I think it's just an attitude of people that see all of the praise for a public figure as ignoring the possibly not so 'saintly' things that they have done[1]. I would be willing to bet the a majority of people only know all of positive things about Mandela, and few of the negative/questionable things.
I'm not in the camp of calling him a terrorist, but I do get a bit annoyed (sometimes) when the hero-worship seems to present a skewed perspective on reality. For example, I'm annoyed that many US politicians will dote over how awesome Mandela was in expressing their sympathies over his passing, but there is no talk of how we sided against him.
[1] For example, Mother Theresa explicitly withheld pain-killers from the people that she treated because she felt that the pain brought them closer to God. It's unquestionable (to me at least) that treating those people (even with this attitude) was a good thing because they would get no care otherwise. On the other hand, I don't put her up on a pedestal as a perfect human being like others do.
I'm not in the camp of calling him a terrorist, but I do get a bit annoyed (sometimes) when the hero-worship seems to present a skewed perspective on reality. For example, I'm annoyed that many US politicians will dote over how awesome Mandela was in expressing their sympathies over his passing, but there is no talk of how we sided against him.
[1] For example, Mother Theresa explicitly withheld pain-killers from the people that she treated because she felt that the pain brought them closer to God. It's unquestionable (to me at least) that treating those people (even with this attitude) was a good thing because they would get no care otherwise. On the other hand, I don't put her up on a pedestal as a perfect human being like others do.