Rest well

Back in the day, when you could still get away with that sort of thing, opponents- Margaret Thatcher, for one- called Nelson Mandela a Communist.

Now, the day after his death at the venerable age of 95, Chris Bertram- writing at Crooked Timber- says the Nobel Peace laureate and internationally-revered statesman is getting this sort of send-off from his foes:

The great Mandela is dead. A political prisoner for 27 years, a courageous fighter against racism and injustice, and finally a great statesman. There is much to remember there and much to mourn. Those who suffered under apartheid, the exiles, those who were active in solidarity overseas: all will have their memories of the struggle. Some of their voices will be heard. But sadly, they have to share a stage with the official voices of commemoration: politicians and others who cared little for the ANC or who actively opposed it. In the UK it is sickening to hear eulogies from the braying Tories, the Bullingdon-club types and ex-members of the Federation of Conservative Students who sang “hang Nelson Mandela” in the 1980s. No doubt, in the US, there will be some prominent Reaganites who utter similar word of appreciation. There’s an implicit narrative emerging that everyone recognized his greatness after 1990. But this isn’t so. The warbloggers and Tea Partiers (and their followers in the UK) were vilifying him when he criticized US policy under George W. Bush or said something on Palestine that deviated from the standard US-media line. Just as with Martin Luther King, we are witnessing the invention of a sanitized version of the man, focused on reconciliation with those who hated him – and who still hate those like him – and suppressing his wider commitment to the fight against social and global injustice.

In America, one of the brayers was early out of the starting gates:

As all of us do, Nelson Mandela spent a third of his life asleep.

As most of us do not do, Nelson Mandela spent another third of his life in prison for daring to challenge racial segregation.

But it was what he did with the remaining third of those 95 years that made all the difference. And the comparison with the life of a Rick Santorum makes the ex-senator seem small, indeed. Microscopic, even.

As another Senator might have said, "You, Mr. Santorum, are no Nelson Mandela."