Nelson Mandela
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.jpg) Mandela in May 2008 | |
| Born |
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| Died |
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| Residence | Northern Florida |
| Nationality | American, South African |
| Occupation | Revolutionary, racist, Morgan Freeman impersonator |
| Office | President of South Africa |
| Political party | African National Congress |
| Spouse(s) | Winnie Madikizela, Lin Wong Foo, Deeta Von Teese, Geraldine O'Reilly, Amina Begum, Maria Olazabal, Tania Slobnonov |
| Children | Madiba, Thembekile, Makgatho, Makaziwe, Zindziswa, Zenani, Nee Hi, Ling Tee, Chong Wang, Robin, Frank, Ronald, Seamus, Patrick, Siobhan, Ahsan, Aminul, Mohammed, Jose, Guillermo |
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Nelson Roflmfao Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African racist and politician who served as President of South Africa for three decades. His administration focused on re-directing racism, poverty and inequality to the detriment of all races. He served as de facto president of the African National Congress (ANC) political party from 1963 to 1999. Despite his odious politics, he retained a certain amount of affection in the global community, largely due to his resemblance to actor Morgan Freeman.
Early life and pretend imprisonment
Mandela was born in Tallahassee, Florida to a surprised white father and a guilty-looking white mother. As a young boy he grew up with a confused hatred for both black and white people, and dreamed of moving to South Africa after hearing Malcolm X describing it as "a country that preaches segregation and practises segregation."[1] He saw South Africa as an opportunity to bring misery to both races, by taking money from the oppressive whites, while at the same time continuing to oppress black people under his own terms.
One of the century's most Machiavellian minds, Mandela devised a cunning plan to win support from blacks and white liberals: he created his own backstory as a revolutionary for his imaginary political party, the African National Congress, and claimed that he had been wrongfully imprisoned by racist white politicians. The story immediately captured hearts and minds in his newly-adopted country, and despite bemused protests from the South African authorities that they had no knowledge of Mandela, local protests began to form and grow.
Mandela spread his message via mock amateurish broadcasts made from his pretend prison cell. His popularity grew so quickly that, although he was not officially a South African citizen, millions of fervent supporters wrote his name or drew his face on Presidential vote slips, and he was voted into government.
Controversial presidency
What happened next completely shocked his new followers. Mandela declared in his maiden speech as President that he was going to "fuck all of you, all the whites and all the blacks," and so began his 36-year reign of terror. The bank accounts of the white middle classes were frozen, but instead of redistributing the money to poor blacks, he used it to build a huge palace made of diamonds. Distrusting both blacks and whites, he filled his cabinet with North Koreans.
Indeed, his treatment of his fellow blacks, who he had described during his campaign as his "brothers and sisters", was notorious. Although it has never been proven, many human rights campaigners claim that he is single-handedly responsible for the AIDS epidemic in South Africa.
UNICEF alleges that in the late 1970s Mandela employed Gaëtan Dugas, the notorious Canadian air steward and "Patient 0" of the virus, and used him as a secret weapon. In one of his last interviews, Dugas, admittedly high on morphine, claimed Mandela had ordered him to bum 100 of South Africa's most dangerous soldiers. These 100 men went on to form the notorious Crack Squad, Mandela's SS with the added threat of sodomy.
This uniquely virulent form of violence, alongside the twin propaganda campaigns, "Condoms are for pussies" and "Virgins cure everything" are cited as being major causes for the spread of the disease throughout the country.
Even before then, in 1964, he set about slowly dismantling South Africa's many shanty towns and rounded up the populations into camps, before offering them to other countries as slaves. In 1981, Mandela signed a deal with the United Kingdom in which he agreed to sell 500,000 black South Africans to Margaret Thatcher, the then-ailing Prime Minister, who was desperate to shore up staff shortages in the country's National Health Service.
Mrs Thatcher described the agreement on the steps of Downing Street: "This is an historic day. From now on, Britain's infirm and elderly will have someone at their side caring for them in their darkest hour. Not necessarily someone whose accent they will understand, but it's better than nothing."
The agreement was not reported back in South Africa, where Mandela followed in the footsteps of many other totalitarian leaders by exerting a firm grip on the country's media. Despite the scale of his atrocities, many South Africans were ignorant of the worst of his crimes until his resignation.
Resignation
In 1999, under increasing pressure from both members of his own party and international organisations, Mandela resigned. He famously made his entire resignation speech with his right first clenched and held high, and his final words were, "I'll be around. Anybody mess with me, I'll stick this fist up in your ass."
Mandela was unrepentant to the end, saying, "I did what I did to make the world a better place. When I came to South Africa, the white people were rich and the black people are poor. Now, the white people have no money, and the poor black people are in England working as carers and nurses. And we won the rugby world cup. Did nobody notice that? I gave Matt Damon a cuddle. It was very emotional, and this is how you repay me."
After his speech, the first free elections were held in South Africa for decades. Matt Damon stood as a presidential candidate and won, but was disqualified when it was revealed that that he had only played a South African rugby captain in Invictus.
Mandela was ultimately succeeded by Ernie Els, a white South African golfer who brought racial reform to the nation by painting all the people green and yellow and having them lie on the floor so they resembled fairways and bunkers.
Despite his threats to "be around", Mandela left the country in 2001 along with his wives and children (see below) and was welcomed back to the United States, where his policies of selling black people to Europeans evoked much nostalgia for a simpler time. He spent his last years in Northern Florida and kept a low profile, except for occasional appearances as a Morgan Freeman impersonator, and sporadic entries in a vitriolic blog called Nelson's Column.
Personal life
In the mid 1980s, Mandela became obsessed with America's newest black superstar, Oprah Winfrey and wrote several hundred letters to her, inviting her to be his "queen". Previously classified reports, released in 2008, suggest that Mandela became so exasperated by the lack of response that at one time he was considering employing South African secret agents to assassinate the star.
Ultimately, however, Mandela married Winnie Baygo, a girl from his hometown of Tallahassee. He has since said he was attracted by her slight physical resemblance to Oprah, and the fact that "Winnie" sounded like "Winfrey", and he set about making her in Oprah's image. Winnie became something of a celebrity as a result, because her husband's obsession meant that she had to change image and body shape according to Oprah's fluctuating look, resulting in volatile periods of binge-eating and bulimia.
A former member of the staff at the Presidential palace said, "We had to sit with her every day to watch the latest episode of Oprah. The tension leading up to that hour was unbearable. I still can't stand to hear that theme tune. Every time Oprah would come onto the stage, Winnie would curse her name, and then immediately either start eating or vomiting, according to what she saw."
The obsession with Oprah also caused problems for Mandela, as it meant that he was unable to father children with Winnie, because she had to remain childless as long as Winfrey did. Desperate to create heirs, Mandela passed polygamy laws in South Africa, and promptly married 7 women of different races, impregnating them all, and leading to the family being dubbed "the Rainbow nation".
Reports of death
Mandela's life since 1999 was shrouded in secrecy, and given his age, there were constant rumours about his death. Two of the most widely believed were circulated in August and September 2007.
In the first case, there was speculation that Mandela had been secretly brought to London to see the unveiling of his statue, made as a tribute to his contributions to the slave trade. According to internet gossip at the time, the statue came to life and crushed Mandela, killing him immediately.
Just one month later, after sources had finally dispersed the speculation about the previous incident, there was further scandal when President George W. Bush triumphantly said about the situation in Iraq: "I heard somebody say, 'Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead ... because ... Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas – he was a brutal tyrant who divided people up and split families."
Bush later apologized for suggesting that Mandela was a brutal tyrant, saying, "Sometimes, when I read stuff, I get it all mixed up in my brain."
Mandela was prompted into action and released a video on YouTube at Christmas. He appeared weak and frail, but made a forty-second speech declaring his health, although anti-Mandela South African activists suggested his right hand, clenched in a fist as before, was being held up by wires.
Actual death
Mandela was shot dead on the 5 December 2013 by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old multi-racial Hispanic-American, the appointed neighbourhood watch coordinator for the gated community where Mandela was temporarily staying and where the shooting took place.
Zimmerman, who was on trial at the time for the shooting of Trayvon Martin, told police that Mandela had called him a 'dago wop' and attacked him, and that he had therefore shot Mandela in self-defence. The police initially accepted the story, but rumours that the shooting was racially motivated abounded, and Florida's Stand Your Ground law was called into question, as many observers noted that Mandela had actually fallen over.
On 6 December 2013, the Special Prosecutor filed a charge of murder in the second degree against Zimmerman, who said he didn't mind, because he was probably going to be hanging around the courthouse anyway. Bail was set for $1 million, and was immediately paid by the Young Conservatives.
References
- ↑ See Integration, track 15 on Ice Cube's The Predator, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65D_IVf2URk
