It would be nice if we could ask Mandela whether or not he avoids internal conflict, and how, if he does avoid it. Does he live on the hope that in the future everything will work out a-OK? Does he know that it’s a-OK right now, but if yes, why bother changing?

Connecting with perceived adversaries is an interesting theme.

Maybe the trick is that he doesn’t take his action to mean “help”. So maybe inviting those folks to parties and giving them gift doesn’t constitute aid in his mind, not even a moral support. But for all the human beings I know, sending someone a gift at birthday is a type of implicit moral support, not just “I like you”, but “I like what you are doing”, because what are we, if not our intentions and beliefs? So when you give someone a birthday cake, you’re not giving to a person, but to a bundle of intentions (ultimately intentions cannot be separated though) contextualized by a certain belief network. So does Mandela see it this way or not? If yes, how can he offer moral support to something he morally objects to?

On the other hand, if cakes and parties and other conventional human relations warm touches do not mean anything and do not constitute aid, then when Mandela is hugging all those poor kids and smiling at all the downtrodden people, is he really offering moral support or just a meaningless smile, the same kind he is ready to give to his detractors?

I don’t want to bash Mandela at all. I simply have a question about integrity and inner consistency. I myself have grappled with this issue, and frankly, I found no answer, or the answers I found you may not like, because they don’t always involve peace. But I think it would be very interesting to read something deeply analytical and introspective about this issue.

At the very least, if we can’t have a “feel good” ending, maybe we instead can have honesty.

The only thing I can imagine that does away with the conflict is to see everything as a game, but we have to understand, that if done so, helping the downtrodden is also a game and not that important. If everyone is OK with that, that’s cool with me, but why not write about it and say so? That’s be a brave thing to write, or at least, I can’t say I read it anywhere yet, at least I didn’t read it from any source that wants to maintain conventional legitimacy.

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