On the Glorification of Nelson Mandela

I am conflicted when I think of Nelson Mandela and the honors now bestowed upon him.  On the one hand I see he is worthy of much honor.  There is much to be admired in Nelson Mandela.  The apartheid system laid on the necks of the native Africans by the British was wrong, unjust and evil.  The native Africans were treated as sub-human to be used as objects to increase the riches of the wealthy and the powerful.  Nelson Mandela did much to bring that evil system to an end and for that he is honored and admired.  After serving his prison sentence he seemed to come out as a very compassionate man fighting for justice and human dignity.  From what I have seen and read, it appears he worked not only to free the Africans but also to build a system of harmony with the British.   From prison to the first black president of South Africa!  There is much here to be admired.

Yet, in the midst of all of this I have always had an uneasy feeling in my bones that I couldn’t quite understand or put my finger on.  What bothered me most is that he was most honored and praised by communist dictators around the world, the anti-establishment rock music groups, the Underground Weathermen, the Black Panthers, Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Saul Alinksy, the Angela Davis’ and Jane Fonda’s of the world, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the anti-Americans in Hollywood and by the liberal democrats in America who often are working to dismantle traditional Judea-Christian values and the American constitution.  Why, I asked myself, were his greatest supporters composed of communists and those who denounce or seek to overthrow the traditional values of America?

Gradually, as I thought about it, I began to see a pattern.  You see, the fact of the matter is that Nelson Mandela was, in his political philosophy, a Marxist/Socialist, as is President Obama and all of those named above that were/are the most ardent supporters of Mr. Mandela.  To say that isn’t to diminish the good he accomplished but simply to state the facts.  Now, we can understand why Marxist/Socialists would want to overthrow apartheid but why are these same people so opposed to traditional American values?

Before we can draw further conclusions we have to understand some basics about Marxist/Socialism.

1) Marxist/Socialists see every other form of government as evil.  Marxist/Socialism is not just a political system but a religious system as well that seeks to eliminate all other religions.  It sees itself as the only and ultimate Good.

2) Their goal is to overthrow every other form of government in order to achieve the redistribution of wealth from those who have earned it to those who haven’t.  Many professing Christians are drawn to this because it sounds Christian on the surface.  “Isn’t that what Jesus taught”, people ask, “to help the poor”?  Isn’t that what the early Church tried to do when they all came together and had all things in common as we read in the early chapters of the Book of Acts? Not exactly.  Jesus taught a voluntary and individual charity out of love, not a wholesale forced stealing and confiscation of private property by the government.  There is a world of difference.  One is individual love and compassion; the other is the government taking collectively what does not belong to it – stealing by force.

3) The playbook for Marxist/Socialists is the same wherever it is found and in whatever country.   Create unrest, turmoil, crisis, conflict, protests, class and race warfare, a tax burden, financial crisis, more and more central power to control all the problems that the government creates and control of speech and religion to gradually, over time, dismantle and destroy the old order.  This is necessary before a new order of socialism can arise to save the day.  It happened this way in Russia, Korea, Vietnam, South America, Cuba, etc.

So now we can begin to see the connection between Nelson Mandela the Marxist/Socialist, liberal democrats, radical Hollywood and rock bands, the liberal news media and all the other strange bed-fellows.  To the Marxist/Socialist American democracy and capitalism is just as evil as apartheid.  It is seen in the same way.  The rich and powerful are sitting on the necks of the poor and less privileged.   This, and all other systems, must be dismantled and replaced by Socialism – either a liberal socialist government or a dictatorship.

The fallacy of Marist/Socialism is that those who come to power under the new order quickly become the same rich and corrupt leaders at the top sitting on the necks of everyone else.  This is true because of the fallen corruption of human nature and because no form of human government can be the savior of mankind.  This is a cardinal error of Marxist/Socialism.  Socialism is viewed as the savior of mankind that will usher in peace and justice for all.  But it never does for the reasons already stated.  It simply steals from some and persecutes others to make the new rulers rich and powerful while keeping the populace under thumb and in poverty.  Just look at the Marxist/Socialist countries of the world. 

To speak any criticism of Nelson Mandela is seen and portrayed as being in favor of apartheid but this is a straw man and simply not true.  The glorification of Nelson Mandela cannot be separated from the glorification of Marxist/Socialism, which in turn gives power and credibility to his greatest supporters in America who seek to overthrow Judea-Christian values and the American constitution.  Herein is the source of my conflicted feelings about the glorification of Nelson Mandela and those who are glorifying the loudest.  The end of apartheid is a good thing.  The rise and glorification of Marxist/Socialism is not, especially when it is seen as the savior of mankind and the basis for peace and justice.  It is another imperfect human system that will always fail in the end because of human greed and corruption.   All forms of human government are human attempts to create what can only be found in the regeneration of human hearts in the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven to come.