Mandela and Pearl Harbor

As Bayou Renaissance Man so clearly notes, there are many aspects to Nelson Mandela the man.  I personally make no claims to objectivity in my views of him, which are much along the lines of those espoused by Debbie Schlussel (though not necessarily as strident).  But Mandela did accomplish much that needed to be accomplished.

Quite frankly, the pre-Mandela South African regime was not particularly friendly towards the Jewish citizens in locations outside of Cape Town or Johannesburg.  Mandela himself was tolerant, and even friendly towards, the Jewish citizens of South Africa (provided that they were in South Africa and not in Israel -- another one of those who love us when we are dead in Treblinka and Auschwitz and Terezin, but hate us if we are alive in the Holy City of Jerusalem).  Mandela's successors cannot be expected to be so accommodating.

Anyway, there are diverse ways of viewing Nelson Mandela.  And I do not particularly object, per se, to the vats of ink being now being fed into the presses on the occasion of his passing.

What I do object to, in yesterday's and today's newpapers throughout the America, is the dearth of ink about what happened on 7 December 1941, when the Japanese planes attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor.  It is a day that will live in infamy.

The Americans who died at Pearl Harbor (including those who now repose in the sunken wreckage of the ships there) are no less worthy of the media's ink than Nelson Mandela.