The Divide Over Dr. Nelson Mandela

(Dr. Nelson Mandela)

In the month of November 2013, Matt Damon gave a speech titled The Problem is Civil Obedience. This sounded quaintly familiar with the ideas espoused in the 1957 Loving Your Enemies speech of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King II, Ph.D. The long-standing and popular idea is that the common people should civilly disobey law enforcement and the force of government by non-violent means in order to dissuade government from enforcing law that infringes upon the civil rights of the people.

More recently, the late South African President, Dr. Nelson Mandela, was also known as an ardent proponent of civil disobedience and could be likened as the Martin Luther King of South Africa. In fact, Mandela spent the better part of three decades in prison in an effort to conclude the South African apartheid ("a-part-heid"), racial segregation. After 27 years of imprisonment, Mandela went on to become the first Black President of South Africa where he would bring together the African National Congress. In the film Invictus co-starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, Mandela roots himself into even South Africa's national pastime to bring the country together.

(Matt Damon in Invictus)

Many Americans have found it in themselves to dishonor and rob Mandela of proper human dignity labeling him a "murderer," a "communist," and a "terrorist" as if to simply rebel against the world's mainstream bestowed reverence upon Mandela as a "saint" for what he did with his life. If these shall be the labels given to Mandela for his life's work and purpose, then it should also be known what Americans have done. America sends their "boys" to war murdering entire families, communities, and countries under the banner of "liberation" and "democracy." While Americans stand proud of their military and for their military services, the rest of the world outside of its few closest allies reckon Americans as murderers and international tribunals convict its leaders of crimes against humanity.

Americans also participate in a graduated income tax, which is the second plank of chapter 2 in the Communist Manifesto. According to the Doctrine of Unclean Hands, the moment we participate in a "dirty system" is the moment it is already "too late" for any of us to complain and rebel as we are now a party to "the system." As for "terrorism," the United States still does not have have any valid reason substantiating its invasion of Iraq. This international "pre-emptive" strike was not pre-emptive. According to the United Nations and Central Intelligence Agency Iraq Survey Group (ISG), Iraq had not developed any semblance of a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) since the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990's, yet Americans invaded anyway against the conclusive evidence.

(Dr. Nelson Mandela with President Bush Jr at White House)

Indeed, Mandela was not a perfect man, but do remember that America is so divided in double-mindedness over the life of Mandela that former President George W. Bush awarded Mandela the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in July of 2002 while former Vice President Richard Cheney maintains to this day that Mandela was a terrorist. In essence, Americans have no right to incite grievances over the life of Mandela nor the chant of reverence to his life as they have participated in much worse folly to the same.