Honoring a Righteous Politician

Honoring political courage that led to Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990:

We forget that South Africa’s apartheid government was a divisive political issue in the U.S. Many nations had ceased doing business with South Africa after the U.N. urged sanctions against the racist regime in 1962. But America's conservative politicians and business-interests thwarted attempts to get tough against apartheid, and kept South Africa’s economy afloat.

In 1985 an anti-apartheid bill was killed by a Republican filibuster. But the bill was re-introduced the next year, and unexpectedly passed the House. A revised version passed the Senate as well, and was sent to President Reagan for his signature. He vetoed it.

Congress set a vote on over-riding the President’s veto. Reagan fought back. He asked the country on T.V. to support his position: and even enlisted South Africa’s Foreign Minister in lobbying members of Congress. But the anti-apartheid law was overwhelmingly passed over Reagan’s veto: the first time in the Twentieth Century a President’s foreign-policy veto was overridden.

Cut off by its major supporter and trade-partner, the government of South Africa was forced to dismantle apartheid in the next few years...and release apartheid's most famous prisoner, Nelson Mandela.

Senator Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas was the key person in getting the anti-apartheid law past Reagan’s veto. Sen. Kassebaum bucked her party and its popular President because she believed America should “be on the right side of history.” And she was able to sway other Republicans to join in her moral stance.

The chief aide of her party’s Senate leader at the time said, “Her voice carries a lot more weight than those blow-hards out on the floor.” Another inside-observer said Kassebaum was able to change Republicans' minds because they recognized that “…she had done her homework, she had no political agenda, [and] she just thought it was the right thing to do for both countries.”

In this week of well-deserved tributes to Nelson Mandela, it’s worth remembering that his release from unjust imprisonment was due to an American politician who put doing the right thing above party politics.

see http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=249652844