by Fjordman, co-published with Gates of Vienna

I followed Western mass media with bemused interest after it was announced that Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black President from 1994 to 1999, had died on December 5, 2013. It wasn’t unexpected, since the man was 95 years old and had been ill for years. I never hated Mandela, but the lavish praise he received from Scandinavia to Alaska went far beyond what was rational or fact-based.

It has been publicly confirmed that Nelson Mandela was a leading member of the South African Communist Party’s central executive committee at the time of his arrest for terrorist activities in 1962. This party then had ties to the mass-murdering totalitarian Communist state known as the Soviet Union.

Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela, and long-time leader of the South African Communist Party Joe Slovo at an African National Congress rally, 1990

Peter Oborne, the chief political commentator in Britain’s supposedly conservative newspaper the Daily Telegraph, stated that

“There are very few human beings who can be compared to Jesus Christ. Nelson Mandela is one.”

Really? Now, I’m not a Christian, but according to Christian beliefs, Christ is the son of God and divine himself. This senior writer in a supposedly conservative newspaper thus compared an African former leading member of the Communist party to a god.

We have previously seen a tendency on parts of the political Left to elevate certain human beings, especially Marxist leaders such as Stalin and Mao, almost to the status of demigods. It is a bit disturbing to see the same pattern of personality cult being emulated even in allegedly conservative circles. It only shows that the radical Left has won most of the cultural battles for the past fifty years or so.

Meanwhile in Peter Oborne’s native Britain, the sandwich shop owner Neil Phillips was arrested and held for eight hours by the police, who also took his DNA and seized his computer. The reason? He had dare to make some Mandela jokes.

Earlier that same year, in April 2013, there were open celebrations in parts of the political Left in Britain when the former conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died. There were even public “Thatcher death parties” in British streets, in which the participants were not arrested.

Thatcher was a leading anti-Communist who fought against the repressive system of the Soviet Union. It is apparently acceptable in the Western world to celebrate the death of conservative white anti-Communists, whereas it is socially impermissible to say critical things about long-time African Communists with a militant past.

Regarding this British man who was arrested for making Nelson Mandela jokes: Does this imply that Mandela is now literally viewed as a deity or demigod, and that saying bad things about him is therefore considered blasphemy?

The ancient Egyptians also believed that the Pharaoh would become a god after he died. Perhaps we should build a pyramid for Mandela, or find some vacant tomb in the Valley of the Kings? It’s even in Africa.

Of course, Mandela was not the worst leader South Africa could have. Compared to his successor Jacob Zuma, he was more competent and less corrupt. Yet the corruption of the African National Congress (ANC) was clearly present already under Mandela’s rule. Praising him as some kind of modern saint is not right.

As the eloquent writer Daniel Greenfield reminds us, South Africa is today for all intents and purposes a one-party state under the ANC’s domination. As a Communist, Mandela had always envisioned a one-party state. According to Greenfield:

“To many white liberals, Mandela has taken his place in the pantheon alongside Gandhi and the Dalai Lama as a Third World saint who led a resistance based on forgiveness and acceptance. This need for Third World saints that led to a white cult growing around Gandhi and the Dalai Lama has more to do with the decline of spirituality in the West than with the reality of the three political figures who like most leaders understood the value of symbolism when it came to cloaking their more human agendas. Mandela was neither a monster nor a saint. Instead he occupied a troubled middle ground which saw him employ terrorism and align with unambiguous monsters like Castro and Gaddafi. The man who preached a utopian creed with a violent edge proved to be a pragmatist. If there is any virtue to take away from his life, it is that when push came to shove, he chose pragmatism over ideology.”

Those who do not unreservedly praise Mandela risk being accused of supporting the apartheid system of racial segregation and white minority rule. Just for the record, my view is that the apartheid system was wrong and should never have been implemented in the first place. That being said, at least the Europeans who lived in South Africa over the centuries managed to build up a modern infrastructure that sometimes also benefited the black population.

In merely one generation of post-apartheid black rule, many of the gains that were initially made by the white population in agriculture, science and industry have been reversed. Despite its vineyards, fine beaches and plenty of gold and diamonds, the South African society is now riddled with shocking levels of incompetence and corruption, endemic violence, AIDS and regular baby rapes. Why is the world supposed to celebrate this?

One of the more positive things that can be said about Nelson Mandela is that at least he didn’t push for a full-scale genocide against whites as soon as he gained power. Spending 27 years in prison presumably calms down most people.

Yet a vicious campaign of brutal murders targeting white farmers and their families has been brewing for years. Many whites have left, and others think of leaving. With Mandela dead, some whites fear an escalation of the attacks against them. Sadly, the outside world does not seem to care much about their plight.

It has been established that white minority rule in South Africa is wrong and immoral. I agree with this view.

However, it currently looks doubtful whether whites and other non-Africans can survive black majority rule for long. What then? If the whites should not rule over blacks but also cannot survive as a minority under black rule, the most logical conclusion would be for the remaining whites to break away from South Africa and form their own state, probably somewhere in the Western Cape.

The question is whether they are many enough and strong enough to establish a viable state, and whether they would receive international recognition if they did. The answer is most likely no on both accounts. An independent state for whites in southern Africa would violate the anti-European equality cult of the Western ruling elites and would therefore not be accepted.

The Western ruling elites through NATO, backed by the US Government and the EU, were perfectly willing to use military force to establish a predominantly Muslim state in Kosovo, in Europe. Yet they would be unlikely to support a breakaway state for non-Muslim Europeans in southern Africa. Without external support, it is doubtful whether such a state could survive for long.

In summary, the whites in southern Africa should not rule over the much more numerous blacks. Yet they apparently cannot live in safety as a minority, either. It is unlikely whether they would be capable of establishing an independent state, and doubtful whether such an entity would receive international recognition.

Unless one wants the whites to be quietly slaughtered and gradually wiped out, this really leaves only one realistic alternative: The whites in southern Africa need to be evacuated from the Dark Continent. They cannot survive in the dysfunctional and extremely violent Mad Max-society that is post-apartheid South Africa.

People of European descent in the region should in the coming years be resettled in Europe, North America, Australia or New Zealand. The first wave of white refugees has already started arriving here. Given the fact that Western governments supported the ANC’s rise to power in SA, they have a moral obligation to aid whites fleeing from the country and the policies of its ruling regime.

For a complete archive of Fjordman’s writings, see the multi-index listing in the Fjordman Files.