Here's a riddle for you on this slow Friday: Why would the US Congress give a man the Gold Medal, its highest honour, then 10 years later hassle him every time he tries to visit America?
Give up? The answer is simple - this nation is politically twisted. Only a Congress paralysed by fear could have created the "material support bar", a plank in the Orwellian Patriot Act that prohibits anyone associated with material support for terrorists from entering the country.
Well, Mandela's political party, the African National Congress (ANC), was treated as a terrorist group by the old apartheid regime in South Africa. And so he has had to apply for a visa waiver to enter the US ever since his release from a 27-year prison term.
Democrats in Congress introduced a bill today that would permanently remove the block on ANC members' visa applications. Nice to see; but a little late, guys. Meanwhile, the material support bar is still there, preventing Burmese and Hmong people from fleeing violent persecution.
