Stop taking cheap shots at Mandela

THESE days the easiest way for someone to appear as being radical is to attack the legacy of Mandela. All societies go through the same stages in their dealing with the legacy of their heroes.

The US has had the same issues with Abraham Lincoln and many people have begun throwing shade at the likes of Martin Luther King Jr too. Lincoln was once regarded as the father of the US and his speeches about liberty and freedom have been quoted widely.

People, however, point out that he owned slaves – so his views about liberty didn’t include the slaves.

This is the same fate that has befallen the memory of Mahatma Gandhi while he was in KwaZulu-Natal. This has been used to vilify him and paint him as an unrepentant racist who has no place in our good books. Some have even called for the removal of his statues in South Africa. A similar fate seems to be befalling Nelson Mandela.

This is despite the fact that Mandela was not a one-man show during negotiations, but took his mandate from the ANC he was leading.

This is despite him saying in his maiden speech after he was released from 27 years of imprisonment, “I stand before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.” He had also said, “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps trying.”

So why do people when they try to pretend that they are radical, always take cheap shots at Mandela and his legacy? Does blaming everything they see as wrong on Mandela make their own contribution or lack thereof to the betterment of their lives, better?

What did Mandela do that was so wrong from 1994 to 1999 that Thabo Mbeki from 1999 to 2008 and Zuma from 2009 to 2018 could not undo?

South Africa is a constitutional state and you need a two-thirds majority to change any clause in the Constitution.

Mandela did not have the two-thirds majority, but Mbeki did and Zuma had near to it most of his term in office. Mandela ruled for five years while Mbeki and Zuma, and by extension the ANC, were in power for more than 19 years and yet it is more fashionable to criticise Mandela for our woes. What did these two leaders do in those 19 years to realise the dream and to undo the Mandela “wrongs”?

Perhaps we should cast our gaze more critically at these two and their organisation rather than blame an old man who did the best he could under the very difficult conditions we lived under at the time. During both the Mbeki and Zuma presidencies there was no threat of a civil war and widespread bloodshed.

Why then did they not transform society with the overwhelming electoral support their party received?

Is Mandela a scapegoat for all our failings as a nation? I think he is and it should stop.