The death of Nelson Mandela is an event to be mourned. But his magnificent life is also something to be celebrated, for his exemplary moral courage and for the heroic struggle against one of the most oppressive and vile political systems ever created that he symbolized and helped bring to a triumphant conclusion after spending 27 years in prison as a 'terrorist.'
Few politicians have ever achieved as much as he did, and few have generated such enormous goodwill in their own lifetime.
Long before his death, Mandela had acquired - regardless of his own intentions - the status of universal celebrity and secular sainthood, and the glow that he created had already begun to attract some very dubious admirers.
'They flee from me that sometime did me seek,' wrote the poet Thomas Wyatt. In Mandela's case the reverse is true. Take for example John 'bomber' McCain. Last month McCain attended the screening of the Mandela biopic Long Walk to Freedom, in Washington, where he delivered a eulogistic address which declared:
'It is hard not to be in awe of Nelson Mandela. His character is awe-inspiring - his courage, resilience, generosity, selflessness, wisdom. History offers few examples of people who were as devoted or sacrificed more for a cause greater than their self-interest than Nelson Mandela.'
McCain went on to praise Mandela's 'capacity for forgiveness. Imprisoned unjustly for 27 years, he bore no hate for those who took his freedom from him, who denied his dignity.'
The man who once sang 'Bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb Iran' cited Mandela's close relationship with one of his guards on Robben Island as evidence of 'a mutual regard that ancient hatreds could not prevent. Love, you see, comes more naturally to the human heart than hatred.'
Noble words. But what was McCain doing when Mandela was in prison? Well back in 1987, he voted various times in an attempt to persuade the Reagan administration to back the RENAMO organization in its violent campaign against the left-wing FRELIMO government of Mozambique.
Initially created by the Rhodesian secret services, RENAMO or the 'Mozambican National Resistance' became a tool of South Africa in its 'total strategy' against the anti-apartheid 'frontline states.'
RENAMO's contribution was a reign of absolute terror in rural Mozambique, in which as many as 100,000 civilians were deliberately slaughtered. Funded and equipped by the apartheid regime, it barely even bothered to fight a 'military' campaign against the Mozambican security forces.
Its 'resistance' was so insanely murderous that even the Reagan administration wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. McCain was less scrupulous. In 1987 he voted alongside the racist Jesse Helms and other senators to oppose the appointment of a State Department nominee for ambassador to Mozambique, because she was not seen as sufficiently pro-RENAMO.
So much for love and forgiveness. Do people change? Yes. But there's no evidence that McCain has, and his pious praise of Mandela positively reeks of hypocrisy.
And he isn't the only one. Closer to home there is our own Prime Minister, who has described Mandela as the person he most admires, and praised him for his 'grace and complete lack of bitterness.'
Yet what's this? Back in 1989, Cameron visited apartheid South Africa, not to show solidarity with the prisoner on Robben Island, but on a 'fact-finding' freebie organized by the anti-sanctions lobby firm Strategy Network International (SNI).
There are many other people who have showered praise on Mandela in order to try and bathe in his light. Some of them are merely ridiculous, Like Donald Trump, who tweets ' Nelson Mandela and myself had a wonderful relationship-he was a special man and will be missed.'
And there is Lindsay Lohan, of all people, who has responded to his death by tweeting 'A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.' Well she ought to know.
Lohan is merely an idiot. But too many of the politicians and celebrities who are lining up to pay tribute to Mandela praise him for things that they would never even dream of doing themselves, in ways that conceal and obscure what he actually did.
They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, and when they do, we should call them out. Because Mandela's legacy shouldn't be left in the hands of hypocrite politicians, 'global leaders', millionaires and moronic celebrities who seek to bathe in the light that he left behind him, and his funeral shouldn't become a Hello-style watch-the-celebrity event that obscures the struggle he fought so bravely.
Because there was once a time when he wasn't famous or powerful, but chose to fight for truth, justice and equality without knowing whether he would ever succeed. That's what made him great.
How many of those empty vessels who now praise him, who have spent their lives pursuing nothing but fame, power and money can say the same?