356: Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was the first president elected in post-apartheid South Africa. (If you're unfamiliar with apartheid, check out Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane). Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his leadership role in the African National Congress.

Just before his imprisonment Mandela became a key leader of the faction of ANC willing to use violence to end apartheid, abandoning the Ghandian principles of non-violence that the broader party embraced.

For conservatives, this willingness to use violence against a government friendly to the US, made the ANC a terrorist organization. For progressives, the threat of violence was a reasonable response to the wide-spread oppression faced by black people in South Africa. Conservatives don't always see the use of violence as the work of terrorism. After the first Iraq war the Kurds were urged to rise up violently against Saddam Hussein by conservatives in the US.

The difference between conservatives and progressives on this point seems to be this -- For progressives violence is acceptable if the human rights abuses are excessive, regardless of how it affects US business interests; for conservatives violence is acceptable if it furthers US business interests, but human rights issues alone are not enough to justify violent attacks against government.

Why this is progressive/liberal: In the 1980s the US political left and right were split over the issue of apartheid in South Africa. Progressives generally supported freeing Nelson Mandela and argued that US dollars should not go to support the apartheid regime. For conservatives like Dick Cheney, the African National Congress was a terrorist organization, and at least the apartheid government worked with US businesses. When he was a Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney appeared on ABC's "This Week." When asked about his vote supporting the apartheid government, Cheney responded "I don't have any problems at all with the vote I cast 20 years ago."

Many progressives got their start in the anti-apartheid campus protests and corporate boycotts of the 1980s.

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