Not all agree that Mandela was effective world leader

Not all agree that Mandela was effective world leader

Everyone has hopes and dreams, but it’s how a person decides to act upon achieving those goals that brings the ultimate reward. As a child, Nelson Mandela had many dreams of helping the world and he did everything he could to get to the high place he was as an adult, the first black president of his country in democratic South Africa.

He did so with perseverance and persistence. South Africa always has had an issue with racism because everyone was always identified by the color of their skin. Mandela had a mission of erasing injustice and inequality in the world, but as the world reflects back on his life and accomplishments, it’s hard not to ask if this man was as much of a worldly man as everyone thought him to be.

The world mourns the loss of a very important person, and he will never be forgotten, but did Americans really know Nelson Mandela? There were suspicions that he wore a mask, and no one really knew the man. If Mandela’s grasp of the situation in South Africa had been limited, it wouldn’t have made such a big difference in his reputation as the world fell in love with him anyway.

His incarceration helped make him a popular political person with a reputation for wisdom. But some suggest Mandela was na Øve because of his lack of schooling and his being a product of imprisonment, put in deliberate isolation.

Max Hastings, journalist and historian for the Daily Mail wrote, “Mr. Mandela showed himself a weak executive ruler, failing to deploy his unique influence and indeed power as he might have done. To say this is probably to ask too much of any mortal man, whose achievement was anyway remarkable.”

David Blair from the Daily Telegraph says, “Once in government, Mr. Mandela filled his ministerial Cabinet with time-servers and incompetents and failed to stop the rampant spread of AIDS. As chief executive of South Africa’s government, he was largely a failure.”

Many think Mandela wore a mask like a magician and felt forced to perform by his followers’ passionate belief that he was the real thing. The people of South Africa struggled to do right by their gods but failed many times. Exhausted by the struggle with themselves and everyone against each other, they strived for a unifying person to give them a vision for the future.

Mandela saw the great need in these people, and jumped at the opportunity, put on his mask and gave his life and time to his followers. The people of South Africa obviously thought he was the real thing because they gave him power in 1994.

Megan Calderone, Austintown