Reports from Kenya August 19, 2009 it is always risky to
criticize an icon. In this case, I am going to take on Nelson
Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC). When I was
recently in the United States, I visited some friends in Maine
who took me to a teen choir concert by a group called Village
Among the four leaders was a woman from South Africa. So
naturally, the concert had a good number of rousing South
African songs. But I objected to one. It was called “The Machine
Gun” and glamorized the ANC switch in the early 1960’s from non-
violent direct action against the apartheid regime to one of
violent resistance. I think that this was a great mistake (I
also thought so at the time it happened). I wrote an email to
Village Harmony to express my displeasure. So I thought that I
would give you my thinking at length. Here are some of the
implications of that decision to the fight for equality in South
Africa. 1. Non-violent direct action, which the ANC had promoted
from its beginnings in 1917, is a grass-