Long live Nelson Mandela, anti-imperialist freedom fighter

6 December 2013, via Facebook.

In the next days and weeks when all the bourgeois politicians and media whores are pretending they loved Mandela, and are doing their damnedest to turn him into the next Gandhi — into an advert for ‘peaceful protest’, ‘non-violence’ and all things respectable (ie, harmless to imperialism) — I will be remembering that our Madiba was a FREEDOM FIGHTER first and foremost.

He was a leader of the armed struggle against apartheid and imperialism. He supported and was supported by other freedom fighters all over the world, including the IRA, Yasser Arafat’s PLO, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe … and the list goes on.

Like Mandela and the ANC, these have all been vilified and branded as ‘terrorists’ by the corporate media when they dared to stand up for themselves and their peoples. And even after the imperialists tried to turn Mandela into a poster boy for the ‘third way’, he refused to turn his back on his old friends.

Because the truth is that capitalists don’t do reason and debate. They understand only one language: FORCE. People get freedom only if they take it; it is never given.

So let Mandela’s example and his victory against apartheid teach us that if we are prepared to make sacrifices, if we are prepared to organise and if we are prepared to fight, we too can win.

La luta continua! Madiba zindabad!