Opinion
Mandela and the manipulative nature of the Western media
By Nicholas Sengoba
The Western media took up these two issues with the usual manipulative aim of creating a new narrative. The story of South Africa from then on became, on the one hand, Mandela the Saint (and he is a very exceptional human being without doubt). On the other it was the crime, and insecurity of black South Africa.
South Africa’s first democratically elected former President Nelson Mandela, 94, is making news for his failing health. The world is literally holding its breath. Mandela made great history.
After 27 years in jail for fighting the apartheid policy of racial segregation, which relegated black people to fourth class citizens – a tier below pets like dogs and cats – Mandela was elected to power. The new president did not revenge but urged reconciliation in word and in many of his deeds.
Contrary to the fears of the apologists of the apartheid system, South Africa did not go into pay back mode or degenerate into a banana republic where nothing seems to work.
Mandela led for one term and gave way to Thabo Mbeki. A precedent was set. A foundation was laid for governance that respects vital aspects of a working democracy. Poverty and insecurity still prevail in many of the impoverished areas terribly affecting especially black people who were the victims of apartheid. Apartheid in anyway intended to degrade and dehumanize them.
The Western media took up these two issues with the usual manipulative aim of creating a new narrative. The story of South Africa from then on became, on the one hand, Mandela the Saint (and he is a very exceptional human being without doubt). On the other it was the crime, and insecurity of black South Africa. How many cars are stolen per hour. The number of women raped per day. The incidence of HIV.
The deaths and muggings in measured periods are all well documented.
Occasionally, the economic growth and how it excludes the black South Africans is reported in that order and with that twist.
The sum total is/was to help hide the embarrassment of the West for being at the forefront of supporting racism very late into the 20th Century. The West did not have the courage to say sorry. The West would not admit that they were wrong all the time for dismissing as ‘terrorists’ those who had insisted that it was only common sense not to advocate for apartheid.
The West did not give the world an opportunity to have a deep discourse on the workings and the impact of the evil of racial segregation in the history of mankind.
The end of apartheid was the time to do some soul-searching about the injustice of the West (and Arabia) to mankind from the time of the great slave trade, the invasion of the Americas and Australia. The colonization of Africa and the far East etc.
It was all buried under the shadow of Mandela the good man and the problems bedevelling the new nation of South Africa. This was the same trick that the very West used whenever an evil became outdated. Thus at the end of slavery as was known, it was the story of “the good men, the abolitionist” who advocated for the end of slavery.
The plantation owners and others who benefited from slavery quietly enjoyed the fruit of their ill gotten gains. The whole concept of slavery was never discussed in a broad and comprehensive way as would have been the case if it was zealously put high up on the agenda by the West as it has lately done with things like same sex relationships.
The wave of independence, especially on the African continent, was even a more classic case. From thanking the colonialists for pulling Africa from the dark ages, the Western media then quickly took up the mandate of condemning the ills that came out of self rule.
That is why in the West most of the media focuses mainly on the poor governance, corruption and human rights abuses that have prevailed and persisted for the last 50 years. Lately, they have turned to painting a rosy picture of ‘Africa rising’ because of “foreign investment, aid and policies sponsored by the West”.
It is a type of catharsis that helps the West hide its evils and run away from the haunting effects of the untold suffering most of their policies have handed down to mankind. The manipulation of the media and the way in which it set its agenda is very helpful in this vein.
Nicholas Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues and is based in Kampala, Uganda
Source: Daily Monitor