I'll admit my initial reaction was a bit crass, co-worker told me the news and my Grumpy Cat reply was "Good." Not really how I feel, more my reaction to the drawn out theater that has been his illness leading to a rather inevitable outcome and also a reaction to the mockery his own people made of him with their base political desires.
I guess I put Mandela up similar to MLK, a genuinely good person whose reputation and work were gutted by their acolytes.
But now, flags at half mast? Srsly? I'm pretty hateful on the trend to order flags to half staff for any two-bit American tragedy, now we do it for furriners?
Asinine and grotesque to do so.
It's Africa. Saying "no genocide" and meaning AND actively working to prevent it is not a low bar over there.
In fact, it's a pretty high one, all things considered.
I'll admit, I don't know much about the man except what they taught in the public schools (which wasn't much more then the liberal party line for their hero's) but based on what I do know about Africa in general and the conditions as european colonization started to fail (and then did) Mandela did pretty freaking good.
True, it is Africa.
OTOH, I hold folk to the same standards, regardless. No extra cookie & pat on the head if they do the right thing and happen to be non-European. Just because he was exceptional relative to the usual pack of savages over there doesn't make him a Great Man, merely as decent as any run-of-the-mill politician from the West.
"All hail Mayor Bob Schmuckatelli! Why is he great? When he won office, he didn't have those rat bastards on the Planning Board killed, despite how they raked him over the coals all those years when Bob was chief attorney for the City Council. I get all choked up just thinking about it."
So, yeah, what I am getting at is all this slathering up of Mandela is infantilizing to Africa and Africans. It is long past the time when we ought to treat them like adults and expect them to act like adults on the world stage. No extra strokes for not peeing on the rug and not eating their neighbor.