Now it is with much amusement it is happening again with Nelson Mandela and doubly amusing that back in the 80's it was the right wing pin up, Ronald Reagan, who was slapping the label of terrorist on Mandela, supporting and calling the South African apartheid regime that Mandela was trying to bring down as 'essential to the free world'.
Bit of a conflict there for the right, even more so when it was the Communist Soviets backing Mandela's fight while the West largely cosied up to the likes of P.W. Botha and blocked UN resolutions condemning the regime.
As well as being a Communist, 'The cause of Communism is the greatest cause in the history of mankind' he once said, Mandela was also no fan of the USA or Israel, saying of the United States: 'If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings'.
Of the plight of the Palestinians against the Israeli regime, Mandela called Yasser Arafat 'the outstanding freedom fighters of this generation'.
Friendly with Fidel Castro he said: 'Long live the Cuban revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro. The Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people'.
Doesn't particularly sound like the normal sort of person the right wing would praise so highly but if they insist on lauding him to the highest, they may find some of these quotes handy to put beneath the pictures of him.
How about 'Under a Communist Party government, South Africa will become a land of milk and honey' or they could go with: 'The victory of socialism proves that we too can achieve this important goal' or how about: 'Communists everywhere fight to destroy capitalist society and to replace it with socialism, where the masses of the common people, irrespective of race or colour, will live in complete equality, freedom and happiness' or my personal favourite: 'The communists were the only political organisation in South Africa willing to treat blacks as humans'.
Whichever they choose, nice to see the Right appreciate an anti-capitalist Communist who considered Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro amongst his hero's.
6 comments:
Ha. Talk is cheap. Mandela's government pursued neo-liberal economic policies.
From what i have read about him and the texts he wrote, he was interested in evoking the 'spirit' of Communism and saw it as a way to correct all the undesirable things in life. Might have been interesting if he had come out earlier when the USSR was still around rather than when it was all falling down. Possibly that's why he took the path he did when he was in government and swerved the whole Communism thing.
Politicians habitually campaign to the left of where they eventually govern. The exigencies of exerting power mean that the forces of capital must be on your side in order for you to implement a policy programme that leaves any sort of legacy. Therefore 'communism', or anything too much resembling it, is always off the menu from the start, which is a good thing.
Re ‘communism/socialism’ in general: For something that gets discussed so much (the US in particular seems to have gone apeshit about it lately), you very rarely see it actually happen! Most of the nominally commie or socialist states aren’t that anymore.
The interwebs don’t seem aware of this though. It’s like the second age of McCarthyism out there.
Re: "bestowing all sorts of accolades upon Tony Blair ignorant of the fact that he was the leader of the Labour Party, a bunch of Socialists"
If that was a socialist government, I'm the Caliph of Persepolis.
When they first got in and they started off with the minimum wage and tax credits, it was like 'wahey, here we go, get the Red Flag out' but then they seemed to run out of ideas and ended up a bloody mess.
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