The Character of Nelson Mandela - By Max Boot

[DonViejo]

Max Boot | @MaxBoot
12.05.2013 - 5:55 PM

While traveling around the country promoting my last book, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, I was often asked which insurgents I admired the most. The answer is those insurgents who have fought relatively humanely and, most important of all, once they have seized power have governed wisely and democratically and shown a willingness to give up power when the time came to do so.

This is not, needless to say, the norm. Much more common are insurgents like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Mugabe, Kim Il Sung, and (fill in the blank) who, while posturing as freedom fighters battling an evil dictatorship, swiftly become dictators in turn as soon as they seize power. The exceptions to that rule are some of the greatest figures of modern history–the likes of George Washington, Michael Collins, David Ben-Gurion, and, most recently, Nelson Mandela.

I can remember growing up in the 1980s when there was widespread suspicion among conservatives in the U.S.–including many in the Reagan administration–that if the African National Congress were to take over, South Africa would be transformed into another dysfunctional dictatorship like the rest of the continent. That this did not come to pass was due to many reasons including F.W. de Klerk’s wisdom in giving up power without a fight.

But the largest part of the explanation for why South Africa is light years ahead of most African nations–why, for all its struggles with high unemployment, crime, corruption, and other woes, it is freer and more prosperous than most of its neighbors–is the character of Nelson Mandela. Had he turned out to be another Mugabe, there is every likelihood that South Africa would now be on the same road to ruin as Zimbabwe. But that did not happen because Mandela turned out to be, quite simply, a great man–someone who could spend 27 years in jail and emerge with no evident bitterness to make a deal with his jailers that allowed them to give up power peacefully and to avoid persecution.

full article
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/12/05/the-character-of-nelson-mandela/

[publicdefender76]

1. Supporters of Senator Ted Cruz Eulogize Nelson Mandela

Would someone be willing to post this as a new thread? It is JAW-DROPPING.

From the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/supporters-of-us-senator_b_4399368.html

[fujiyama]

3. Marxist, terrorist, murderer, communist...

Lather, rinse, repeat. I feel dumber for having even clicked on the link.

[struggle4progress]

2. I regard Commentary as rightwing bird-cage-liner and Max Boot as stark raving mad

I suppose it's good that rightwingers feel obliged to say nice things about Mandela, now that the lion is safely dead -- though no such support came from their side of the political spectrum, back in the days of apartheid.

But ... hmmm ... Boot's pushing the view that Mandela "will go down as one of the giants of the second half of the twentieth century along with Reagan" (and, of course, Thatcher too)

Nah ... Nobody should ever become desperate enough to quote Max Boot

[bemildred]

4. The only pundit that writes worse than Goldberg. nt