Note: This is an extended version of the article published on December 6th, 2013 on the News Junkie Post - your reliable source for independent in-depth geopolitical analysis.
While last night and today, since his death, world leaders have been eager to jump on the bandwagon of the mourning of the death of a great man and freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela, they eulogies reek desperately of self-absorption and propaganda purposes. While a rare few may be sincere, the vast majority of spoken and written words by prominent world leaders revel their enormous hypocrisy, and their willingness and ability to attempt to manipulate any situation, no matter how grievous, to their advantage. Although these would comprise the vast majority of world leaders, three examples are too blatantly hypocritical to ignore.
Obama – Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Minutes after brother Mandela's death was pronounced, President Obama was quick to take advantage of the situation to use a great man's legacy to further his personal image and ego, as well as his disguise as a wolf in sheep's clothing and reinforce his imaginary persona of a humanitarian who only takes military action as a last resort and with deep regret.
While Obama engaged in offering his hollow praises to Mr. Mandela and his ability to “ben[d] the arch of the moral universe towards justice”, he himself is engaged in a war of aggression in Afghanistan, an occupation in Iraq, drone bombing operations resulting in thousands of civilian casualties in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia, a siege against Iran, provocations against North Korea, a continuing embargo against Cuba as well as the failure to close Guantanamo Bay camp, and has even resorted to the assassination of U.S. Citizens abroad.
While President Mandela has fought for justice and emancipation of oppressed people worldwide, including the Palestinians, President Obama is responsible for the oppression and death of thousands of innocents worldwide, including Palestinians. Under his rule and supervision, the Obama administration is responsible for financially, morally, politically and militarily aid the terrorist state entity that is Israel, and provided Egypt with the military equipment, training and supervision to destroy Gaza's lifeline to the world – the underground tunnels.
While Mandela actively sought and campaigned for greater unity and solidarity amongst the people in Africa, the United States continues
Obama is not alone in the list of U.S. Presidents who praised the recently defunct South African leader. Bill Clinton, who maintained President Mandela on the U.S. Terrorist list during his two presidential terms, recently tweeted “I will never forget my friend Madliba”. In fact, South African activist Father Michael Lapsley revealed in a thorough interviewregarding the role of the U.S. In the support of the apartheid government he noted:
"The dominant view is that the U.S. was on the right side in South Africa, that it opposed apartheid. But nothing could be further from the truth, particularly when Reagan was president. Reagan labeled the African National Congress (ANC) a notorious terrorist organization, while continuing Washington’s support for the apartheid regime." Michael Lapsley
It is also important to remember that although the United State's rhetoric may be embracing and friendly towards Mandela, due to its enormous popularity, it was deeply entrenched in the suppression of African liberation movements during the Cold War. The United States' arch-enemy and neighbour, Cuba, instead provided enormous military but especially educational, medical and humanitarian aid to African liberators such as Patrice Lumumba in Congo, Sam Nujoma of Namibia, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Samora Machel in Mozambique. Perhaps most importantly in this regard, however, may be Cuba's support for Agostinho Neto and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in Angola's war of independence. In fact, the 36,000 armed Cuban troops and over 300,000 civilians (doctors, teachers, engineers etc., of which nearly 2,000 lost their lives) that Cuba providedto Neto and the MPLA were instrumental in defeating the invading army of the South African apartheid government attempting to overthrow the newly established independent government, backed by the CIA. While backed by the United States and Britain, Cuba's contributionto South Africa's defeat also considerably contributed to the weakening of the apartheid regime, and its eventual defeat by Mandela's African National Congress.
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| Mandela and Castro meeting in South Africa for the first time since Mandela's release from prison. |
“Had it not been for the Cuban presence in Africa and in particular in Angola, the history of Africa would have never been what it is now. One of the greatest friends that Cuba has is nelson mandela because of the appreciation of what Cuba did and Fidel Castro” - Harry Belafonte
Cameron – The False Prophet
David Cameron also has engaged in some hypocritical propagandist appropriation of mourning for a great person's demise by posting eulogistic tweets boasting that he would order the flat at Nr. 10 to be flown at half mast. Most of us, many of my acquaintances as well as myself were not even born at the time, and hence do not remember that in 1985, while Cameron was one of its top members, the Federation of Conservative students produced the now infamous “Hang Mandela” poster following the rhetoric of Margaret Thatcher that the now world renowned freedom fighter was a “terrorist” (while insisting dictator Hugo Pinochet was a champion of democracy).
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| Nelson Mandela's portrait being used in the now infamous "Hang Mandela" poster. |
Although Cameron has utilized the apology for Thatcher’s support of the South African Apartheid regime one must not forget that he was not simply marginally involved in one incident related to this issue, as it could be misconstrued from the aforementioned anecdote. Four years later, in 1989, and towards the end of the Apartheid regime, Cameron was an enthusiastic member of an anti-sanction fact finding mission on behalf of the Tory Policy Unit. The mission was undertaken with the direct participation of a lobby that was directly sponsored by then South African president Pieter Willem “The Big Crocodile” Botha.
Netanyahu – A Devil with a Forked Tongue
Most appalling of all the insincere eulogies, false praises, and spoken words/written lines in remembrance of Nelson Mandela must have come from the deranged prime minister of the equally insane state of Israel. As the leader of a government which not only has continued, but indeed exacerbated, the Israeli military occupation and civilian colonization of Palestine and the creation of an apartheid state, you would expect Netanyahu to take the moment to reflect on Mandela's relentless support of the Palestinian people and their cause for self determination. Not so.
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| Translation: "Nelson Mandela was a main figure of our times. He was a father with a vision and many choices. He gave a personal example with his [visions] as a freedom fighter, and a very humble man. he worked to heal the defragmentation of society within southern Africa to prevent outbursts of racial hatred. He will be remembered in the new South Africa as a moral leader." |
Carefully avoiding to mention the word “apartheid” in his written message, which would have evoked too many links with the current plight of the Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories, he still managed to manipulate Manuela’s death to his advantage. Referring to him as “He was a father with a vision and many choices [who] gave a personal example with his [visions] as a freedom fighter”, Netanyahu attempts to gift-wrap his words as a testament to his adherence to the moral values and principles promulgated by president Mandela, while nothing could be father from the truth. Lest we forget, it was a much younger Nelson Mandela who in a warm day in Praetoria on December 4th, 1997, declared that “I have come to join you today to add our own voice to the universal call for Palestinian self-determination and statehood. We would be beneath our own reason for existence as government and as a nation, if the resolution of the problems of the Middle East did not feature prominently on our agenda... We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”.
Under “Bibi” Netanyahu, Palestine has witnessed the expansion of the illegal Jewish-only settlements invading Palestinian soil, the increased fractionalization of the Occupied Palestinian Territories into self-contained and almost inaccessible cul-de-sacs by the Israeli state, the continued building of the segregation wall, a military offensive against Gaza resulting in over 160 civilian deaths, the familiar sabotage of consequent peace negotiations, and the currently ongoing siege of the Gaza strip... amongst some.
Mandela is probably turning in his own grave, even before it has even been dug.
