Noah's Ark story, and it all boiled down to the same specifics: Noah saved himself, his family, and a remnant of all the world's animals when God decided to flood the world and destroy it, because of humanity's evil deeds. As a child, I found this so reprehensible that the unsupervised Noah chose among other animals, to also allow on board vultures, rats, crocodiles, and particularly the biblical source of Adam and Eve's demise and my childhood summer's long caging - I am talking about snakes.
Parallel to Noah's Ark story, Mandela was a good man. He ruined something so dear to me. I have dreamed of spending my golden age in the wealthiest and most inspiring African country, South Africa or "SA," a plausible way of enjoying my retirement amongst prosperous black Africans. In the past couple of years, I could not quite figure out Mandela's responsibility in my fading dream. Ultimately when I set aside the fact that he spent 27 years in a labor camp for his part in the struggle against Apartheid and then critically assessed his one term as President of South Africa, it got crystal clear.
I consider myself a member of the tiny bold group navigating through uncharted territories, and whose voices should have preferably been louder before "Madiba's" death. Do we dare denounce that the "compromised negotiations perpetuated South Africa's social, commerce and trade, and political woes?" There is no doubt in my mind that Mandela got a great deal for himself, ANC & Co., and the small affluent white society when F.W. de Klerk who, in my view, bears some resemblance to God, and is a white old man and an undertone racist, was pressed to bring an end to Apartheid by white South African middle class and big businesses burgeoning dissatisfactions in the 1990s.
I have succumbed to my grandparents' mantra that people should be judged solely by their actions; two real facts put into question Mandela's strength of character. The unchecked "Madiba" went too far to accommodate the Apartheid establishment by striking a deal with racist judges, some of the worst human rights violators, the Afrikaner squads of kidnappers and murderers and exclusively the ones who sponsored the entire cruel Apartheid system and who have become the new safeguard of the rainbow elite. I am pointing at the mining and financial corporations. And what's to say about a man who in an interview with the Australian reporter, John Pilger, expressed a total disregard toward Indonesia's three decades of brutal dictatorship and other people struggling alike, who went on to justify the rewarding in 1997 of the Butcher of Jakarta, General Suharto, with the Order of Good Hope, which is South Africa's highest honor that could be bestowed on a foreigner?
I cannot reconcile the fact that The African National Congress (ANC), South Africa's national liberation movement and their allies have won all of the South African presidential elections since the end of the Apartheid. The de facto economic Apartheid remains intact. South African blacks remain horrifically poor in absolute and relative terms. To my eyes, the ANC has abused the trust of black people who are still cramped in slums like Dimbaza and Alexandria, and these violent townships are beginning to bear the brunt of widespread frustration. In contrast, there is plenty of evidence that the ANC has been good for the whites. In exchange for including a few ANC black operatives in their glamorous closed circle (a scheme used to funnel money back into affluent party members' pockets), whites in SA have been allowed to enjoy discreetly behind massive barricades the wealth extracted and amassed from the inhumane exploitation of blacks in SA during the Apartheid. Another way to say it is when the South African Apartheid was choked, their leaders realized that all they had to do was to bring black leaders to the business of distributing wealth and welfare, and the explosive greed disintegrated the ability of Negros and Indians to collaborate across neighborhoods and ghettos.
I once asked myself how Mandela & Co. planned to lead or drive black South Africans out of poverty? One would find that the ANC set an excellent map plan to that end, stating unmistakably in a segment of the Party's Freedom Charter:
"The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole; all other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people..."
This section of the ANC Freedom Charter is inconsistent with concessions that they made such as the late 1992 "sunset clauses." It paved the way for a Government of National Unity (dictators' favorite method to blend wolves and lambs and to diffuse popular demand for a change) and for the absurd job guarantees that protect all Apartheid-era civil servants.
If one wonders in the post-Apartheid era what happens when poor blacks take it upon themselves and demand an adequate share of the nation's wealth? The awful truth is that the response has been the same as it was under Apartheid: they get gunned down like rabid dogs. The footage that circulated of the Marikana Massacre of miners in 2013 was no different from the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960. Only this time, the images were in color and colored police officers did the inhuman job. Adding to the insult, the world was stunned to learn that two hundred and seventy miners were arrested and charged for murder from the doctrine of "common purpose," the same doctrine set, used, and abused under the Apartheid. Due to the outcry of human rights watch groups and international pressure, the bizarre charge was dropped, and all imprisoned miners were released.
Mandela's life and ANC ascension should be a cautionary tale for aspiring freedom fighters and individuals haunted by the belief of equality around the globe; power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely as Lord Acton fittingly surmised. It pains me to see in SA that, with time, the gap between the whites and blacks "have none" has reached the highest level. Indeed in 2009, SA sidelined Brazil as the most skewed society in the world. Nonetheless, I took great pleasure in watching the SA President, Jacob Zuma, getting humiliated in front of foreign dignitaries during none other than Mandela's memorial. People's expression of their discontent with the ANC! It was so moving.
Self-made Deserts
In 2013, my wife and I moved from the sunny southern part of the United States to somewhere close to freezing Canada. The best ethnic description of this charming little town: a black ghost town. We always felt obligated to acknowledge, and at the same time, to rejoice in the presence of another black person by nodding our heads to one another. Being used to down south, where Negros populate a considerable chunk of the society's hierarchic bottom, I naively thought that any strong traceable smell of decaying poverty could not be found around here. Then came Thanksgiving Day 2013, we were on our way to New York City when there suddenly appeared a shadow in the middle of the road. There, battling the gruesome freezing temperature and slightly covered was a homeless white man branding a big sign. Gosh, senseless drivers almost ran him over. As we got closer, I pulled my window down to give him a dollar bill. Something shifted inside of me because I saw the face of a man humiliated and broken. On that day, from that point on, I kept seeing the same expression of a child, a woman, or another man on different corners.
Cities have found that changing the reflection of a word is the clever way of expressing the disdain of a particular group. Adding a cynical twist to panhandling has permitted towns to chastise the poor. Around this beautiful planet what is called "aggressive" panhandling is prohibited. Some towns have even gone so far as to actively conducting educational outreach programs to residents, advising them not to give to moochers (sorry, label borrowed from the 2012 Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States, Mitt Romney), and their police departments have been instructed to bully panhandlers, especially around the downtown zones. Developing countries are more creative; they have added the supernatural element or voodoo to the pretexts. While touring several third world countries, paranoid guides and friends always warned me not to give money to street beggars, and if I ever dare, supposedly, money will mysteriously disappear from my pockets, and I would have brought some juju curse on myself. I did laugh at and broke this ridiculous rule. I can testify that I did not turn into a goat or was struck by lightning, and all my money's disappearance has been accounted for by my pursuits of worldly happiness.
It is deplorable that people around the world from different ways of life, race, and background would bluntly say that they hate active solicitation or aggressive panhandling. They do not mind passive panhandling of which an example is opening doors at the store with a cup in hand but saying nothing. As to say, people are more comfortable to give when beggars do not bother their conscience and make their presence