Nelson Mandela is not an ideal or hero of mine

Nelson Mandela is not an ideal or hero of mine.

In general, I don’t like the idea of having “heroes”. What does that mean, the concept of a “hero”; that I surrender my being to the admiration I feel for another person? I don’t have heroes. There are selective personality traits, accomplishments, or behaviour in specific contexts I appreciate from certain people. For instance, I appreciate Genghis Khan’s brilliance as a military leader, and Gandi’s ability to preach non-violence, in spite of the oppression he faces. But Genghis Khan also was a mass-murderer, which I don’t admire or respect. Ghandi was a racist, which I don’t admire.

In 1994, South Africa experienced its “miracle” transition. The world was in awe of Nelson Mandela and the leaders of the ANC. No critique against them were tolerated. Nelson Mandela’s legacy “rubbed off” on all associated with the ANC leadership.

Leaders of the National Party, and White South Africans in general, were silently despised. The ANC and its leaders were adored. Nelson Mandela was honoured by the United Nations like no other leader in history. He was literally awarded sainthood. In fact, it is highly possible (and a point to debate) that Mandela has had more actual influence, and power, than the President of the National States – especially moral power.

I share the contempt for leaders such as FW de Klerk, Roelf Meyer and Theuns Eloff. I despise them as much as the average ANC supporter. So, they are definitely not my “heroes”. The most pathetic, the real lowest level of “leader” Afrikerdom ever produced, was Kortbroek Van Schalkwyk. Unfortunately, in an era when the ANC reaches its hights of leadership capacity, the Afrikaner reach its sewerage level.

Personally, I think Nelson Mandela was a unique person, worth admiration. For many years, the events of the transition period in South Africa, together with the world-wide emotional reaction to it, resulted in an inability in the world to see anything wrong in the ANC and its leaders, and nothing good in White South Africans. This allowed the space for the ANC to introduce and practice a new manifestation of population registration, work reservation and property ownership; based on the same policy pillars which cause the international contempt for Afrikaners. Regardless of what actually happened in the country after 1994, no sympathy for the apartheid transgressors were forthcoming, or even allowed’ despite that fact, as the years went on, and time passed, fewer-and-fewer White South Africans alive were actually part of the Apartheid system.

Nelson Mandela has an unbelievable internal, human-based ability to forgive and reconcile. Later-on, towards the end of his terms as President, his utterances against White South Africans became “harder”, more in line with his attitude earlier in his life, before his release from prison. However, it must have taken enormous, unbelievable physiological energy from him to reconcile with the enemy that did him enormous bodily and emotional harm.

Just for the record: I don’t praise Mandela because he “sell out to me or mine”; he didn’t – it was under his rule that the grossly racially discriminatory legislation against me and my kind started. I do so because it is the truth; Nelson Mandela was a very special person that deserves respect.

But Nelson Mandela is not my hero. Ideologically he presented a paradigm I reject. His friends, including Palestine, Cuba and China, are not mine, because I regard myself as a Westerner, and associate with the Western world. For may years, Nelson Mandela was the ultimate personification of a struggle in my country, in which my people were involved, that has reached the level of an armed conflict.  

Moreover, not everyone was, and is, Nelson Mandela. This point was missed by the adoring world. In fact, Nelson Mandela was unique; one-in-a-kind. The world treated anyone associated with the ANC as little Nelson Mandela’s. The doors of the world were thrown open to them. Their views were seldom challenged; and when it was, Mandela’s name were thrown into the debate, the argument of Colonialism and Apartheid were raised, and the matter was settled there-and-then.

In the process, a generation of public figures were created in South Africa that believed that the “right to be right” belong to them; that their opinions were absolute truths that cannot be challenged; not only ion their own country, but world-wide. To a large extend, this is still the way, the manner, in which South African representatives act in the world, and interact with international actors: With unbelievable arrogance, and, at time, contempt for anyone disagreeing with them. 

In the midst of all of this, South Africans, in general, experienced unbelievable corruption and shameless theft of state money – and assets. Assets were transferred from rich South Africans to Black South Africans; partly as a measure to please the new rulers, and partly under threat of legislative sanctions if it does happen. New billionaires were created overnight that did not add any supplementary benefit to the economy through innovation or entrepreneurship.

An oligarchy was created with the governing elite believing they are incapable of being wrong. State assets were looted at breath-taking proportions, with the perpetrators believing that they do nothing wrong, that they deserve wealth and preferential benefits because of the moral need for redress and transformation; because of their participation in the freedom struggle. They were the "face of the oppressed", the symbolism of the ills of the past that were corrected.

And all the time the anger brew among those that did not share in the new-found wealth. They didn't share in it, because of bottle-neck, because the enormous transfer of wealth was monopolise in the hands of the "little Mandela's" on the top. But the finger was pointed to White South Africans, unwilling to transform, as the reason for the lack of resources available for the crying masses.

On a basic level, all of these things, in my mind, trace back to Nelson Mandela. I very much respected Nelson Mandela. I honour his memory. I appreciate the person he was. But he is not my hero. The freedom he won for his people, justifiable so, started the cycle of the entrapment of me and mine.

Image source: Pixabay