When he was living, Martin Luther King Jr. was disliked by a whole lot of people. Many people of African descent joined others in calling King a communist, a socialist or a trouble maker.
However, nowadays King is remembered as a Baptist preacher who “loved” his enemies and often dreamed about being “free at last.”
Our memory of King as a prince of peace and an advocate for non-violent social change is not a result of an accident. The powers-that-be want us to remember only what they want us to remember about King and other African-American freedom fighters and heroes.
And, just like they portrayed King, Nelson “Madiba” Mandela’s memory is being white-washed, sanitized, pasteurized and watered down.
Instead of being a freedom fighter, a warrior against apartheid and a soldier in the fight for equal rights and justice, Mandela is to many people merely someone who worked with the South African government to bring an end to social apartheid.
I say “social” because, in many ways, whites still run the South African economy, just like white folk still run Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Georgia and other predominantly black cities in America and some black cities and countries around the world.
No one wants you to concentrate on the fact that King met with and respected almost all black community leaders, including people like Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad. They don’t want you to know King’s group, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), directly or indirectly worked with groups like the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party.
King was an ordinary man who was blessed by God to do extraordinary things for his people and for the world. King taught us not to be afraid of the enemy.
Just like King, Mandela had many “haters.” Extreme militants in and outside of the African continent are still angry about Mandela’s relationship with his Nobel Peace Prize co-winner F. W. De Klerk, the last state president of apartheid-era South Africa.
Western world leaders, including those in the United States, now say they loved Mandela but say little about the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) involvement in Mandela’s arrest and the labeling of Mandela and other black South Africans as terrorists.
The politicians whom you love never ever loved the people whom Nelson Mandela loved. Mandela loved Hugo Chavez and he loved Muammar al-Gaddafi. Mandela loved Fidel Castro and other world leaders hated by the West because people like Castro sent troops (many black Cubans) to fight against African oppression and exploitation.
Yes, Mandela did what he had to do to save South Africa. Mandela had to keep whites in South Africa even when victims of apartheid wanted to kill all whites in the country or at least make them leave South Africa at a time certain.
Mandela had to make “peace” with the whites not so much because he loved them; he did it because whites had all of the soldiers, all of the best weapons, all of the money, all of the technology, all of the high-end work experience, most of the land and most of the country’s resources. I applaud Mandela for doing what was right at the time.
Blacks in the United States have been “free” for 150 years and still don’t control much in America so why do you think black South Africans can excel in every area and they haven’t been free from apartheid for 40 years?
Mandela was a great, great person as was his former wife, Winnie Mandela, but Nelson was not the “Mandela Lite” that Western governments and their imperialist press want you to think he was.
Lucius Gantt, a political consultant based in Tallahassee, is author of the book Beast Too: Dead Man Writing which is available at Amazon.com. You can like The Gantt Report page on Facebook and contact Gantt at www.allworldconsultants.net
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