Dear Mr Pilger

If you could not see this coming in South Africa you are the only person in the world so blind. Nelson Mandela is a media creation. He is as corrupt as any other black African leader, and always has been. Even his final speech in court before being sentenced was not written by him. When he dies the corruption and cronyism that is the African way of life will balloon beyond belief, and will make Zimbabwe look like a sunday school picnic. It will be left to us in the west to pick up the pieces through 'foreign aid' that will inevitably line the pockets of yet more tin pot leaders. Why don't you grow up and see the world for what it really is? He is not a 'great' man in any sense of the word, just another implacably dishonest and shady character able to hide behind the sensation created for him by our media.

You Cody are correct what you say about Mandela being corrupt. All those leaders in the big African continent are corrupt. They love power, and all the wealth that power brings them. They love guns, that can ensure they stay in power, and to continue to receive all that wealth. You're very correct in everything you say Cody!!

"All those leaders in the big African continent are corrupt. They love power, and all the wealth that power brings them," says Misanthrope wisely.

Leaders in most countries of the world can be accused of the same flaws, my friend. The U.S. is the leader of the bottom-feeders.

Wealth and power is inimical to nobility and self-sacrifice and altruism.

That is why the world will never experience peace!

Dear David G

Take a black American to any African nation, and the inevitable response is 'Thank God for slavery!'. That says it all . . .

Agreed about the rampant corruption but where does the money go? It goes to investments and banks in the West. Our own banks have money from Zimbabwe's Mugabe and he has property in the Northern Territory. We should insist that this money is seized, the people accepting it punished and it goes back to the people it was originally for.

Pilger doubtless would have preferred the ANC to stick to its violent Marxist roots, and Mandela to stay a pure but impotent jailbird and darling of the European left.

The very things he sneers at in Mandela - his willingness to compromise and put the past behind him, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, his pragmatism and economic realism – are the best chances that Mandela’s legacy will be positive and enduring, despite the many flaws of the ANC and its leaders.