The other problem I have with Roger Cohen's Op-Ed is his ignoring of the violence that took place in South Africa (justified or not) under the banner of the African National Congress, and South African history in general.

Cohen writes, "When I was a teenager, my relatives advised me to enjoy the swimming pools of Johannesburg because “next year they will be red with blood.” But the inevitable bloodbath never came. Mandela walked out of prison and sought reconciliation, not revenge."

According to his biography, Cohen's teenage years were roughly from 1969-1973. Now, Mandela did walk out of prison in 1990, but what happened in the 20 years prior to that? Was there no violence? I'm sure the victims of the Soweto massacre wouldn't say so. Or victims of the Church Street Bombing. Or the thousands of others who suffered in tit-for-tat attacks and sabotage that occurred during those years.

Maybe it wasn't as bloody as the American Civil War, but to suggest that blood wasn't spilled in the struggle against apartheid is ridiculous.

By the way, here's a report about Nelson Mandela's ANC per the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

While it was A.N.C. policy that the loss of civilian life should be ''avoided,'' there were instances where members of its security forces perpetrated gross violations of human rights in that the distinction between military and civilian targets was blurred in certain armed actions, such as the 1983 Church Street bombing of the South African Air Force headquarters. . . .

In the course of the armed struggle, the A.N.C., through its security forces, undertook military operations which, though intended for military or security force targets, sometimes went awry for a variety of reasons, including poor intelligence and reconnaissance. The consequences in these cases, such as the Magoo's Bar and Durban Esplanade bombings, were gross violations of human rights in respect of the injuries to and loss of lives of civilians.

Individuals who defected to the state and became informers and/or members who became state witnesses in political trials . . . were often labeled by the A.N.C. as collaborators and regarded as legitimate targets to be killed. The commission does not condone the legitimization of such individuals as military targets and finds that the extrajudicial killings of such individuals constituted gross violations of human rights.

Maybe I'm missing something as Cohen's family is South African and he has been there on numerous occasions, while I myself have never even been there, but I think not.