Mandela was both - some of the stuff he did was heroic - - like fighting apartheid. That was an evil system. His support of communism was horrible... his first wife was a monster. Mandela fought the good fight then stepped in with 'redistribution' - which never works - and for all practical purposes destroyed the country.
I suspect American liberals fawn over him because he's the Hollywood version of what a black man is suppose to be...
“...like fighting apartheid. That was an evil system. ..”
GOPJ, but I suspect that most White South Africans looked at apartheid as self-preservation for their civilization, culture, traditions, and the society that they built there. Their families were there for hundreds of years, and turned that place into a thriving economic system, where none existed prior.
Imagine “world pressure” on the USA to disarm our citizenry, change our way of life, give up our traditions, heritage, culture, society, etc., - sorta like what we’re going through right now. To me, THAT is evil.
They looked across the border into the former Rhodesia, saw the hell that place had become as “Zimbabwe” and said “No thanks.”
My guess is that all that they feared would come to pass if they gave in - did in fact come to pass.
We’ve never lived there, nor dealt with what those folks dealt with, and have only the liberal media’s version of what apartheid is/was.
For comparison - take a walk through any inner city - North Philly, Camden, Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore - at night, unarmed, bringing nothing but the best of intentions with you. I think you’d discover what “evil” really is very quickly.