I am not referring here to the bigots who responded to Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-Crazytown) tribute to Mandela, while they are repulsive medieval racists, they are honest in their hate.
Rather, I am accusing the folks like Ted Cruz who are now claiming that they’ve always thought that he was a hero opposing a great injustice, when this is clearly not the case.
In fact, while Nelson Mandela was in Robben Island prison, mainstream movement conservatives were literally paid representatives of the Apartheid regime:
Nelson Mandela died yesterday, and all around the world, much-deserved hosannas are coming in, praising the life of one of the most important figures in modern Western history. That last bit reflects my own bias. What’s become clear in all my studies of our history of World War II, of the Civil War, of Tocqueville, of Rousseau, of Zionism, of black nationalism, is that understanding Enlightenment ideals requires understanding those places where ideals and humanity meet. If you call yourself a lover of democracy, but have not studied the black diaspora, your deeds mock your claims. Understanding requires more than sloganeering, and parroting—it requires confronting our failures.
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:
Buckley was actively courted by Chiang Kai-Shek’s Taiwan, Franco’s Spain, South Africa, Rhodesia and Portugal’s African colonies, and went on expenses-paid trips trips to some of these countries.
When he returned from Mozambique in 1962, Buckley wrote a column describing the backwardness of the African population over which Portugal ruled, “The more serene element in Africa tends to believe that rampant African nationalism is self-discrediting, and that therefore the time is bound to come when America, and the West … will depart from our dogmatic anti-Colonialism and realize what is the nature of the beast.”
In the fall of 1962, during a visit to South Africa, arranged by the Information Ministry, Buckley wrote that South African apartheid “has evolved into a serious program designed to cope with a melodramatic dilemma on whose solution hangs, quite literally, the question of life or death for the white man in South Africa.”
Buckley’s racket as an American paid propagandist for white supremacy would be repeated over the years in conservative circles. As Sam Kleiner demonstrates in Foreign Policy, apartheid 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.”
It’s also important to remember that one of William F. Buckley’s contributions to modern movement conservative was to incorporate, and legitimize a new language of racism into both the conservative movement and the Republican Party:
I know it is often hard to understand the difference between racists and conservatives, but here is some help to redefine the lexicon and come up with a simple translation guide.
………
Theodore Bilbo
To preserve her blood, the white South must absolutely deny social equality to the Negro regardless of what his individual accomplishments might be. This is the premise – openly and frankly stated – upon which Southern policy is based. This position is so thoroughly justified in the minds of white Southerners that it is sometimes difficult for them to comprehend the reasoning of those who seriously dispute it.
William F. Buckley
The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.
National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.
See, we’re used to the naked racism of the hood wearing Klansman. Yet, since the 1950’s, most racism has been cloaked in the sort of academic langugae which hides the meaning of the statement.
We can reduce example one to saying: them niggers will fuck our white women and make us stupid. Yet, Goldberg is no more likely to say that than to run naked down the street. So he has to couch his language in terms which will be polite and acceptable.
Now, in example two, Buckley, says nearly the same thing as Sen. Bilbo, but in much less passionate language.
(As an aside, I really miss Steve Gilliard’s ferocious writing)
The right wing spent decades demonizing and attempting to marginalize Nelson Mandela. To pretend anything else is to take the rest of to be historically illiterate idiots.