I will never understand the reverence for this man. By any and all objective measures he was a less successful liberal political leader than Boris Yeltsin and we would never discuss Yeltsin in the same terms. Yeltsin actually built liberal institutions and tried to build legitimate political culture. The world notices how messed up Russia is because we have watched Putin dismantle the institutions that Yeltsin built. Mandela never made any effort to foster a free press in South Africa. He did nothing to built a functioning and healthy political culture. He left South Africa a single party state with a compromised judiciary and nothing remotely resembling a free press. The difference between Thabo Mbeki and Vladimir Putin is that Putin had to work to crush dissent.....that and Mbeki is a less skilled human being than Putin. Putin must have studied harder when working with the Stazi than Mbeki did when he attended their political school.

I guess it must be Mandela's deep commitment to human rights like when he consistently spoke out against Abacha and Mugabe.....oh wait he never did that....he and Mbeki worked to shield both men from international criticism.

Begin flame war now.

Thank-you gopher,

Personally I don't venerate the man like so many people I know. I don't really know much about they guy except that he's generally held in good esteem. I guess the lesson here is to actually try to understand and learn about a person before blindly following the herd and venerating a someone simply because other people do.

I have thought Nelson Mandela was a great man since 6th grade when I read a biography on him and gave a presentation telling about his life to my class. He was a leader to his people and his life was devoted to getting them rights that as the majority they should've had for a long time. He stood up to severe racism and was imprisoned for a long time and became a symbol for his people. He was the 1st African president of South Africa. That is as good a reason as any to respect and mourn the loss of a great man.

I think Nelsen Mandela wisely understood that the propel himself to heroic status by shedding his violent past and playing upon the overabundance of white guilt that runs rampant in the west. Upon his release from prison he distanced himself from his violent and communist past (with a great deal of help from the media). The point here is well raised by Gopher that there's a lot more to this man's story than you've been told, and that's because terrorism, sabotage, bombing, civil war, genocide, and torture (most gruesomely putting tires filled with gasoline around people's necks and lighting them on fire) do not fit the narrative that attempts to equate him to Dr. Martin Luther King. It is notable that he did not ignite the race war that he once planned, but to ignore and excuse his violent past and see him as some grand humanist is dishonest.

Did you mourn Boris Yeltsin in the same way? Did you mourn Vaclav Havel? Will you mourn Lech Walesa? They are men who did far more for their people. Are you perhaps judging him by a different standard because of the color of his skin? Oh wait, you said that yourself. Your point would seem to be little different than revering the architects of Apartheid since they were the first Afrikaans speaking political leaders in Afrikaans speaking South Africa. I would never advocate revering Natan Sharansky. But I guess you didn't read books about him when you were 12.

@Ruffhaus....As entertained as I am by my co-author's uncle having won the Stalin Peace Prize, it is worth remembering that Nelson Mandela is the last person to collect a Stalin Peace Prize. He picked it up in Moscow very soon after being released from prison. Obviously, this was after he went to Cuba to thank Castro for invading Angola and to Harare to see Mengistu.

The adulation for the man is over the top for who he actually was, said and did. The sad fact is the media led sheep will keep it up for a while longer yet.

Let me be clear, I am not claiming in any way that he is a bad person. He was a 75 year old man who had spent half of his life in solitary confinement. This did not mark him out in my mind as a man extremely well equipped to run a modern industrial state. My point has always been that Boris Yeltsin was an unfortunately flawed man with a drinking problem who meant well and tried to do big and important things and he is consistently ridiculed and disparaged. Nelson Mandela allowed himself to be used by some fairly unscrupulous people and did not try to do much of what Yeltsin did. Ergo Mandela should be judged to be below Yeltsin in any relevant hierarchy. That can still be a high position but it seems to obligate people in my mind to rank Yeltsin and Walesa even higher. I think most people recognize Walesa's shortcomings as a political leader of a modern industrial state and criticize him for them. Mandela's shortcomings were worse and he had done less in the period before achieving high office. That is followers, including his wife, are well known to have murdered Black political rivals to maintain the ANC's monopoly on political power is relevant but not something that I blame upon him.

I think some here are missing a few points. He was the driving force to ending apartheid he was like Moses leading the Israelites from bondage. That alone was huge! He may have had a sketchy past, so what? He brought about a lot of good and he maintained peace in a troubling time, blacks were now EQUAL to whites, neither were better than the other. Look at neighboring Zimbabwe and how they botched it up, look at almost the entire continent of Africa and how they botched things up with greed, power and corruption. Mandella avoided this and that alone is worthy of praise! The other thing missed, he held together a fragile government, look at Egypt today, Iraq, etc just look around and you simply don't see anything similar. While not a remarkable ruler in some ways, simply holding the nation together alone was remarkable enough and seems to be overlooked by many here.

His past was more than sketchy, Tom. South Africa is in serious decline, the Zimbabwe land grabs are being replicated in South Africa and the massacre of whites (which displaces black farm workers in the process) is well documented (suggesting inequality and reverse apartheid). He was no saint or saviour.

and Mandella has not been in power for how long...?

sounds like those Obama supporters who still blame Bush for anything that goes wrong

The decline started when he took over, Tom.

as opposed to how well things were going before he took over? You know, back when blacks had no freedom? Yeah, those were the days!

Not really a valid comparison. South Africa had its problems before he took over, like any country, but that doesn't hide the fact that it was more stable (as you'd expect from a european country) and in the years following handover things have got much, much worse. Just like in the Congo and Zimbabwe.

* european country = european mentality.

and of course some decline would be expected! The continued decline and even the accelerated decline is bad no doubt. But Apartheid had to end, or do any want to argue it should still be in full effect? It had to end and decline was to be expected, simply keeping the country together was a chore in itself. Madella kept things together remarkably well, the expected decline was actually better than I had assumed, since his time they have had some real bad politicians and some real bad decline in business, education, problem with Aids, it's a freaking mess! Is that all due to Mandella? not hardly!

It is worse than a mess, it is a nightmare. I am not sure people appreciate just how much of a nightmare that place is. People, especially whites who are specifically targeted, can't wait to leave, just like Zimbabwe (biggest export is people). But why would it be expected? and to such an extent? South Africa was a fully functioning, viable, regional power with high literacy rates, low crime, good employment etc and it all disintegrated before our eyes....is it because Mandela was actually elected for his charisma/color alone and was way out of his depth in managing such a large country? Boy, that sounds familiar!

It was a fully functioning , viable regional power with high literacy rates...
FOR WHITES
If you happened to be the majority and be black it was a different story.

Mandella came to power and things slowly eroded, why was this expected? Uncertainty for one and racist whites who wanted to get out, yes that was certainly expected. To think otherwise is being blind and yes a bit racist yourself.
It did accelerate after Mandella left office, it's absolutely horrible I know. Was it all due to Mandella? no, and as I said he kept things under control FAR better than I had assumed, was he perfect? Absolutely not! But the hate that is getting thrown on him here is unwarranted and disrespectful.

oh, and was he elected for his charisma and color alone? No doubt!
But that was quite possibly what was needed at the time, someone to hold things together, and he did keep them relatively under control. It was accelerated AFTER his departure and seems to be accelerating faster and faster! Am I supporting South Africa the way it is now? Nope! But is it because of Mandella? Nope!
Apartheid was going to end, no doubt about that and he was the right guy at that time!

Don't throw the "racist" tag around, it doesn't help. Mandela only needed to "hold things together" because of the rising ANC/Inkatha power struggle (Soweto, Kwazulu-Natal) which itself derives from a tribalism. This is continuing black on black violence that has nothing to do with the "racist whites" narrative. Apartheid was very much on the way out long before Mandela so he can't even take credit for that. None of this is as unwarranted and disrespectful as being an ex-terrorist who blows up buses of children and then plays the world leader when it suits. Should we then give Al Qaeda, IRA, McVeigh, Basque terrorists a pass for freedom fighting too?

I find this very enlightening. keep t up :)

My response to Mandela's death:

http://sbyvl.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/lets-honor-the-terrorist/

History is written by the victors.

sbyvl - get off your fucking hobby horse and grow the fuck up.

Hobby horse?

"If someone is on their hobbyhorse, they are talking about a subject which they think is interesting and important, and which they talk about at any time that they can, even if other people are not interested."

so in a word stop grandstanding and contribute the the discussion in a meaningful way. No-one want to read about your hateful little views of the world.

http://puu.sh/5Etlf.png

You're pathetic.