Nelson Mandela & Margaret Thatcher

Comparing speeches by Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher is an interesting exercise in discriminating not just political rhetoric, but two contrasting styles of thinking and perceiving the world.

Mandela became the President of South Africa after enduring decades of imprisonment for his armed struggle against the apartheid racism imposed on black South Africans by the Africaans-speaking white minority. His words ring out with a righteous defence of the defenceless, an acute awareness of the European rape of Africa during the colonial and post-colonial era, and a remarkably balanced and humane approach to finding solutions that involved making peace with those who had abused his people and imprisoned him for much of his life.

Margaret Thatcher, the daughter of a conservative grocer, became the first female English Prime Minister, and was re-elected three times, dominating English politics from 1979 to 1990. Her conservatism was an expression of capitalist values, which exalted privatisation, corporate power, and the interests of business, wealth, privilege, and private property over concern for human beings. Her vision of Christianity blurred the concern of Jesus for the poor, twisting his words instead to justify the cruelty and insensitivity of her policies.

Both Mandela and Thatcher were creatures of their times, and of the cultures in which they grew up. In fact, their values are virtually mirror images of each other, and they drew diametrically opposite conclusi

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r colonies of Asia and the Pacific region have compromised the ability of the Western capitalist nations to secure the raw materials needed for their manufacturing and armaments, and that they are now turning their attention to Africa's rich resources, land, and cheap labor. "Being without any strong trade union movement, the people of Africa are exposed to the most vicious and cruel forms of colonial exploitation". In American politics there are virtually no voices raised against colonialism, but here it is his central theme, and it is presented as the both the problem and the enemy. "In their mad lust for markets and profits, these imperial powers will not hesitate to cut one another's throats, to break the peace, to drench millions of innocent people in blood, and to bring misery and untold suffering to humanity". This is the flip side of the contemporary American TV news, in which Africans such as Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe are used to demonize the whole region, and American allies such as the colonizing powers are never criticized for their historic actions. Then comes a statement that would be anathema in American corporate media, because it truthfully portrays our country's foreign policy: "To protect their markets a

Category: Government - N