Pseudo-Hagiography

Already Playing Tricks Upon the Dead

Over recent days the world's Commentariat has been agog over the passing of Nelson Mandela.  We are witnessing hagiography in the making before our very eyes.  We wonder whether he will be proclaimed Messiah in the next week or so. 

There are many things to admire in Mendela's life and career.  There are other things to reject and despise.  Fairness and balance requires that we keep both in perspective.  The adulatory ululations have covered over the bad, making him already a quasi-mythical figure.  We find ourselves reflecting on the contrast when Scripture celebrates great men.  Always, in the case of  Scripture, it is a matter of warts and all.  Their sins, failings, mistakes are up front and centre, along with how they repented of evil, turned to the Light, and became faithful to the Lord.  Think David, Moses, Saul/Paul.  This, we suggest, is the model of honest, real hagiography.  The sad thing, in Mandela's case, is that all the evidence suggests that Mandela was repentant over his youthful wrongs, but those have been studiously ignored in the Commentariat's ululating.  By ignoring the obvious--being too polite and politically correct to talk about it--Mandela's actual remarkable achievements are undermined, being disembodied from humanity and history. 

Mandela's struggle against apartheid led him to advocate violent overthrow of the government and the system.
  He formed the terrorist wing of the ANC and was not just its creator, but ardent advocate.  Under his watch and influence violence occurred, innocent people were murdered--counted mere collateral damage as the end justified depraved means.  Note well: murder and violent destruction occurred not by accident, as a collateral by-product--which would be bade enough--but by deliberate planned intent.  It was at Mandela's specific instruction.  He was imprisoned for good reason, for just reasons.  Why, until 2008 he was on a global list of named terrorists in the United States. 

It appears that whilst in prison, over the course of many years, he recanted violence and its use.  He sought to reconcile the divided, not conquer by violence.  This is the truly remarkable thing that rightly should be celebrated.  Mandela not just talked non-violence and reconciliation, he practised it in prison and upon release.  Therefore, he truly is the father of modern South Africa.  As so often is the case, because he had been a leading ideologue and provocateur in advocating black violent overthrow of white hegemony, he therefore subsequently had the authority and mana to persuade the ANC to relinquish violence.  The non-violent message was acceptable to the ANC because it came from him. 

Mandela became a powerful reconciling figure.  He walked the talk.  He won whites over by his genuine humanity towards them.  But to our mind the most salutary exemplar of the man was his personal turning from violent hatred to forgive and pursue peaceful reconciliation.  It makes his subsequent achievements all the more remarkable.  By choosing to obscure this aspect of his past, in a pathetic attempt at Hollywood-style celebratory airbrushing, the Commentariat has robbed Mandela and his true legacy and his most salutary achievement. 

This is yet another reason to despise political correctness.  That kind of half-truth hagiography risks more harm than good.