Thoughts on #Mandela (for @kevin_maguire and others)

So, he's gone. Predictably, the sanctimonious bullshit has been dialled up to 11.

One of the most depressing things about it has been the preponderance of left-wing political animals (if not MPs) like Alastair Campbell and Charlie Whelan banging on about meeting him.

Look at mmmeeeeeeEEEEEEE!! Look at me! I met him! I touched him! Behold, he cured my leprosy!

From utter cunts who would mock the shit out of someone saying the Pope had done that.

Equally annoying has been the whitewashing of his history. He was given a fair trial and a fair sentence, even Amnesty fucking International said so. He WAS a terrorist.

He was also a politician upon release, who had some good ideas and equally, some fucking insane ones. Ironically, he replaced a notionally democratic but really one party state with another notionally democratic but really one party state, although to be fair, this was hardly his fault.

He did keep a lid on the widely-expected violent backlash, but today there are more murders of white farmers in SA than there ever were in Zimbabwe.

He did, for a very brief time, largely unite the nation (apart from lunatic neo-nazis and equally lunatic black consciousness marxists, but nothing's going to make those fuckers talk to anyone else!) Ultimately that was down to the cult around his person - he did not make this a lasting legacy.

He did drag South Africa out of the Stone Age in terms of some social liberties, but ultimately the economic policies he introduced replaced the handful of white oligarchs with a handful of black ones while leaving the overwhelming majority of South Africans even worse off than they'd been under the Apartheid regime.

He fucked up royally on crime and let's face it, the corruption of other politicians did not start after he left power.

So his legacy can basically summed as a mixed bag - hardly the amazing result he seems to be associated with.

But really, the worst whole thing about the grief whoring is that people who hold him up as some sort of role-model-y godlike figure display none of the values that they claim to admire in Mandela: that people can change and that you should forgive.

As an example of this: a load of bollocks has been spouted about Dishface wanting to hang Mandela in the 80's. Even if he did (and there is no evidence whatsoever that this is the case), the whole fucking point about lionising Mandela is that he is the model of change for the good, of humility and of reconciliation and forgiveness. We venerate Mandela, an ex-terrorist, because when he got to power he didn't use that power to victimise the people who branded him a terrorist. He changed. He forgave.

Unlike the tolerant, always-correct left. Using the death of a man they claim to admire to score some cheap, political points. Nice one, Kev!

I wish that people who are venerating Mandela would display some of the fucking qualities they claim to admire in him.