
This second Mandela is but the opposite of the first. He is his own antithesis. As he got out of jail, he gathered all he fought strongly for in the past, he put them in a big safe and let them sink into deep sea.
The vision, the humanism, the courage and determination and the fight for justice and freedom which typified him in the past were nowhere to be found in the second Nelson Mandela.
It is under the presidency of Nelson Mandela (the first South African Black President) that the oppressed Blacks’ expectations and hopes withered and progressively fell down.
When President Mbeki later on tried to change or reverse the course of things, when he tried to hunt the hunters, the handful of men who rejoiced and relied on the suffering and poverty of the oppressed, he was ousted.
The second Mandela betrayed the people he fought for and the people who fought for him as he was imprisoned. He became a great accomplice of the minority of Whites who stole the good lands and mines, hijacked and never stop hijacking the country’s economy and wealth.
When the oppressive regime of Apartheid was tremendously affected by the embargo and when pressure was coming down on them like heavy rainstorm on young creatures, the oppressors found a way to stay through a fake change.
Indeed, the oppressors sought and found a reliable strong Trojan horse: Nelson Mandela. He helped them to walk away with their multitudinous crimes; unjustified imprisonments, poisonings, assassinations, crimes of genocides and crimes against humanity. They got away with them; they got away arrogantly, without any reparations.
By abandoning the fights for the fundamental rights of the oppressed poor impoverished Blacks, by deciding with a handful of oppressors about the future of the oppressed without their consent, by forgetting that privileged oppressors never give up willingly their privileges, Mandela became an unforgivable traitor.
But one of the most important things about the life and death of this man is the world hypocrisy which surrounds them.
3-The world comedy about the fallen man
Amid the leaders of nations who talked recently about Nelson Mandela or were present in South Africa to pay their last respect to him, some of them were sincere and good friends who helped greatly the oppressed of this country with their fights for justice and freedom or sympathized with them.
But many other politicians rushed to South Africa like swarms of birds which are migrating, and said all the good things that exist about the fallen man. They were just hypocrites and accomplices of the oppressors who were at work, are at work and still will stand against reforms which can suppress the existing economic apartheid.
Inside this second class of visitors were those who in the past labeled Nelson Mandela and his party Terrorists, as they were just fighting for a right cause: for Justice and Freedom. These visitors all spoke so well of him, no matter Mandela remained on their terrorists lists years after he became president.
Why did they do that? Was it that the leaders of those nations had discovered their big past mistakes and by so doing were apologizing? Indeed, no. let us not forget this:
They gave all sorts of supports to the oppressive regime of Apartheid, and even when the country was under international embargo, some of them kept doing underground business with this hellish regime.
But also, their approaches and viewpoints on some current international issues show that they remain the oppressors and accomplices of existing oppressions and crimes against humanity. Palestine, Libya, Ivory Coast, Syria, Afghanistan Sudan and DRC are just few examples amongst others. Thus, why did those world leaders rush to South Africa?
4-The reasons behind some presences at Mandela’s funeral
They rushed to South Africa to speak, to laud and deify Nelson Mandela; but it was not Mandela who fought the regime of apartheid in the streets of South Africa and spent 27 years in prison. It was the other Mandela.
Those friends and supporters of the leaders of apartheid of yore stood up zealously and unanimously to celebrate Mandela the Traitor, the one who came out of jail and had the extraordinary courage to turn the back on his own oppressed people. Why did they choose the second Nelson Mandela?
These world oppressors celebrated Mandela noisily just to put to sleep the huge South African populations who are completely devoured by unutterable misery and poverty. It is indeed the king-reason behind that comedy.
Most of these world leaders went to South Africa to encourage the victims of the economic apartheid to remain where they were and are, in passivity and poverty, and to be wolfed down little by little as more years come and go.
Indirectly, they were there to enjoin the poor Blacks to follow the example of Madiba, to pursue what I call ‘the wisdom of doom’. It is my personal viewpoint on that world comedy around the death of Nelson Mandela.
Thus, many interpretations can be given to what we saw during Mandela’s mourning. Some Blacks South African did weep at Mandela’s funeral not because he was gone, but because he let them down as the first Black leader of the country.
And as they look around and at the skyline, they realize that Jacob Zuma and his team are not there for them. His recent humiliation by some poor Blacks was but the prolongation of their resentment about Mandela’s time as President.
Indeed, his life is a great lesson to us. Not a great lesson to us for what, universally, he’s said to be, but mostly for what he didn’t do and that he could had achieved when he was in the office, and the comedy around this loss. This ends up whetting my curiosity.
In conclusion, South African authorities and the Privileged Minority continue to play with the future of these oppressed people who are held in the economic cage of apartheid still. But they ignore that they are playing with lighters next to a pond filled with gasoline.
South African society’s a huge tumor which people are trying to smother with unsuitable balms and bandages. As days pass, it decays and ferments and will burst. It hurts, it hurts to live or see people in extreme poverty in one of the world’s wealthy and prosperous country. It hurts a lot.
The jackals in power are getting rich as the poor keep sinking in the waters of poverty and despair. The coward selfish President Jacob Zuma must stop turning around and do the right thing, if ever he escapes the people’s anger.
The world Comedians who chose to play the usual comedy around Mandela’s death must understand the ordeals of these Blacks and support necessary measures and reforms that meet their expectations before the streets dangerously warm up.
If courageous appropriate measures are not taken very quick to fix the mess, this society will soon slip and sink into deep violence and bloodshed. It is not a wish. I am just a small bird on a small tree at the roadside, announcing a bad rainstorm.
Léon Tuam,
Author, Human Rights activist and Instructor
December 26th 2013
The world comedy about the death of Nelson Mandela (by Léon Tuam)
Now that Nelson Mandela has left this turbulent Farm planted with duplicity, with sarcasm and cruelty, now that what he said and did stays behind and what he carried away is lost for good, now that he’s gone to rest amid his ancestors, an important question remains to be asked: Why could this man be unanimously celebrated and deified by all nations and world leaders? It appeared that even those who in the past reified him did not hesitate to deify this man! This looks too good to be true. How did that happen? What was behind all that? By scrutinizing his life in two phases, we may definitely be led to the hidden reasons of this unusual celebration.