Mandela, victim of US media

THE EDITOR: There we go again: Criticise US and British foreign policy and you are painted as the darkest soul known to man. You’re suddenly just as bad as the ones they supply with funding and ammo to wreak havoc in their own countries for nearsighted needs that suit Britain and America’s long-term plans for a take-over in the name of “freedom” fighting. And, just like Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro and even “ketch-arse” Jean-Bertrand Aristide, you’re accused of atrocities that they consider too bad to give much thought to those that America are going to commit. For, even if it is a case as terrible as Abu Ghraib, their worldwide media would continually remind its gullible audience that Saddam did “worst” there. Oh, and a stash of money must be found after you’re deposed.

“If you’re not with us,” remember the threat? “You’re with the terrorists.” And that applies for anything. The treatment meted out to you is the same once you even dare question the unwarranted slaughtering of the innocents in a country they did so much “massmediaing” about. The latest victim is Nelson Mandela, the man who lost 27 years of his life in a racist jail for speaking out against apartheid, later became President and forgave the architects of that heinous system of racial segregation and murder.

On May 10, 2004 he addressed the South African Parliament. First of all, not many of his quotes are used and we are left to believe his was a passing mention on US and British foreign policy and, therefore, one without much substance. He is, however, accredited for saying America and Britain went onto a war in Iraq not sanctioned by the United Nations; that there are reports of terrible abuses to human dignity; and that powerful democracies manipulate multilateral bodies, “to the great advantage of the poorer developing nations.”

Well, who tell he to say that! The bad press started in that very same article in which his frail condition was attacked. Yes! Attacked! They even portrayed him as senile. And that same columnist in The Mail of Britain “known for his provocative views” has done a documentary painting Mandela as anything but the “secular saint” the world sees him as. Really! And it will get worse; mark my words. The media are no more than an American weapon of war. They control the global mass media and have decided after Vietnam it will be used to blitzkrieg all enemies before bombing anything that moves through months of air raids, followed by the advancing of “peacekeeping” troops on poor villages they deem loyal to those the Americans call enemy forces.

Speak out against their door-to-door raids in which your privacy is violated under the glare of a gun and you’re shot as a militant. Let two of your neighbours shout in protest and the whole village is bombed “during a battle” with insurgents “in which an American — a precious American — was killed.” I am sorry Mandela will no longer be looked upon now as being among the three most important men in the world today. But I am more sorry for the rest of us who can’t see past the glitter and the selfish gain.

DAVENDRA SALICK
St Augustine