Could We Stop Being Hypocrites About Mandela?

++Nelson Mandela will stand as a figure of global importance whatever Americans say. But we should be humble about expressing how we all supported the fight against apartheid. It's just not true.

++Newsweek reports this week that one Millard Shirley, a CIA agent in South Africa,obtained information from the South African Communist Party about the whereabouts of a younger Nelson Mandela and tipped off the South African secret police, who arrested Mandela. The United States wanted him out of the way and got their wish. One has to wonder whether South African figures at the time really wanted him out of the way or did they arrest and convict him at our request?

++Almost 90, Nelson Mandela remained on our terrorist watch list until 2008. That's right. He had served two terms as President of South Africa, the National Reconciliation Commission had finished its work and Mandela was an elder statesman who flew around Africa trying to resolve conflicts. He was only allowed entry into the United States when the Secretary of State granted a special waiver. We considered him a "terrorist" until the Obama era.

++No, he was not another Martin Luther King,Jr. He was for armed struggle. It was Albert Luthuli of the ANC who had been the follower of Mahatma Gandhi.

++It would be useful for Americans to actually study apartheid and its effects on South Africa. It was a theological system of politics derived from the strict Calvinist roots of the Akrikaaner culture and was adopted in 1954 by President Verwoerd. Because of our fixation on the Cold War, the United States was always allied with the apartheid regime. No, James Baker isn't right that Ronald Reagan regretted his veto of the Anti-Apartheid Act. The political right in this country by the 1980s made overt alliances with the regime and bankrolled some of their own operations in the United States with South African money.