The death of Nelson Mandela has unleashed a flood of commentary on a man who now belongs to the ages. Unfortunately, too much of that commentary ignores the extent to which Mandela â?? and his winning battle against apartheid â?? was a part and product of his times.
Specifically, much of the punditry by American liberals has recast Mandelaâ??s story as a simple morality play in which a great man was kept down by his oppressors with the help (or at least the indifference) of American and British conservatives, foremost among them Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In this telling, Reagan and Thatcher are portrayed as having no good or defensible reason for their actions. Instead, the narrative holds that external pressure on South Africa by liberal entertainers and politicians â?? including economic sanctions imposed over President Reaganâ??s veto in 1986 â?? freed Mandela, who went on to prove his conservative critics wrong and earn the admiration of the world.
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