Jerry Falwell was against him. Pat Robertson was against him. Dick Cheney was against him, and William F. Buckley was against him, and George Will was against him, and Grover Norquist travelled to South Africa to be against him, and the Heritage Foundation was against him, and of course Ronald Reagan was steadfastly and famously against him.
Everyone would agree that apartheid was wrong, mind you, but Nelson Mandela and the others who fought against the system were just so ... uppity? In the rancidity of Jesse Helms' behavior towards the man it would be impossible to not detect the lingering fury of our own nation's not-that-distant civil rights battles, a fight that many of the same segregationists were still eager to fight, a fight where everyone could agree on the inherent unacceptability of institutional racism but who were forever finding reasons why those who stood up against those things could not be trusted and would not be supported. When his government declared him a terrorist, compliant American forces declared him a terrorist. When his government warned that he was a communist, vast portions of our own country nodded and understood that being a suspected communist was an obviously more troubling thing than the proven violence of apartheid.
A roundup of some very new and very old reactions to Nelson Mandela:
- From Ta-Nehisi Coates:
For many years, a large swath of this country failed Nelson Mandela, failed its own alleged morality, and failed the majority of people living in South Africa. We have some experience with this. Still, it's easy to forget William F. Buckley—intellectual founder of the modern right—effectively worked as a press agent for apartheid: [...]
[A]partheid would ultimately draw some of America's most celebrated conservatives into its orbit. The roster includes Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff, Jesse Helms, and Senator Jeff Flake. Jerry Falwell denounced Desmond Tutu as a "phony" and led a "reinvestment" campaign during the 1980s. At the late hour of 1993, Pat Robertson opined, "I know we don't like apartheid, but the blacks in South Africa, in Soweto, don't have it all that bad."
- From Sam Kleiner:
When Mandela was imprisoned and struggling to end apartheid, the Republican Party -- through the policies of the Reagan administration and the work of party activists -- opposed U.S. sanctions against the white supremacist regime. Though they didn't support apartheid by any means, they turned a blind eye towards the cruelty of the system and failed to support Mandela in his time of greatest need. Today, Republicans will cheer on Mandela, but the Republican Party's historical relationship with South Africa, and Mandela in particular, exposes a sad chapter in the history of the American right.
- One of the voices against American divestment was the seemingly omnipresent ALEC. 1985:
Vonnie Borie, legislative director of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative political group based in Washington, said disinvestment legislation is now pending in 30 state legislatures, and 30 such bills are now before Congress. [...]
Her group, while opposed to apartheid, is also opposed to such measures, Borie said.
"We feel that it`s the wrong approach to take. Disinvestment would damage their economy," she said.
- George Will, 1985:
Clearly some of the current campaigning against South Africa is a fad, a moral Hula Hoop, fun for a while. Regarding interest in a foreign crisis, even altruism is not fuel for the long haul. For a foreign crisis to preoccupy a relatively content society such as ours, it must affect a vital interest in a majority on a continuing basis. Injustice in Africa does not.
More old and new, below the fold.
- Other prominent conservative voices at the time, via Right Wing Watch:
In 1986 The 700 Club did a series of reports on South Africa and the white government’s struggle against the African National Congress. While many socially liberal religious leaders decried the apartheid regime, Robertson openly supported it because he felt that it was a bastion against communism. For Robertson, everything else was secondary to defeating what he saw as the enemies of God. [...]
GOP tax guru Grover Norquist became enamored with the conflict in South Africa and went there to extend his support. Norquist ran College Republicans from 1981 to 1983 andwent to South Africa in 1985 for a “Youth for Freedom Conference” sponsored by South African businesses. While other college students, such as Barack Obama, had been active in anti-apartheid work, this conference was seeking to bring American and South African conservatives together to end that movement.
- From Joan Walsh:
In the spirit of Mandela, it is worth remembering that in the end, even conservatives like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich opposed Reagan and supported sanctions. “I think he is wrong,” Mitch McConnell said. “We have waited long enough for him to come on board.”
- Dick Cheney, on the other hand, had no regrets.
- Mandela was only removed from the United States' terrorist watch list in 2008, 15 years after he had won the Nobel Peace Prize.
- From Adam Serwer:
In the context of the Cold War, the communist label was affixed not just to the murderous despotism of Stalin but any government effort to materially improve the lives of poor people. Both in the United States and South Africa, the cause of racial equality was once portrayed as little more than a front for communism.
- The deeper context of still-common anti-Mandela tropes.
- Among the places those tropes can still be found; reactions to comments on Mandela's death by conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz and Fox News' Greta Van Susteren.
- Or just tune to Bill O'Reilly:
[The strangest part] was when O'Reilly felt the need to declare, a number of times, that Mandela was a communist. O'Reilly was attempting to make a point to Santorum about how the Republican party can make strides to win over more of the public en route to 2016, and that's when he brought up Mandela and had this to say about one of the most admired and respected men of all-time. "He was a communist, this man. He was a communist, all right? But he was a great man! What he did for his people was stunning!... He was a great man! But he was a communist!" Got it. Great man, great communist.
- I'm not sure that tops Santorum's own thoughts, which seem like they ought to be a textbook example of something:
"He was fighting against some great injustice, and I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now in this country with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people's lives - and Obamacare is front and center in that."
Gawd, man. Gawd.
We'll conclude with Charlie Pierce, who says of the Reaganite conservatives praising Mandela now: You can own Reagan, but you don't get Mandela.