Monumental Failure (Nelson Mandela)

National Review.com ^ | February 3, 2003 | Michael Ledeeen

[veronica]

Nelson Mandela had promise...

Many of us marveled at Nelson Mandela's humanity, tolerance, and patience towards those who had imprisoned him in what is now a national monument on a small island off Cape Town. He cautioned against acts of revenge, he embraced his lifelong enemies from the apartheid regime, and he called for South Africa to show the world that a multiracial society could flourish, even after years of civil strife.

Most Americans rooted for South Africa under Mandela, and American businessmen poured into the country with offers of help. In the event, Mandela turned out to be a great inspirational speaker but a failed national leader. Instead of taking the opportunity to shut down the vast networks of corruption put in place by the white leaders of the country, he permitted his own cohorts from the Africa National Congress to wallow in the same troughs. Instead of insisting on the creation of a first-class educational system for all South Africans, he simply presided over the installation of a quota program that gave most of the slots in the best schools to the majority black population. Instead of taking the great influx of foreign aid to build adequate housing for the masses of poor people, that program sputtered along without ever taking off.

But foreign policy was his greatest failure. Mandela had a great opportunity to lead a democratic revolution in Africa, but he never even gave voice to cries for freedom for all Africans. Indeed, he lavished grotesque praise on many of the world's dictators, from Castro to Khadaffi, and repeatedly failed to intervene decisively at major potential turning points in countries like Zaire and Zimbabwe. Even now, an elderly retiree, he cannot bring himself to demand the removal of the mad tyrant Robert Mugabe, and he continues to genuflect before the dictators who supported the ANC in the bad old days.

Now he has unburdened himself of the accusation that President Bush is a megalomaniacal racist, about to unleash a new holocaust on the Arabs, and opposed to any U.N. role because Kofi Annan is a black man. He'd have done better to lambaste his own designated successor, President Mbeke, for his insane proclamations that AIDS is not caused by HIV, thereby justifying the government's failure to provide timely or adequate treatment to South Africa's AIDS victims. And he'd have done well to praise President Bush for being willing to commit huge amounts of American taxpayers' money to save Mandela's own infected people. No. He posed for the brain-dead anti-American crowd instead.

It's a pathetic spectacle, but entirely in keeping with the monumental failure of a man who could have been a great leader and world figure. Instead, he's failed his own country and his own destiny. He's become yet another African loudmouth, giving moral lessons to the world and tolerating corruption and misery on his own continent.

— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen, Resident Scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, can be reached through Benador Associates.

[smith288]

Who is Neslon Mandela and why is he important? I forget...

[Commiewatcher]

The only thing Mandela has done is to replace apartheid with communism.

[alisasny]

Mandela is Africa's version of Jesse Jackson. I am so glad some people are beginning to realize this. I can only imagine how much money Mandela is hiding.

[Adrastus]

Nelson who????

[BIGZ]

Affirmative Action has it's draw backs.

The Peter Principle always is true. In So. Africa, The United Nations, Washington DC school Dist, Florida election commisioner, on and on.

[chilepepper]

_mandoolaand_jimmuh the nobelpeaceprize^TM winner - two interchangeable parts in the socialist machine...

[lodwick]

Mandela, the jimmy carter of Africa. What nitwits.

[johniegrad]

It just seems that certain countries are just incapable of self determination. Sad to say that South Africa may have been better off with apartheid and Rhodesia was clearly better off being a colony.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

He ranks right up there with Jimmy Carter in my book.

[piasa]

Most Americans rooted for South Africa under Mandela, and American businessmen poured into the country with offers of help.

Help to do what? Replace the stockpiles of kerosene and tires used up during the days of necklacing? Did anyone but the hopelessly naive seriously think that Mandela was going to be an improvement over aparteid?

[expatguy]

bump

[The_Macallan]

"If there is a country which has committed unspeakable atrocities, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings."
~ Nelson Mandela, two days after President Bush pledged $15 BILLION to treat AIDS in Africa.

"Both Bush as well as Tony Blair are undermining an idea (creation of the United Nations) which was sponsored by their predecessors. Is this because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when they were white."
~ Nelson Mandela, oblivious to the fact that Kofi Annan was elected Secretary General FOUR YEARS before George W. Bush became President.

"Because they (the Americans) decided to kill innocent people in Japan, who are still suffering from that, who are they now to pretend that they are the policeman of the world?"
~ Nelson Mandela. (Yeah - THAT'S all we did in WWII, kill innocent Japanese. Is Mandela a graduate of Berkeley???)

"All Bush wants is Iraqi oil, because Iraq produces 64 percent of oil in the world and he wants to get hold of it."
~ Nelson Mandela, (Actually Iraq contributes to only 5 percent of world oil exports.)

"There's one thing where that country stands out head and shoulders above the rest. That is in its love for human rights and liberty."
~ Nelson Mandela referring to Castro's Cuba, May, 1990.
A week later in Libya, he praised Moammar Qaddaf's "commitment to the fight for peace and human rights in the world."

"We support the cause of anyone who is fighting for self-determination, and our attitude is the same, no matter who it is. I would be honored to sit on the platform with the four comrades you refer to."
~ Nelson Mandela referring to the four Puerto Rican terrorists who shot and wounded five U.S. Congressmen in 1954. (quoted in The New York Times [early local edition only] June 25, 1990)

"Mandela had participated in planning acts of sabotage and inciting violence, so that he could no longer fulfill the criteria for the classification of political prisoners."
~ Amnesty International, 1985.


They should have NEVER let that Communist-Racist-Terrorist out of prison. The guy is nothing but an ignorant, ungrateful, America-hating, pile of Marxist zitpuss.

[Liberty]

Most people don't remember why Mandela was in prison all those years. It was for terrorism done for the communist ANC. He is a terrorist.

[veronica]

More --

From Marx to Mandela -- By George Neumayr -- The American Prowler

[albertabound]

Just more Canada bashing since Ottawa gave Mandella honorary citizenship.

[Godfollow]

And don't forget... X-prez clincton has been to visit mandella several times over the last 6 months or so. Ya think maybe he planted a bug in the ear of miserable mandella? Why would we be surprized?

[chatham]

Mandela should have been left to die in the south african where he spent so many years. He is just a miserable sad old communist hack.
Great Article Thanks.

[HighRoadToChina]

Thank for posting remarks by this father of the "tire necklaces" that even some conservatives admire. If you've got more, post them.

[F16Fighter]

Thanks for documenting a partial list of evidence indicting Nelson Mandela's as a fraudulent pile of festering beetle dung.