A dead Nelson Mandala crashed an Obama Johannesburg appearance last week.

A dead Nelson Mandala crashed Barack Obama’s Johannesburg appearance on Monday.

An international incident was touched off yesterday in Johannesburg, South Africa, when a goodwill appearance by President Obama was interrupted by an impromptu funeral.

Mr. Obama was generously posing for souvenir pictures of himself with fawning admirers at the FNB Stadium (Soccer City), when security people rolled in Nelson Mandela’s casket and demanded to have a memorial service. When questioned as to why they were disrupting Mr. Obama’s appearance, the security men offered no explanation aside from “we reserved the stadium last week for this.”

“This kind of thing is a constant problem for Mr. Obama” said one of his staff. “Everyone wants to bask in his sunshine, even the deceased.”

“Then again, it’s not surprising that the life-challenged are attracted to him as he was a fierce advocate for voting rights for the dead when he lived in Chicago.”

Read it all. And especially scroll down to read the comments. It is well worth it.

Nelson Mandala: Getting the facts of his life right.

Nelson Mandala: Getting the facts of his life right.

Like countless post-colonial African despots, Mandela could have bought off his supporters by stealing the resources of those he replaced to enrich himself and his followers. He could have done what almost all men who have nearly unlimited political power have done with it…kept it and ruthlessly used it.

But he didn’t.

In the end the story of Mandela is that he wasn’t like almost all men. He wasn’t perfect and he wasn’t without sin (almost no one in South Africa was). However, he changed and grew. When he lacked the power to change his country he used violent means to attempt to get it. But once he had the power, he eschewed violence. That is not the typical tale of history. He did not crush those who had crushed him and his people. Instead he recognized that no one would benefit from that and more to the point, it was morally reprehensible to him to do so.

With Mandala gone, I fear for civilization in South Africa. Mandala is no longer there to hold back the thugs there on the left.