Nelson Mandela has passed away at the age of 95. Some conservatives have used social media to say that he was a terrorist, a communist, and someone who endorsed the horrific practice of necklacing. Yes, he has a disturbing history, but let’s not forget that the South African police, army, Special Branch, and Vlakplaas probably killed more people than Mandela, or his alleged endorsement of necklacing. Yet, some liberals are making Mandela out to be this infallible character. He wasn’t Let’s look at two of the most insane things said since the news of his death.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said that the white leaders of the Apartheid government – the now defunct National Party – were more rational than the House GOP, or something.
Matthews, speaking to MSNBC host Alex Wagner today on her eponymously-named television program, said F.W. de Klerk, the white South African president who released Nelson Mandela from prison and negotiated an end to apartheid with him, supported South Africa more than Republicans support the United States.
“And for [de Klerk] to recognize his role in history, which was to be a patriot at that point, was so different than the way [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell handled the election of Obama,” Matthews said. “So different.”
“They were willing – the McConnell people on to the far right – were willing to destroy the country in order to destroy Obama,” Matthews said. “Whereas, to succeed in a country he loved, F.W. de Klerk was willing to see it through and conform to black rule, so that it could be done successfully so that he would have his country have a better future.”
[...]
“We have real people in the country with real power and status who have used that status and power to hurt the country so they can hurt the president.”
Yeah, stay class, Chris.
Former Newsweek editor Jonathan Alter made the ludicrous suggestion that we should honor Mandela’s legacy by releasing criminals serving life sentences on today’s broadcast of MSNBC’s PoliticsNation.
AL SHARPTON: Jonathan, let me go to you first. You’ve covered President Obama extensively. What kind of Mandela influence do you see in President Obama?
JONATHAN ALTER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Huge influence, as the President himself said today in his statement. I believe that he said he would not be who he was without Nelson Mandela. He followed him from an early age. You may recall when the President was a student at Occidental College in California, he took part in anti-apartheid demonstrations. He was a leader on that issue and focused on it.
So one of the things that is really striking me tonight, Rev, is what can Americans learn and American society learn from the example of Nelson Mandela? You know, I think back to during the Civil Rights movement, Mahatma Gandhi was very influential in the United States on that movement, with his principle of civil disobedience, and that helped to give the movement life. So what is Mandela’s message? Well, today we’re hearing even very conservative Senators and other figures talking about the spirit of forgiveness that he embodied in truth and reconciliation in South Africa.
So my question tonight, Rev, is can we import that spirit of forgiveness and apply it to the hundreds of thousands of people incarcerated who, for the rest of their lives, you know, will be stigmatized by this. Could we figure out a way to forgive them, maybe expunge some of those records?
SHARPTON: Mmm.
ALTER: Release some prisoners who, with three strikes and you’re out, you have, you have people who have been there for so many years.
SHARPTON: So you’re saying can we find ways to-
ALTER: Exactly.
SHARPTON: -in our memorializing Mandela to really actualize it?
ALTER: That’s the key.
In all, there’s no doubt that Mandela moved South Africa towards reconciliation after the brutal Apartheid system was dissolved. But saying that the racist leaders of the Afrikaner National Party, who established an actual police state, were better than congressional Republicans is abjectly insane. I won’t even comment on Alter’s mass release of prisoners remark.
(H/T Newsbusters, Ashe Schow)