Happy birthday Mandela: you're officially no longer a terrorist

by julianw | July 1, 2008 at 06:29 pm | 365 views | 8 comments

July 1 | - The take-Nelson Mandela-off-the-U.S.-terrorist-watch-list bill passed through Congress and the Senate on June 27, and today, President Bush made the bill official with his signature. The Nobel Peace Prize winner can now enter the U.S. without first having to sign a waiver.

This morning, President Bush signed into law a bill granting Secretary Rice the authority to waive travel restrictions on President Mandela and other members of the African National Congress (ANC). The bill was sponsored by Democratic Sens. John Kerry and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Republican Sen. Bob Corker.

The senators say Mandela and ANC members remained on the list "for activities they conducted against South Africa's apartheid regime decades ago." They also said in their written statement that the removal "end[s] an embarrassing impediment to improving U.S.-South Africa relations."

In announcing the president had signed of the bill, the White House did not mention Mandela by name. Instead the statement states rules under current law that "render aliens inadmissible due to terrorist or criminal activities would not apply with respect to activities undertaken in association with the [ANC] in opposition to apartheid rule in South Africa."

June 27 | - Nelson Mandela turns 90 on July 17, and what better way to celebrate than to remove him from America's terror watch list. That's right -- the former South African President, hero of the anti-appartheid resistance, and Nobel Peace Prize winner has spent much of his life on the same blacklist as Osama Bin Laden. John Kerry was one of the three senator's who drafted the legislation. Here's an excerpt from his website:

Sens. John Kerry, Bob Corker, and Sheldon Whitehouse today announced the passage of their legislation to remove former South African President Nelson Mandela from the terror watch list. The bill grants the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, the authority to waive U.S. travel restrictions on President Mandela and other members of the African National Congress (ANC.)

Mandela and his fellow ANC members remain on the list for activities they conducted against South Africa’s apartheid regime decades ago. The senators hope the passage of this legislation will end this embarrassing impediment to improving U.S.-South Africa relations.

“In recognition of his ninetieth birthday this summer, Nelson Mandela is again honored as one of the world’s strongest voices for human dignity and courage in the face of oppression. Today the United States moved closer at last to removing the great shame of dishonoring this great leader by including him on our government’s terror watch list,” said Kerry.

Ezra Klein is suitably indignant:

So for his 90th birthday, we've decided to ease the minds of airport security officers everywhere and let them assume that the elderly peacemaker isn't trying to blow up the plane.

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jordan

at 12:56 on June 27th, 2008

Well, it's about time.

yuls.source

at 13:38 on June 27th, 2008

good stuff:

julianw, I like this story. It's good stuff. Being on that list must have complicated the octogenarian's life a lot in the past!

eastvanray

at 14:50 on June 27th, 2008

I guess we cannot ask the thousands that the ANC savagely necklaced how they feel about this?

Mikasi

at 22:10 on July 1st, 2008

As they are dead, we cannot.

However, we could consult the history records and many people still alive and cognizant about the conditions of life under apartheid. They could likely tell us more than we care to know about it.

We could also question our own beliefs and ask if conquering and occupying a foreign country and putting its original citizens at the bottom of a caste system - white, brown, black - is the moral thing to do.

Ultimately the Dutch and English rule in South Africa was a foreign rule - conquest and occupation pure and simple. We should ask ourselves what we would do should this same thing happen in say America in 25 years. What if the Chinese rolled through a bankrupt America's shores and did as the Afrikaners and English did? Who would we villanize - the collaborators and the occupiers or the Americans who killed them as they could?

One man's hero is another man's villain. And if the two Georges - King George and George Washington - were alive today we could ask them about it.

eastvanray

at 12:58 on July 2nd, 2008

I was not defending Apartheid nor was I defending British and Dutch rule. I am not an enemy of wars of emancepation either. I was pointing out that necklacing: the practice by the ANC of summary execution carried out by forcing a rubber tire, filled with gasoline, around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire was a worse crime against black South Africans than being treated as second class citizens as should not be rewarded in any way by any people. If that gets you a Nobel Prize than I expect George Bush and Dick Cheney will be accepting theirs soon as well!

Mikasi

at 12:06 on July 3rd, 2008

good point. I stand corrected. Sorry.

julianw

at 12:28 on July 3rd, 2008

Thanks for your comments. I disagree that we should draw on an imagined hierarchy of crimes in which necklacing -- horrific and deplorable as it is -- can be considered absolutely and definitively "worse" than a massive system of state-sponsored racism. Apartheid was not just about disrespecting people as "second class citizens:" it was about breaking up families, locking masses of people in dire poverty, and subjecting millions to decades of humiliation and violence. The ANC began using violent, horrible tactics to fight Apartheid, but it eventually defeated the regime using an entirely non-violent approach. That's why Mandela was given a Nobel Peace Prize.

eastvanray

at 13:50 on July 3rd, 2008

I believe that is commonly referred to as "The ends justifies the means" and it is a bankrupt and amoral political philosophy. Some acts, and I would make the case that necklacing is one such act, are so offensive to human values that they are wrong in all circumstances and must never be tollerated (nevermind rewarded). The ANC used murder, torture and intimidation to create the circumstances to seize power in South Africa: Robert Mugabe's "War Vetrans" use murder, torture and intimidation to create the circumstances to remain in power. Both claim they are doing it for the good of the blacks in their coutries. If Mugabe's actions result in long term peace in Zimbabwe, by your logic and morals, he too deserves a Nobel Prize.