Blurring Mandela and Neo-Liberalism
from truthdig:
Blurring Mandela and Neo-Liberalism
Posted on Dec 14, 2013
By Danny Schechter
On the Monday after Nelson Mandela’s death, The New York Times’ specialist on deals, Andrew Ross Sorkin, dealt the truth a few blows by offering an incomplete and superficial story about Mandela’s infatuation with the “freedom of markets” and, by extension, in Timesspeak, a “Free Economy.”
Rather than frame the story as a case of how the power of global corporations and banks threatened and pressured the new Mandela government—even before it became a government—to embrace their notions of neo-liberalism, to ensure that those who wielded economic power in the past would continue to do so in the future, the paper of record built its story of an event that is on the record: Mandela’s “seeing the light” at a meeting of the World Economic Forum.
That was the tip of an iceberg.
Sorkin reports (or should I say distorts?) the event this way:
The story of Mr. Mandela’s evolving economic view is eye-opening: It happened in January 1992 during a trip to Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. Mr. Mandela was persuaded to support an economic framework for South Africa based on capitalism and globalization after a series of conversations with other world leaders.
“They changed my views altogether,” Mr. Mandela told Anthony Sampson, his friend and the author of “Mandela: The Authorized Biography.” “I came home to say: ‘Chaps, we have to choose. We either keep nationalization and get no investment, or we modify our own attitude and get investment.’ ”
Think of that: He is saying, “we have to choose.” “Have to” implies Mandela perceived he had no choice. That’s not evolution, it’s extortion. Sorkin asks whether they were pressured, but his probe goes no further than talking with one man who supported the change, Tito Mbweni, a onetime labor leader who later became a functionary at the Reserve Bank, playing the role of business’ best friend in South Africa. .........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/blurring_mandela_and_neoliberalism_20131214
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