KING NELSON MANDELA™S IMAGE: HOW LONG BEFORE WORSHIP IS REQUIRED?

By Shaun Willcock

There are plans to erect a giant statue of Nelson Mandela, 65 metres (over 200 feet) high, in the city of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. This sculpture would be bigger than the Statue of Liberty in New York!
Communist countries have loved to idolize their leaders, conferring near-godlike status upon them after their deaths. Historically and officially, Communism despised all religion, but lost no time in creating a religion of its own: the religion of the State itself. And the gods of this State religion were its leaders and founders, to whom the masses were required to pay homage. Vladimir Lenin™s corpse was set up in public to be virtually adored. Russians in their hundreds of thousands would line up to file slowly and reverently past his see-through casket, to gaze adoringly at his mortal remains. Giant statues of Lenin, Stalin and other Communist œheroes were erected all over the vast Soviet Union. More recently in Turkmenistan, which used to be part of the Soviet Union and is (like the rest of the old Soviet republics) still ruled by Communists (for Communism never died in the USSR), the dictator Niyazov had a giant, 40-metre, golden rotating image of himself erected in the capital Ashgabad.
But South Africa looks set to outdo even such attempts at deifying Communist rulers, with its planned massive statue of Nelson Mandela. Nothing has been said so far about casting the statue in gold, or making it revolve on its base, but wait, these are still early days. In South Africa today, when it comes to the bizarre, the sycophantic, anything is possible. More days than not, we who live here feel as if we™re living in a giant madhouse.

For the time being, the Port Elizabeth city council has had to shelve their plans for this so-called œStatue of Freedom. Reason: a battle over prime property. But not for long, according to the head of the œStatue of Freedom committee, who said: œThe project continues. The dispute might delay the whole waterfront, but we believe the statue will go on (The Mail and Guardian, July 16 2004, as reported in The Witness, July 17). So it would appear that this monstrosity, this idol of an idol, will be erected on the Port Elizabeth waterfront? That will certainly cast a shadow “ very literally “ over the sunny beaches of the œFriendly City.
South Africa is a country in turmoil. It is unraveling at the very seams. Crime is out of control, with the country being rated as the most violent on earth outside of a war zone. Millions are jobless and starving. The health, education, and other departments are in terminal decline. Racist œaffirmative action is driving tens of thousands of skilled workers to emigrate. Genocide is being waged against the country™s white farmers. Corruption at every level is wreaking havoc with the economy. The country™s once-excellent infrastructure is falling apart. A First World country has very definitely become a Third World chaotic mess. And in the midst of all of this, there are these plans to erect an image to Nelson Mandela, the perceived god of Africa!
What exactly has this man done to deserve such a status? What exactly? Today, as I write this, it was Mandela™s 86th birthday. The news reports were full of scenes of people everywhere, including very young children, singing his praises, sending him cards, and saying things like, œWe love you!™ and œThank you Mr Mandela! But what exactly should he be thanked for? What great exploits has he done, to deserve such frenzied, hysterical adulation? His life before prison was spent as a terrorist; and once he became president, what happened? South Africa spiraled downwards into near-anarchy and ruin. He has done none of the things that make a man truly great. None. Nothing. Zero. He has, like every Communist leader before him anywhere in the world, taken his country down the path of collapse. And yet he is idolized the world over. Such is the utter gullibility of the vast majority of people today. They believe what they are told to believe. They have believed a lie.
Hence the planned giant image. And when it is erected, the next giant step towards the full deification of Nelson Mandela will have taken place. The Mandela myth will be even more firmly enshrined in the hearts and minds of millions the world over. The world will continue to gasp with admiration and to sing his praises. But almost no one seems able “ or willing — to discern the obvious: that in truth the Emperor has no clothes.

The Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, made a giant image of gold, and commanded that all men fall down before it and worship it (Dan.3:1-7). If this image to Mandela is ever erected, will the day come when South Africans will be required to worship before it? Does that sound too far-fetched? In North Korea, the Communist dictator demands to be worshipped as a god. The Oxford Dictionary defines worship, among other things, as: œto adore with appropriate acts, rites, or ceremonies; to regard with extreme respect or devotion; to honour; to regard or treat with honour or respect; to salute, to bow down to. Given the already almost-godlike status conferred on Nelson Mandela by a fawning world, can we be certain that bowing down to, saluting, and regarding with extreme respect or devotion, will not be required at some point in the future?