Heroes: Vaclev Havel vs Nelson Mandela
Vaclev Havel
One hero soars, another falls to earth
Since September 11, the word "heroes" has been getting a lot of play. It's almost as if the world - or at least this part of it - has rediscovered what the word means. While America of pre-Sept 11 did its best to make heroes out of actors, actresses and sports stars, these idols have been swept away by a tide of true bravery and courage that America hasn't seen in awhile. It's easy to be a "hero" when you sign a $20 million picture deal or contract; it's a lot harder when a building is on fire, and it's your job to resist instinct and go into the thing for $40,000 per annum.
On Feb 1, 2003 seven people streaking across the sky at 18 times the speed of sound earned the title "heroes", while two days later Michael Jackson - once hailed as a hero - disclosed in an interview that he enjoyed sleeping with children - not exactly heroic stuff. In fact America should place a moratorium on the word being applied to any entertainer - be they artists or sports figures - for the indefinite future because America is awash in real heroes with more on the way: the servicemen and women soon to be tangling with Saddam Hussein.
Even while America seems to have surpassed its quota of heroes, it is clear that the world has a shortage of them. Days before the demise of Columbia, Vaclev Havel stepped down as President of the Czech Republic. Mr. Havel spent the better part of his life opposing the Communist system that had dehumanized his people. As a leading dissident and co-founder of the protest turned dissident group Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, he stood for the aspirations of his people even as the system tried to grind him down and silence him. Today he suffers from chronic lung inflammation exacerbated by his prison stays (and chain smoking - one has to wonder how much waiting for the secret police to knock on your door in the middle of the night affectedhow much he smoked) after managing his people's "Velvet Divorce" into the nations of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He continues to weigh in on the side of human rights, seeing the looming war in Iraq as liberation struggle which should be supported - unlike those on the European continent termed by Scott Ott, "the axis of weasels".
In contrast to Vaclev Havel, there is Nelson Mandela. Mandela spent 27 years in South African prisons - entering as a firebrand extolling violence, leaving as a healer preaching peace. Since managing the peaceful transition to majority rule in South Africa, Mr. Mandela has made statements that can be best characterized as "bizarre". On January 2, 2002 he said: "The labeling of Osama bin Laden as the terrorist responsible for those acts before he had been tried and convicted could also be seen as undermining some of the basic tenets of the rule of law." This less than a week after Bin Laden had claimed responsibility for the 9-11 attacks in a tape aired by Al-Jazeera. Mandela has never publicly criticized those behind the attacks, nor voiced his support in the worldwide efforts to bring the men behind them to justice. Concerned about his comments we sent a letter to his office through the US Embassy in Pretoria that he has yet to respond to.
From his address to the International Women's Forum on January 30, 2003:"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care." He also said, "Why is the United States behaving so arrogantly? All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil." (CBS News).
Mandela fingers the wrong nation
Meanwhile just north of South Africa, Robert Mugabe has been systematically looting the country without much protest from South Africa or Mandela in particular. From The Namibian, May 8, 2000:
President Thabo Mbeki has also been slammed for failing to rebuke Mugabe over the crisis of human and political rights in Zimbabwe, which has impacted on South Africa's economic stability.
Mbeki said his government was still working to resolve the land issue in Zimbabwe without using bullying tactics to influence Mugabe. "We must do this without arrogance, without seeking to impose ourselves on anybody and without the intoxication of the delusion of the exercise of power we neither have nor desire."We must do what we have to, with the courage, the tenacity, the humanity and the humility which belong to those who genuinely believe that they are their brother's and their sister's keeper."
Two years later, Mugabe has driven his nation - one of the richest in Africa - into complete poverty - its people into starvation - humility having convinced Robert Mugabe to give up his quest to loot his country before dying. While the USA pledges to help feed the nation, Mandela has remained silent over Mugabe's terrorist actions there - causing much concern in South Africa's sizeable white minority (as evidenced by this website: South Africa Under Mandela's Mafia). The Economist described the situation in Zimbabwe in it's January 16, 2003 issue:
"Famine now affects nearly two-thirds of Zimbabwe's 12m people, and more hunger looms. Only 50% of the land once farmed is currently under cultivation. Seeds and fertiliser are scarce, and the seasonal rains unusually low. Zimbabwe's GDP has declined by over 20% in three years and is still shrinking. Shortages of fuel, food and basic commodities have crippled industry and turned urban workers into hunters and gatherers who must scavenge even for necessities."
Robert Mugabe contemplates his kleptocracy
What has Nelson Mandela done or said about this catastrophe? Nothing over the past two years - according to Google.com. Two years where land has been confiscated and fields left untended, where opposition members have been tortured and raped.
Mandela's silence is truly deafening especially for who once worshipped him and danced in Tanzania with villagers to celebrate his election to the presidency of South Africa. Perhaps we need to be cautious with our tendency to create heroes. As Christopher Hitchen's states in his critical article of Mandela, "this latest garbage is a very timely caution against our common tendency to make supermen and stars and heroes out of fellow humans. Iraq is not Saddam any more than Zimbabwe is Mugabe, and being on the right side of history once is no guarantee that the subsequent fall will not be from a very great height."
