When Mandela wasn’t the messiah - Le Monde diplomatique - English edition
When Mandela wasn’t the messiah - Le Monde diplomatique - English edition
Everybody loves Nelson Mandela. The French press has called him “A hero of our times” (1) and declared that “he changed history” (2). Clint Eastwood’s Hollywood film Invictus made him movie-star glamorous. The World Cup united us all in worship of a visionary who rejected violence and led his people to a promised land where blacks, whites and those of mixed race live together in harmony. The prison on Robben Island where Mandela was incarcerated for many years is a must-see for foreign visitors, a reminder of a misty past: the era of the apartheid regime that was condemned by all, and especially by western democracies.
Scholars have tried to trace the historical Jesus Christ from the accounts in the Gospels, and so it should be easier to trace the historical Mandela since we have a “gospel” written by the man himself (3), as well as many eyewitness accounts. And yet the Mandela of legend seems as far from reality as the Christ of the Gospels, if not further, because we find it so shocking to admit that this new messiah was once regarded as a terrorist, an ally of the communists and of the Soviet Union, and a revolutionary.