{"id":176428935,"date":"2013-12-06T23:46:05","date_gmt":"2013-12-07T05:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/?p=176428935"},"modified":"2013-12-06T23:46:05","modified_gmt":"2013-12-07T05:46:05","slug":"history-video-5-must-read-pieces-about-the-south-african-leader-revolutionarys-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/2013\/12\/06\/history-video-5-must-read-pieces-about-the-south-african-leader-revolutionarys-passing\/","title":{"rendered":"HISTORY + VIDEO: 5 Must Read Pieces About The South African Leader & Revolutionary\u2019s Passing"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Clutch\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"President<\/a>

President Mandela at a gala night for South African teachers in Pretoria. Photograph by Henner Frankenfeld\/Redux.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

RIP Nelson Mandela: <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

5 Must Read Pieces <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

About The South African Leader <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

& Revolutionary\u2019s Passing<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

BY\u00a0THE FRISKY
\n<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
\n

video platform<\/a>video management<\/a>video solutions<\/a>video player<\/a><\/object><\/b><\/p>\n

Yesterday, the world lost one of its greatest thinkers, political leaders and revolutionaries, former South African president Nelson Mandela. His death at the age of 95 \u2014 an age the vast majority of radical revolutionaries never reach \u2014 has prompted an outpouring of tributes, many of which either gloss over the United States government\u2019s support of apartheid\u00a0or\u00a0<\/em>whitewash Mandela\u2019s own complex history and beliefs. With that in mind, here are short excerpts from articles that truly honor Mandela\u2019s legacy and should not be missed. (Above, the \u201cfree at last\u201d speech Mandela delivered on May 2, 1994, the day he won the South African presidential election.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Sanitize Nelson Mandela: He\u2019s Honored Now, But Was Hated Then,\u201d\u00a0The Daily Beast<\/span><\/a>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

As with [Martin Luther] King, it is this subversive aspect of Mandela\u2019s legacy that is most in danger of being erased as he enters America\u2019s pantheon of sanitized moral icons. But it is precisely the aspect that Americans most badly need. American power and human freedom are two very different things. Sometimes they intersect; sometimes they do not. Walking in Nelson Mandela\u2019s footsteps requires being able to tell the difference.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cMandela Will Never, Ever Be Your Minstrel,\u201d\u00a0OKWonga.com<\/span><\/a>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Dear revisionists, Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel. Over the next few days you will try so, so hard to make him something he was not, and you will fail. You will try to smooth him, to sandblast him, to take away his Malcolm X. You will try to hide his anger from view. Right now, you are anxiously pacing the corridors of your condos and country estates, looking for the right words, the right tributes, the right-wing tributes. You will say that Mandela was not about race. You will say that Mandela was not about politics. You will say that Mandela was about nothing but one love, you will try to reduce him to a lilting reggae tune. \u201cLet\u2019s get together, and feel alright.\u201d Yes, you will do that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cMandela Was No Care Bear,\u201d\u00a0Washington Monthly<\/span><\/a>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u2026while both Mandela\u2019s personal charisma and his willingness to extend forgiveness to his bitterest opponents were morally magnificent in their own rights, they were just as much\u00a0political tactics<\/em>\u00a0as they were dedications to a moral principle. Popular media tends to vastly understate the extent to which nonviolence is about\u00a0power<\/em>,\u00a0struggle<\/em>, and\u00a0victory<\/em>. Mandela was not a pacifist (in fact, under his presidency, the South African military\u00a0briefly invaded Lesotho<\/span><\/a>), he wanted to obtain freedom for his people by the best route possible. The same can be said about his post-Apartheid dedication to reconciliation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Make no mistake, Nelson Mandela was a great leader, a moral beacon, and in my view the finest diplomatist of the 20th century. Calling him the George Washington of South Africa, with respect, doesn\u2019t give him nearly enough credit. This is why the more rough-edged facets of his character being airbrushed out of popular history is so offensive\u2014it was precisely\u00a0because<\/em>\u00a0of these that he had such brilliant success.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Iconicity Of \u201cPeaceful Resistance,\u201d\u00a0Medium<\/span><\/a>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Before it falls down the memory hole, it should be noted that the online US edition of the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0marked the sad passing of the great Nelson Mandela with this odd headline: \u201cNelson Mandela, South African\u00a0Icon of Peaceful Resistance<\/span><\/a>, Dies\u201d. (They\u2019ve since changed it to \u201cSouth Africa\u2019s\u2026Moral Center\u201d, which sounds like a place FIFA could have held business ethics conventions during the last World Cup.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIcon of Peaceful Resistance\u201d makes it sound like Mandela was an advocate and practitioner of nonviolence. He wasn\u2019t. Apartheid was above all a socioeconomic system of structured viciousness: the whites were not going to give up their advantages without a fight. The struggle against Apartheid was necessarily bloody. The symbolic force of an \u201cicon\u201d, no matter how noble its martyrdom, could not have defeated Apartheid. It had to be defeated at the cost of lives. Mandela always knew this.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cSix Things Nelson Mandela Believed That Most People Won\u2019t Talk About,\u201d\u00a0Think Progress<\/span><\/a>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In the desire to celebrate Nelson Mandela\u2019s life \u2014 an iconic figure who triumphed over South Africa\u2019s brutal apartheid regime \u2014 it\u2019s tempting to homogenize his views into something everyone can support. This is not, however, an accurate representation of the man.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mandela was a political activist and agitator. He did not shy away from controversy and he did not seek \u2014 or obtain \u2014 universal approval. Before and after his release from prison, he embraced an unabashedly progressive and provocative platform. As one commentator\u00a0put it<\/span><\/a>\u00a0shortly after the announcement of the freedom fighter\u2019s death, \u201cMandela will never, ever be your minstrel. Over the next few days you will try so, so hard to make him something he was not, and you will fail. You will try to smooth him, to sandblast him, to take away his Malcolm X. You will try to hide his anger from view.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

>via:\u00a0http:\/\/www.clutchmagonline.com\/2013\/12\/rip-nelson-mandela-5-must-read-pieces-south-african-leader-revolutionarys-passing\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  DECEMBER 6, 2013         RIP Nelson Mandela: 5 Must Read Pieces About The South African Leader & Revolutionary\u2019s Passing   BY\u00a0THE FRISKY Yesterday, the world lost one of its greatest thinkers, political leaders and revolutionaries, former South African president Nelson Mandela. His death at the age of 95 \u2014 an age […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[6],"tags":[4,12,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176428935"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176428935"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176428935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176428975,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176428935\/revisions\/176428975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176428935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176428935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176428935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}