Working in a Goldfields / Newmont affiliated mining company with a good number of white South African geologists and engineers, I got a somewhat different view of Mandela. There is no question that he and Winnie were revolutionaries with the blood of many white and black South Africans on their hands. When he went to prison she continued her murderous ways with the ANC youth movement, directing the killing of rather more black African youth than whites.
Nelson slowly changed in prison. When he came out, he had dropped the Maoist revolutionary demands and, still a communist, he was willing to negotiate a gradualist approach. More importantly, he genuinely wanted a multi racial society and could understand the catastrophe of a purging of whites and others. Still not a pretty picture but probably the best for that moment in history.
and all that history is totally ignored by the media and such these days. Even National Review went over the top and treated the man as if he were like Jesus.