"In some sense, you can say, all who opposed apartheid helped free Mandela, as with a flap of a butterfly’s wings. Nevertheless, people are increasingly sensitive to white saviour tropes, and unless more substantive details of Cotler’s help for freeing Mandela can be found, a different headline for this article is required."
August 21, 2023
To:
Jane Skrypnek, Reporter, Globe and Mail
Sylvia Stead, Public Editor, Globe and Mail
Dear Jane Skrypnek and Sylvia Stead,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, cjpme.org) to urge correction of your August 13 headline, “Canadian Irwin Cotler, who helped free Mandela, given prestigious human-rights award.”
To state in your headline that Irwin Cotler “helped free Mandela” is a classical case of a factual snow-ball, in which a nearly apocryphal detail establishes itself by the force not of accuracy but instead merely of repetition.
To maintain this headline is a blow against your credibility, since online pieces like this one, published in January of this year, already speak credibly to the actual record:
https://www.readthemaple.com/irwin-cotler-and-the-mandela-effect/
While the linked article is thorough, based on analysis of thousands of pages of relevant documentation, the author writes by way of summary that “Cotler’s description of what he did for Mandela includes no apparent mention of actual legal work, and is comprised mostly of advocacy efforts – something thousands of others also took part in.”
Unless you have countervailing details, a correction is necessary.
In some sense, you can say, all who opposed apartheid helped free Mandela, as with a flap of a butterfly’s wings. Nevertheless, people are increasingly sensitive to white saviour tropes, and unless more substantive details of Cotler’s help for freeing Mandela can be found, a different headline for this article is required.
Sincerely,
Dan Freeman-Maloy