A review by kareimer
Mandela and the General by John Carlin

2.0

I picked this book up quickly from the library and was very excited about it. I wish I'd taken a moment to look it over (and see that the author was white). It's not that a white man can't necessarily write an autobiography of Mandela, but I felt that Carlin lacked respect for the racial tensions in South Africa and the impact of his framing. He made the perspective from this white general. He humanized this leader of these white movements (showing his family, his bros that he worked with, and how he just wanted to become a farmer). Thus, this general, became not only the narrator but also the man to feel for. Mandela, by contrast, was not humanized (he seemed like just the stock figure of another movement). He was not shown with family, very limited scenes with other members of his organization (the African National Congress) and it was super glossed over that he was detained in prison for 27 years! It seems almost impossible not to have made the readers sympathetic to Mandela (and if he wasn't already so well known you would have thought of him just to be another guy leading another group). The next issue was the book framed these different movements as just different organizations. The ANC was shown as just another group that needed reconciling with different white supremacist groups (the white wolves). Instead, these self-described neo-nazi groups should be represented as the terrorist groups they are. Meanwhile, the work Mandela did with the ANC should have been portrayed as the organization fighting to end apartheid. The scene where there were alternating views of the white general and Mandela telling their members to "imagine walking in the others shoes" I felt was very offputting. I understand that much of Mandela's work is driven by empathy and trying to connect with those opposing. I also understand the value of trying to understand different perspectives. However, equating the need for white folks to consider the impacts of segregation and the race-based killings is not the same as asking Black folks to empathize with these white folks who have been engaging in these systems of segregation and engaging in violence.