Winnie Mandela Was Not an Anti-Apartheid “Freedom Fighter”

           In the reports from the liberal media today on the death of South African Winnie Mandela, the ex-wife of Nelson Mandela, as well as in comments by political observers, she is referred to variously as having been a “freedom fighter” who fought against “injustice” and “apartheid,” the South African racial segregation policy, and is praised as a heroine, albeit a “controversial” one.  These reports and observations are misleading.

            Winnie Mandela promoted the cause of her husband while he was incarcerated for 27 years—not for being anti-apartheid, but for sabotage, and was kept in prison for refusing to renounce violence on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC).  See also my post Nelson Mandela Was neither a Political Prisoner nor Imprisoned for Opposing Apartheid from December of 2013, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2013/12/nelson-mandela-was-neither-political.html.   Her words and deeds were not done for freedom and justice, or even primarily against apartheid, but in favor of Marxist revolution.  Furthermore, she did not oppose apartheid justly, but promoted and committed unjustified violence, meaning that the violence was not limited to fighting the South African military or police, but were crimes against humanity that were usually committed against other blacks who opposed the ANC and its Marxist goals.  South Africa’s post-apartheid reconciliation tribunal determined that she had committed assault, kidnapping, torture and murder.  In addition, she had openly promoted murder, specifically by the ANC’s favorite method of “necklacing,” which was the practice of placing tires around the necks of blacks and setting the victims ablaze.  Winnie Mandela escaped justice for these crimes, but was later convicted of and imprisoned for corruption.  Nelson Mandela later divorced his wife because of her adultery.

            It is important to consider that the ANC got into and has remained in power as the dominant party in South Africa because it had murdered many of its black opponents. 

            The reaction from the left to Mandela’s passing is reminiscent to that in regard to Fidel Castro, the Communist Cuban tyrant, at his death in 2016.  Castro was praised and his killing of several thousand Cubans, torture and oppression, support for Marxist revolution abroad and state sponsorship of terrorism was either ignored or minimized or even justified.  There seems to be a double standard for violence committed by Marxists or by those who justifiably oppose them, as well as a double standard for violence committed against blacks by black leftists versus committed by whites.  There is also a double standard on the left between those who are anti-American and the United States and its allies. 

           Although violence can be justifiable and committed in a legitimate manner, Marxism can never be a justifiable cause to commit violence.  Regardless of the cause it is intended to serve, violence committed for evil reasons, such as crimes against humanity, is necessarily illegitimate.  Such evil deeds ought to be regarded as not as only “controversial,” but universally condemned.  True freedom fighters should be supported and praised and held up as better models than criminals.