The point of remembering all this is not mere point-scoring. It is to remember that sometimes the radicals are correct, that in the heat of the moment, movements for justice can be easily caricatured by those with authority as threats to public safety, and those seeking basic rights and dignity as monstrous villains. And then after the radicals win, we try to make them safe and useless to future radicals by pretending our beloved secular saints were never radical at all.
It?s tempting to pretend we?ve all always agreed about Mandela, or about racial equality, or about South African apartheid. It would avoid awkwardness or hostility to join together in mutual admiration and mourning for a figure who was indispensible in so many senses of the word, without recalling those who stood against him.
Mandela believed in forgiveness, but he also believed in truth and reconciliation. And the truth is that many self-proclaimed champions of individual freedom in the United States refused to champion the individual freedom of black people in South Africa and at home.
We should never forget that people did, in fact, hate Nelson Mandela and opposed the cause he gave his life to. The opponents only grew silent after Mandela and his movement won. As Weigel notes, it would be very strange to pretend that Mandela was somehow above politics, when politics was the means by which he achieved so much, became so admired, and will be so missed.
Honoring Mandela Thursday, President Barack Obama said, ?We will not likely see the likes of Nelson Mandela again.? But if we do, chances are many of us will deride them as a villain long before we recognize them as a hero.