The death of Nelson Mandela is being mourned across the world and with it the hypocrisy begins in earnest.

I won’t bleat on about what Nelson Mandela achieved in his life, the wonders of the internet will allow anyone with the will, to find that out themselves but he was a man that would not allow racial and economic oppression deny him, even after 27 years in a tiny prison cell.

This is what David Cameron had to say:

“A great light has gone out in the world. Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our time; a legend in life and now in death – a true global hero. Across the country he loved they will be mourning a man who was the embodiment of grace. Meeting him was one of the great honours of my life. My heart goes out to his family – and to all in South Africa and around the world whose lives were changed through his courage.”

Who wrote that bullshit for him?

To the Tory Party Nelson Mandela was a terrorist not a freedom fighter. David Cameron himself, was a member of group of young conservatives that produced a poster saying “Hang Nelson Mandela and all the ANC Terrorists, They are Butchers”

Cameron also worked in the Tory Policy Unit at Central Office and went on an anti-sanctions fact-finding mission to South Africa with a pro-apartheid lobby firm sponsored by PW Botha.
He was a member of a party where his leader, Margaret Thatcher, denounced the ANC with the words “The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation”. Her sidekick, the detestable Norman Tebbit, called Mandela a “Terrorist”

In 1984, the year I left school, Margaret Thatcher was the first British Prime Minister for quarter of a century to invite and Apartheid head of state to Britain and I can remember my Grandmother wistfully saying that we defeated the Nazis in World War II to become a country that sponsored oppressors against those who fought for freedom and civil rights.

Our Government hated Mandela and it hated freedom fighters, whether they were in Belfast, Palestine or South Africa, they were treated with the same disdain. Across the world, the Washington and London sponsored bullets rained down on anyone who dared challenge their oppressors. Mandela was on the USA terror list until 2008!

I don’t definitively know why Britain and the USA in particular were so in fear of freedom fighters like Mandela, I mean, it was obvious that South Africa under Apartheid was wrong in all aspects wasn’t it? My own theory is that it was combination of rabid Cold War paranoia and the spread of Communism/Socialism along with a desperate need to cap world wealth distribution to feed aggressive Capitalism.

In fairness to Cameron, he has no choice to be a hypocrite. If he didn’t read his spin doctor’s tribute he would be deemed an out and out racist. It would also be biased not to mention the fact that he has apologised on behalf of Thatcher for the Conservative stance on the ANC. Though I guess he had no choice.

The evil Norman Tebbit however, is unrepentant;

“Because of his age, Mr Cameron is looking at these events as part of history. Others of us who lived through them and had input into the discussions at the time see things very differently,” he said. “The policy of the Thatcher government was a success.”

I suppose he is not a hypocrite but I will shed no tears when he croaks it.

Western sponsored Apartheid may have ended in South Africa but sadly, its legend lives on in one of the most unstable regions in the world. Israel, America’s love child still, to this day, runs a regime against Palestinians that mirrors the oppression in Apartheid South Africa. Palestinians are treated like rabid dogs in their own territory so America can retain a controlling interest in an oil rich region.

I was glad to be quizzed by my kids last night about Nelson Mandela and the ANC. Of course they had heard of him but they didn’t really know that much about what he stood for. I hope and assume that the same thing is happening across the world and with the power of the internet; the curiosity of millions of people will actually mean that the death of Mandela was a good thing as it makes people think outside the world of ‘I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of here’.

When people read about what he achieved with the odds so heavily stacked against him, they will begin to understand the link between freedom fighting and terrorism and who the genuine aggressors are in this world.

With new emerging nations such as China, Brazil and India set to be financial power houses in the next fifty years; the world is going to be an interesting and often frightening place.

Maybe Mandela will inspire a new generation of thinkers to emerge and ensure that economic and racial oppression is consigned to an embarrassing chapter in the history books?

You, you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.