At 4th Media: https://www.4thmedia.org/2013/12/07/mandela-and-mao-a-personal-note-on-the-death-of-nelson-mandela/
Mandela and Mao: A Personal Note on the Death of Nelson Mandela
by Jim Craven/Omahkohkiaaiipooyii
Some of my earliest political activities were in the early 1960s associated with the U.S. Civil Rights movement and the Anti-Apartheid movement against the Apartheid regime of South Africa. This included participation in demonstrations while I was still in the U.S. Army. It was also the time I became first aware of the writings and struggles of both Nelson Mandela and Mao Zedong.
Both Mandela and Mao were freedom fighters their whole lives, who both wrote and spoke against terrorism as morally wrong, counter-productive and revealing of impotence and impatience rather than strength, yet were vilified as “terrorists” by real terrorists. How many people know that Nelson Mandela was still labeled as an “international terrorist” by the U.S. Government until 2008 just five years ago? Mao Zedong, was vilified as a “terrorist” by the U.S. Government also, as well as by the terrorist Kuomintang of Chiang Kai Shek, by the Japanese imperialists and occupiers, other Western nations, and a long list of brutal warlords.
Both Mao and Mandela had little patience with intellectuals who claim to love “humanity” in some abstract, or theoretical, or general sense, but could not show any kindness or compassion or respect to the so-called “common people” in the concrete particular; the kinds of people my mother used to call “the ones who love humanity but hate people”. Both Mandela and Mao understood that hungry and starving people could not eat theories and articles in meaningless journals, and needed practical, realistic and well-thought-out policies and programs to develop the productive forces and material conditions to take millions of people out of poverty threatening their very lives in the direct immediate sense. They both expressed the kinds of sentiments embodied in this poem by Otto Rene Castillo:
APOLITICAL INTELLECTUALS BY OTTO RENE CASTILLO
Apolitical Intellectuals
One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with “the idea
of the nothing”
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.They won’t be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward’s death.They’ll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total lie.On that day
the simple men will come.
Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they’ll ask:“What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?”Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.Your own misery
will pick at your soul.And you will be mute in your shame.
Both Mandela and Mao were imprisoned by their enemies and nearly died several times yet understood that not all of those associated with those enemies, even some that had committed horrible crimes, were deserving of the same fate they had tried to hand them and their supporters. They understood that following liberation, much work had to be done and that continuing cycles of revenge and tit-for-tat would only sabotage construction of the new societies and systems they sought to build and defend. Both of them dealt with elements within their movements who wanted blind revenge and heavy punishments against their enemies regardless of the consequences vis-a-vis stability and progress of their respective new systems and societies. They understood that for their societies to move forward, for the many millions of people to be lifted out of life-threatening poverty and oppression, all forces possible had to be won-over, mobilized and coordinated, including forces, technical expertise, elements and resources once used/controlled/developed by their enemies. They both denounced ultra-leftism and slogan mongering in lieu of concrete and practical struggle that addressed the concrete and real contradictions and issues to be faced and the concrete realities of the most oppressed of the people.
Both Mandela and Mao, both remarkable individuals, understood that it is not remarkable individuals, geniuses, charismatic leaders, intellectuals, technology or abstract “forces” of history, but the “everyday” masses of people, their courage, their resistance to oppression, their consciousness, and requisite material conditions, that constitute the real driving force of history. They both understood also, that all social formations are complex systems that include past modes of production (Ages and Systems like “Primitive” Communalism, Slavery, Feudalism and Capitalism) and the contradictions, relations and forms of consciousness that go with them, along with a present and dominant mode of production (Feudalism or Capitalism) that live within and constrain, what is possible for the immediate future. They both understood that the past is never dead and lives, alive and well, within the present, and cannot simply be assumed away or as some kind of “given” in some theoretical system or algorithm of development. And they both rejected vulgar Marxism and unidirectional “economic determinism” and saw human spirit and correct consciousness as powerful and material forces in human history far more powerful than any sophisticated technologies including technologies of oppression and repression.
Both Mandela and Mao understood well the wisdom of the five fundamental and interrelated “mandates” of Indigenous Law that form a sacred hoop: Truth, without which there can be no real Justice; Truth and Justice without which there can be no real Healing; Truth, Justice and Healing without which there can be no real Reconciliation; Truth, Justice, Healing and Reconciliation without which there can be no Prevention of Future Abuse and Oppression; Truth, Justice, Healing, Reconciliation and Prevention of Future Abuse and Oppression without which there can be no environment that seeks and values Truth: from Truth to Truth.
When Mandela and the ANC set up their Truth and Reconciliation Commission, offering immunity for Truth, of course many of the worst criminals, especially among the white racists, did not show up or if they did, committed perjury, spin and obstruction of justice over and over. And there were many elements inside the ANC, the PAC (Pan African Congress) and other elements of the resistance that wanted immediate revenge or harsh justice against their oppressors. But Mandela and the ANC understood that a blood-bath and orgy of revenge, or writing off everyone White and seeing anyone Black as automatically virtuous, would only keep the new South Africa backward, divided, subject to foreign control and manipulation and leave millions in life-threatening poverty. Blind revenge may be appealing at the visceral level, especially for those who have suffered the worse kinds of oppression, but often it is the innocent, the poor, the starving, that pay the price for the visceral releases and catharsis for a few. So in South Africa, some of the most vile terrorists and fascists did not meet the fates they had so long handed to others who had committed no crimes in order to be able to move forward and not simply get stuck looking through a rear-view mirror on the past.
In the case of China, with respect to say the worst of the Class-A Japanese War Criminals, while some 64 major war criminals were executed by the Kuomintang, none were executed by the Government of the PRC. Mao Zedong once noted that unless human nature itself could be changed, socialism would be impossible. One of his sayings was “Cure the disease to save the patient.” Why? Because the old forms of behavior and consciousness, the old power relations and structures, the old institutions and the mentalities supporting them, were simply not only inconsistent with socialism and its development and defense, but would actively seek to sabotage socialism and return to the “old Orders” if they saw any chance or were given any opportunities to do so. The mentality of and required for capitalism (“wei zi gi fu wu” or “serve yourself heart and soul”), is fundamentally in contradiction with, and will sabotage the forms of behavior and consciousness of and requisite for, the construction and defense of socialism (“wei ren min fu wu” or “serve the people heart and soul”).
So at the Fushun War Criminals Camp, where some of the worst of the worst of Class-A Japanese War Criminals were imprisoned, some from the infamous Unit 731 and others like it, were given humane treatment, even allowing their wives to come from Japan to visit them, allowing food consistent with Japanese diet even while many in China were still starving, and eventually all were returned to Japan. I am sure that Mao saw and perhaps appreciated the “irony” of Japanese War Criminals, who used and murdered live human beings for “medical experiments” to develop weapons of mass death, being kept alive and treated humanely, acting in a certain sense as “experimental subjects” for peaceful purposes–to save lives and to see if the worst of the worst could be genuinely changed and rehabilitated, and thus if human nature itself could be changed. But truth was the first requirement for rehabilitation: when the prisoners would ask “What do you want me to say and write?” they would simply be told “You know best what you did, say and write only what you did, what crimes you committed.” But every day, in addition to their cultural and other activities in the prison camp, they would be shown films and hard evidence of the real nature and consequences of their crimes. They would be exposed to the testimonies of their victims that were irrefutable.
Both Mao and Mandela suffered hypocritical isolation, vilification and imperial intrigue from the West as did their respective societies. While Mandela was in prison doing hard labor, the governments of the U.S., Britain, Israel and others had both covert as well as overt alliances and forms of support for the White minority and illegal Apartheid regime of South Africa. Ironically, or worse, Israel developed and tested nuclear weapons in alliance with Apartheid South Africa (the new South Africa being the only nuclear nation to renounce and get rid of its inventories and capabilities of nuclear,biological and chemical weapons) and Apartheid regimes full of former internees of the British as wartime South African Nazi Party members and Nazi spies. Israel was even involved in using poor Blacks from Soweto and elsewhere as human subjects to test chemicals for Israeli pharmaceutical companies; tests that were forbidden by Israeli law:
From: “The Other Side of Deception” by Victor Ostrovsky (former Mossad), Harper Collins, N.Y. 1994–
” That was where I would come in as a military police officer; my job was to take the prisoners to a holding facility in Nes Ziyyona, a small town south of Tel Aviv. I’d always assumed that it was an interrogation facility for the Shaback. We all knew that a prisoner brought there would probably never get out alive, but the brainwashing we’d gone through in our short lifetimes had convinced us that it was them or us; there was no gray area…
–
It was Uri who enlightened me regarding the Nes Ziyyona facility. It was, he said, an ABC warfare laboratory–ABC standing for atomic, bacteriological, and chemical. It was where our top epidemiological scientists were developing various doomsday machines. Because we were so vulnerable and would not have a second chance should there be an all-out war in which this type of weapon would be needed, there was no room for error. The Palestinian infiltrators came in handy in this regard. As human guinea pigs, they could make sure the weapons the scientists were developing worked properly and could verify how fast they worked and make them even more efficient. What scares me today, looking back at that revelation, is not the fact that it was taking place but rather the calmness and understanding with which I accepted it…
–
Years later, I met Uri again. This time he was in the Mossad, a veteran ‘katsa’ in the Al department, and I was a rookie. He had come back from an assignment in South Africa. I was then a temporary desk man in the Dardasim department in liaison helping him prepare for a large shipment of medication to South Africa to accompany several Israeli doctors who were headed for some humanitarian work in Soweto, a black township outside Johannesburg. The doctors were to assist in treating patients at an outpatient clinic for the Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, a few blocks away from the houses of Winnie Mandela and bishop Desmond Tutu. The hospital and clinic were supported by a hospital in Baltimore, which served as a cut-out for the Mossad. Uri was on a cooling-off period from the United States.
–
‘What is the Mossad doing giving humanitarian assistance to blacks in Soweto?’ I remember asking him. There was no logic to it; no short-term political gain (which was the way the Mossad operated) or any visible monetary advantage.
–
‘Do you remember Nes Ziyyona?’ His question sent shivers up my spine. I nodded.‘ This is very much the same. We’re testing both new infectious diseases and new medication that can’t be tested on humans in Israel, for several of the Israeli medicine manufacturers. This will tell them whether they’re on the right track, saving them millions in research.’
–
‘ What do you think about all of this?’ I had to ask.
–
‘ It’s not my job to think about it.’–(pp. 188-89)
In the case of China, under the leadership of Mao and the CCP, China was kept occupied and out of the global community of nations for some 30 years from Liberation in 1949; is still subject to embargoes, imperial encirclement, social systems engineering and destabilization campaigns and use of proxies for clandestine terrorism and warfare; has also been accused of terrorism by real terrorists and acts of aggression by real aggressors. And as in the case of Apartheid South Africa and after, under the banners of “anti-Communism”, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and “Realpolitik”, all sorts of very ugly and brutal forces of fascism, proxy terrorists, clandestine acts of war (acts of war are defined by their nature and consequences on non-combatants not by whether or not they are overt versus covert or clandestine nor by whom they are committed) were supported and given aid-and-comfort by nations of the West daring to lecture anyone about “human rights” and “international law.” In both the case of China and Apartheid South Africa, for many years governments that had no legitimacy or claims to be the legal and legitimate governments of their respective societies, were given seats in the UN and recognized as “legitimate” for many years, and some 21 nation-states even today maintain diplomatic relations with and/or claim that the Government of Taiwan is the sole legitimate government of all of China.
Both Mandela and Mao, leaders of “Just” and defensive wars of national liberation (https://sttpml.org/just-war-and-the-interrelated-predicates-and-precedents-of-nuremberg/) were denounced, even today and even with the death of Mandela, for just defensive violence of the kind of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, by those promoting and supporting unjust and aggressive violence of imperialism, colonialism and occupation. Both Mandela and Mao were subject to repeated attempts at their assassination and replacement by proxies and stooges selected and paid by foreign imperialist and colonialist interests and forces.
Both Mao and Mandela had failings in their personal lives, partly only, due to their roles and work in their respective movements, yet both were more brutally honest in their self-criticism than any of their opponents or detractors could have ever been. And both were able to meet and work with some of the most vile forces imaginable, to suspend their own personal and visceral feelings, in order to try to move their respective societies forward and solve the problems of poverty facing the masses. Both of them understood the corrupting nature and intent of capitalism, yet also understood that capitalism could not simply be abolished or assumed away; they both believed that capitalism, if harnessed and carefully controlled and monitored, might be used for construction rather than destruction, saving lives rather than taking them; somewhat like some of the most lethal toxins of snakes and other poisonous creatures, in small and controlled doses, may be used to save lives rather than kill.
Both Mandela and Mao understood that in the context or poor societies, long subject to foreign domination and control, with many groups of national minorities often with historical enmities, the “National Question” had to be handled very carefully and patiently. They both understood that the inequalities and legacies of centuries of imperialism and colonialism on various national groups had to be addressed (it is not enough to say to historically oppressed national minorities “OK now we have a new system and day, move forward with what you have been handed by history and now you are free to compete in the new order”), yet not at the expense of promoting more divisions including between those once part of the advantaged groups and those historically disadvantaged.
Both Mandela and Mao were able to form alliances and sit down with enemies that personally they had every reason to hate and not want anything to do with in the interests of the oppressed peoples of their respective nations. They both understood that they were surrounded by hostile imperial forces and leadership bent on restoring the old Orders, with imperatives to progressively integrate into a world economy dominated and run on capitalist principles and power structures. Mao was able to sit down with the likes of Chiang Kai-shek and war criminals like Nixon and Kissinger, and Mandela was able to sit down and negotiate with the likes of hard-core racists inside and outside of South Africa in the interests of development and stability to move South Africa forward.
Both Mao and Mandela eschewed cults of personality, sycophantism and toadying by subordinates, yet allowed uses of iconic figures of themselves for tactical and strategic purposes and so as not to presume to dampen genuine enthusiasm and love for them by the broad masses they sought to serve and not dominate. In his book “Mao Zedong Man, Not God”, author Quan Yanchi, who interviewed Mao’s bodyguard of some 15 years Li Yingqiao, noted that Mao had said to his bodyguard: “If what happens in my family is a secret to others, it is not a secret to you. But don’t write about me while I’m still alive; wait until I die, and write truthfully when you do.” Li noted that Mao, as others have noted about Mandela, hated to see the suffering of the poor that often brought tears to his eyes, bragging and immodesty, sycophancy and toadying, waste of precious and scarce resources as well as ideological posturing with no substance or tangible suggestions for improvements on what was being criticized. They both understood that human progress is not something simply achieved by wishing for it, or with empty slogans and slogan-mongering, but rather with an appreciation of the concrete conditions and contradictions to be faced, the real-world constraints on individual and collective action, and an appreciation that certain ideas take hold among the masses only when conditions and contradictions have developed to support the acceptance on a mass level of those ideas. They both understood well that whatever their leadership and ideas contributed to history and the struggles of oppressed masses, their ideas only had force when correctly understood, grasped and carried out by the very masses they sought to serve, and they understood that real leaders are appointed and “credentialed” as leaders by those masses and not by summarily anointing and appointing themselves as leaders of anything. And they both were forced to undertake odious compromises and alliances with former and present enemies, denounced by some allies internally in their respective parties, for purposes of tactical and strategic advances of their societies and peoples.
Both Mandela and Mao were serious scholars on many issues, who studied many of the classics and were well-versed in several academic disciplines, yet were most comfortable with and around what some call “common people” or what Bill Clinton arrogantly refers to as the “walking around people”. They were both also very practical activists who stressed the unity of theory and praxis and that all theory was answerable to praxis before being incorporated into law and policy. They both had a deep appreciation of the fact that often the most profound ideas came from the people with no titles, positions or academic degrees, and often some of the worst and most worthless shit came from people with big titles, positions, wealth and formal academic degrees. They were both well schooled as well as well educated given their respective backgrounds from relative poverty and family dysfunction. The both wrote in styles and levels of language accessible to people from diverse walks of life and academic preparation yet without pretension, jargonese or patronization.
Neither Mandela nor Mao were pacifists or liberals even as they were able to forge alliances with ideologically disparate elements and outright enemies. They both believed that to equate the just and defensive violence of the oppressed with the unjust and aggressive violence of the oppressors, ostensibly because violence is violence, no matter by whom or against whom, was the argument of a moral eunuch no different than equating the just and defensive violence of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto with the genocidal violence of the Nazis. But on the subject of terrorism, which they both defined as calculated or highly probable violence against non-combatants and innocents, then in that case terrorism is terrorism no matter by whom or against whom; they both sought to keep military operations confined as much as possible to military targets and were never indifferent to the effects of revolutionary violence and who would suffer those effects. They both denounced terrorism in the name of the “Left”, along with anarchism, as infantile, petit-bourgeois and an admission of weakness and contempt for the masses the real makers of history.
Both Mao and Mandela were blamed for forms of terrorism and repression done in their name by followers, forms of repression that they had repeatedly denounced in their writings, praxis and speeches; during the Cultural Revolution in the case of Mao, and in terrorism against innocents and differing factions in the Townships of South Africa by some supporters in the ANC. If those who were waving “Red Books” during the Cultural Revolution, who committed crimes and forms of revenge against innocents, had actually read and taken to heart and praxis the constructs and values Mao wrote about (“We must be modes and prudent, guard against arrogance and rashness, and serve the Chinese people heart and soul”) or if those who engaged in “neckties” (flaming tires around the necks of targeted persons) in the Townships of South Africa had read and taken to heart the words and values that Mandela preached, many crimes by supposed supporters done in their names would have been avoided.
And finally, in both cases, the love expressed for them by millions of followers was genuine and never promoted by demagoguery, self-promotion, opportunism, sectarianism, narcissism or manipulation. Both men wanted nothing to do with “cults of personality” especially in their name, preached to seek truth from facts without fear or favor or regard to ideological pedigree of the sources of facts, to serve the oppressed and not their oppressors, to think of the collective and not just personal agenda and interests, and to make one’s life count for more than titles, positions or bank account balances.
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