THE WEST CHOOSES HEROES FOR US TO FURTHER THEIR NEFARIOUS AGENDA

There is this crazy thing about the celebration of Nelson Mandela’s birthday and the exaggeration of his role in the South Africa’s struggle for liberation. There is also overemphasis on the issue of the 67 years he put in the struggle. Some of his fellow comrades, like Govan Mbeki and Walter Sisulu, who were incarcerated with him on Robben Island, put in more years than Mandela in serving humanity. Anton Lembede, Ashby Peter Mda, Zeph Mothopeng and Oliver Tambo were involved in the struggle for liberation long before Mandela. Now what is so significant about Mandela’s 67 years in the struggle? The Western media, UN and Mandela foundations and charities set up after his retirement in 1999, are in the forefront of promoting this Mandela Day. The Western media sets the agenda for us and also decides for us who our important heroes are – the hierarchisation of struggle heroes.

According to the Western media, UN and the Mandela foundations and charities we should all forget the imperialist brokered sellout deals Mandela clinched in secret with representatives of Apartheid regime. They also want us to be in a permanent state of amnesia concerning the accusation against Mandela by his former lawyer, Ismail Ayob, that Mandela did not pay tax from the proceeds of his books sold abroad. The South African Revenue Services did nothing about these tax defaults to this day. Ayob also suggested that there are other trusts for individual Mandela children. Ayob was a trustee of the Mandela trusts. When there was a fallout between Mandela and Ayob after it emerged that Ayob had allegedly cashed in on the Mandela name, the much vaunted reconciler was said to have told a number of friends that, “I want Ayob imprisoned”.

Zephaniah “The Lion of Azania” Mothopeng

There is this crazy thing about the celebration of Nelson Mandela’s birthday and the exaggeration of his role in the South Africa’s struggle for liberation. There is also overemphasis on the issue of the 67 years he put in the struggle.Some of his fellow comrades, like Govan Mbeki and Walter Sisulu, who were incarcerated with him on Robben Island, put in more years than Mandela in serving humanity. Anton Lembede, Ashby Peter Mda, Zeph Mothopeng and Oliver Tambo were involved in the struggle for liberation long before Mandela. Now what is so significant about Mandela’s 67 years in the struggle? The Western media, UN and Mandela foundations and charities set up after his retirement in 1999, are in the forefront of promoting this Mandela Day. The Western media sets the agenda for us and also decides for us who our important heroes are – the hierarchisation of struggle heroes.

According to the Western media, UN and the Mandela foundations and charities we should all forget the imperialist brokered sellout deals Mandela clinched in secret with representatives of Apartheid regime. They also want us to be in a permanent state of amnesia concerning the accusation against Mandela by his former lawyer, Ismail Ayob, that Mandela did not pay tax from the proceeds of his books sold abroad. The South African Revenue Services did nothing about these tax defaults to this day. Ayob also suggested that there are other trusts for individual Mandela children. Ayob was a trustee of the Mandela trusts. When there was a fallout between Mandela and Ayob after it emerged that Ayob had allegedly cashed in on the Mandela name, the much vaunted reconciler was said to have told a number of friends that, “I want Ayob imprisoned”.

Herbert Chitepo
Herbert Chitepo

One of the South African Broadcasting Corporation radio stations quoted a Movement for Democratic Change spokesman go along with the Mandela Day celebrations. Does the MDC suggest that Mandela is more important than, for example, the founder of the Organisation of African Union in 1963, Kwame Nkrumah, and other African and Diasporan leaders such as Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral and Marcus Garvey to deserve an international day set aside in his honour? Charity begins at home and the MDC must first honour Herbert Chitepo and should demand that their government prosecute the killers of the man who led ZANU before Robert Mugabe and the first barrister in Southern Africa, Herbert Chitepo. Chitepo was killed in Zambia on 18 March 1975 by a parcel bomb which exploded underneath the driver’s seat of his car.

Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah

The people of Botswana also have their heroes like Kgalemang Tumediso Motsete, born 24 September 1899, and the first commoner to acquire university education which he used for the upliftment of his people. His pioneering political work as leader of the Bechuanaland/Botswana People’s Party is overshadowed by his work as an outstanding composer. He wrote Botswana’s national anthem and appears on that country’s twenty Pula note. When Mandela was born, Motsete was already involved in working towards the improvement of people’s lives. In 1932 Motsete went to teach at Tigerkloof in Vryburg where the first two Presidents of Botswana Sir Seretse Khama and Dr Ketumile Masire went to school. Is it therefore not silly for people of Botswana to revere Mandela more than Motsepe as if to suggest that the people of Botswana were waiting all these years to revere Mandela?

There is also the first President of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama who was instrumental in the formation of the Southern Africa Development Coordinating Conference in the 1970’s who was a very eloquent speaker. And there was the erudite founding President of the Botswana National Front Dr Kenneth Koma who was intellectually far superior than Nelson Mandela and genuinely committed to the cause of the poor and working class.

Robert Sobukwe

Intellectually Nelson Mandela did not match Lembede, the founding President of the ANCYL in 1943, his deputy Mda and PAC founding President Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe. Why is there such an obsession about Mandela? The Western world has its hidden agenda. It could be that like in religion they want to deify him in order to use his carved image to control and manipulate the masses for their own benefit or to take our focus away from Mandela’s imperialist-brokered sellout deal and the fact that he amassed wealth for himself, his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and tax evasion charges his former lawyer accused him of.

By Sam Ditshego

15 thoughts on “THE WEST CHOOSES HEROES FOR US TO FURTHER THEIR NEFARIOUS AGENDA

  1. yah,neh some things are not well known because of some propagandas the west feed us.anyway time will tell.

  2. History has strange ways in recording facts. If we do not record our own heroes, Who will? we do not have to denigrate other people when they serve theirinterests. We must learn from them.

    1. I support your point. We do not have to bring Mandela down just to lift others up. They are all very important people and loved their country. We may agree or disagree with them on so many issues, after all they are humans. Comparing what has befallen Zimbabwe, Mandela may have made a difficult decision but a pragmatic one. I still hold Kwame Nkrumah and Lumumba bigger than him, nevertheless I respect him immensely.

  3. i don’t know if serame’s question is directed at me or to mayihlome readers. who honours steve bantu biko? that’s exactly my point. serame should go to back issues of this web magazine. not only do i write about biko but also about onkgopotse tiro. denigrate who by the way and learning from who? i am not going to abandon discussion out of tact. there should be no concession where there is a question of establishing the truth. we are focused on the quest for truth. nelson mandela is not a sacrosanct idol whom we must avoid debasing.

  4. ANY TIME YOU FIND A BLACK WHO IS LIKED BY THE WEST, THEN THERE IS A PROBLEM. THOSE BLACK LEADERS WHO STAND FOR THEIR PEOPLE, LIKE DR KWAME NKRUMAH AND THE REST, ARE ALWAYS LABELLED DICTATORS AND OVERTHROWN OR DISCREDITED. FAYA BURN THEM!

  5. This article has hit the nail on the head. This caricuture of a statesman has also been chosen to spread the gospel of capitulation. The world is constantly reminded of how great a man Mandela is and how amazing that after all the years in jail he came out without any bitterness towards his “jailers”. Was he not friends with his jailers? Did he not “negotiate” the establishment of this neo-apartheid regime being administered by his comrades with such vigour that they are fast becoming billionaires in a country with the most inequality on the planet?

    South Africa is being tauted as an example of how a country ought to address issues of oppression, exploitation and how to skirt justice under the guise of reconciliation – a meaningless reconciliation that is one-sided and meant to silence the African majority and have it believe that it is part of some imaginary “rainbow nation”. Of course the rainbow phenomenon is an imaginary one. So is the nation that emerged after the big lie of 1994!

  6. Indeed our Leaders are been over looked,we cannot narrowly honour indivituals who did nt get their hands dirty to the fullest inliberatig this country,without giving back. we have the Sisulu,Mbeki who their names will remain in the books of history…

  7. African heroes are forgotten, simply because the trends for their leadership is lost due to the fact that inheritance was not properly delivered, the young generation in dilema???

    Andrew Kuong

  8. The question was not direected to Sam, but to all those who facilitate the memory of some individuals. SAteven Bantu Biko stands out as one of those relegated to dust bin.

  9. I still feel that there are some freedom fighters who are left unrecognised and unhounored. I will like to disagree with what our president said about not honouring those who did not get their hands dirty to the fullest, whereas those who tried rather, and died along the way must be remembered. Why marginalise others and honour only those who belonged to the ruling party? Surely there are heroes that we do not know of who belong to the opposition parties whom were in coalition with the ruling party and died during the struggle for the same course as those who made it to see another sun.

  10. Infact there have been an uncountable number of scrupulous African leaders but I wonder why only those who made it to the final are only reccomended while it should have been streched to those who made the commencement.
    Who is who: Nkrumah and Mandela?

  11. Well, I must ds is a well constructed article. Good points to read, howeva I feel ds ws written by sum1 wu has personal agendas and feeling bitter about something. One cn nt neglect d fact dat our past heroes,most of them are not given enough recognition, bt I dnt think any1 wu is nt ignorant does not know abt them (as in most events they are alwys mentioned and ds books written abt them, eg Sobukwe)! Howeva u shud note that even though they fought for d freedom of d people, Mandela’s case is unique and different (though the course was different)! D man ws in jail for more than two centuries (more lyk a life time in jail nowdays-wait, I knw we got those wu also served 25 yrs, bt he came outstandn ws d sturborn one d goevemnt of d day ws alwys persuing to change his mind set!). All contributed but not all of us will alwys stand out! Ds article sound lyk a story of two kids wu r jealous abt each ada’s success! Why not be glad and rejoice that some1 from Afrika is recognised globally to dt extend? Afta all he is d one wu saw evrytin thru, wu struggle for freedom and evn became d Pres of it and enjyd d fruits of it, and reconcild diffrent races, tryin to rememdy mistakes of d past! But I undasntd, an idle mind is a dangerous 1 and u end up seeking attention by insulting d true heroes!

    1. Neo, you acknowledge that my article raised good points and in the same vein you defeat your own purpose by writing gobbledygook. It is clear that the Apartheid government and the west used Mandela to achieve their objectives. Neo argues like some naive white people who say colonialism helped Africans. This line of argument is bankum. No one colonises innocently as Aime Cessaire pointed out. Neo also says Mandela recconciled whites and Africans. This is cock and bull story. There can be no reconciliation without justice. And next time identify yourself properly by writing your surname.

  12. A person always wonders about these things but let us not be abstract. Malcolm X died at 39, Lumumba at 35. They were murdered. Nkrumah was murdered. What makes Nelson Mandela different? Hani was murdered, Biko also very young. What is it about Nelson Mandela? Why was the West happy with Mandela?

Comments are closed.