Nelson
Mandela and George W. Bush: People like us?
Bush, Obama, the Clintons and Mandela: 'People Like Us' (O Globo, Brazil)
"In Reagan's America, William Buckley opined on the release
of the Black leader in 1990: 'The release of Mandela may one day be likened to
the arrival of Lenin at the Finland Station in 1917.' ... In Thatcher's England,
the tone was more direct: 'Nelson Mandela should be shot,' declared a ruling MP.
... Water under the bridge. On returning to the U.S. aboard Air Force One, a
president (Obama), two ex-presidents (Bush and Bill Clinton) and a possible
future president (Hillary Clinton) had plenty of time. ... After all, they are
people like us. So much so that to kill time, Bush grabbed his iPad and showed his traveling companions paintings he's
been working on since leaving the White House. Maybe that was a simple message
for Obama: power ends."
Booing
and ovation must be the only two words in the human vocabulary that any
politician understands - regardless of country, party, regime, language or
ideology. With them, one can dispense with interpreters - the message is
universal. And the effect of both is instantaneous.
With
boos, the facial expression of the target tends to petrify, while their ears
enflame and the duration of the rumble never seems less than an eternity. With
the spontaneous ovation, increasingly rare in the political sphere today, there
is a dose of pride and thanks - especially if the ovation is a surprise in
front of others who will die of envy.
All
of this and more could be observed at the ceremony that brought together more
than 60 heads of state and government in Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg
for the memorial to Nelson Mandela late last week.
For
having offended the spirit of unanimous harmony at the event, the thunderous
boo for South African President Jacob Zuma that
flowed from the stands seemed to embarrass many of the dignitaries present, but
this can easily be viewed in the reverse. The possibility of the South African
people booing in public without fear of the greatest authority in the country, which
is regarded as corrupt, represented an homage to Mandela that was more
significant than what occurred on the official platform. It would be
unthinkable for South Africans from the pre-Mandela era to think they could
raise their voices against the nation's president without impunity - not even
if they were White.
As
for the lively ovation that the same stands reserved for Barack Obama and only Obama,
his predecessor in the White House may well have felt deserving of at least one
round of applause - even if camouflaged. George W. Bush, who was also present
in the stadium, had reason to recall one of his 2008 initiatives that he has
always been proud of.
Few
in the stadium knew that the name of Nelson Mandela was only removed from the
terrorist watch list put together by the American secret services in July 2008
- just a few weeks before Mandela turned 90. Up to then, every time he wanted
to visit the United States or participate in U.N. meetings, he was obliged to
request a specific declaration from Washington stating the opposite. The same
applied to other members of the African National Congress.
The
issue of the these declarations was a personal and non-transferable task for
the one holding the foreign relations job folder - at the time, Condoleezza
Rice, secretary of state under George W. Bush, then in his last year of
government before Obama's election.
"It
is a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own
counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great
leader Nelson Mandela," Rice
stated when asking a Senate committee to lift restrictions on the ANC.
Three
months later, Bush signed the repeal and Nelson Mandela no longer appeared on
the Homeland Security watch list. It was about time. It had been 18 years since
Mandela had left Robben Island a free man, since he
had received the Nobel Peace Prize, and a decade since he had descended from
his nation's highest office.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
Judging
by a reading of his memoirs, Mandela's scolding of Ronald Reagan's visceral
anti-communism, which was responsible for him being included on the fateful
list in the 1980s, was less than his abhorrence of Margaret Thatcher. In Reagan's
United States, William Buckley, one of the leading conservative commentators, opined
as follows on the release of the Black leader in 1990:
"The
release of Mandela, for all that we can know, may one day be likened to the
arrival of Lenin at the Finland Station in 1917."
In
Thatcher's England, however, the tone was more direct: "Nelson Mandela
should be shot," declared a ruling party member of Parliament [Teddy
Taylor]. When Mandela declined to meet with Thatcher during a visit to London,
another Tory MP [Terry Dicks] registered his official indignation: "How
much longer will the prime minister allow herself to be kicked in the face by
this Black terrorist?
On the way to Nelson Mandela's funeral, Bush
shows Air
Force One crowd paintings of his dogs, Dec.
11.
Water
under the bridge. On returning to the United States aboard Air Force One, a
president (Obama), two ex-presidents (Bush and Bill Clinton) and a possible
future president (Hillary Clinton) had plenty of time to perhaps think about
the boos and applause. Or perhaps they got bored on their 16-hour flight. After
all, they are people like us. So much so that to kill time, Bush grabbed his iPad and showed his traveling companions an exhibition of paintings
he's been working on since leaving the White House.
Maybe
that was a simple message for Obama: power ends.
