Sure, the Obama-Castro handshake at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service was noteworthy, maybe even meaningful, but to focus on it is to miss the bigger picture, according to a CNN opinion piece.

Mandela managed one more victory in death, said Frida Ghitis, a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald: subjecting a who’s who of the world’s dictators to the indignity of sitting through a memorial service that overflowed with praise for the principles of democracy, freedom and equality.

It’s a shame there is so much focus on the handshake between President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, Ghitis said. Any comfort authoritarian regimes might have found from the moment of politeness toward a dictator, dissolved in the far more powerful message of the entire event — and of Obama’s own resonant speech.

Ghitis described Obama’s speech as a piercing, a full-throated defense of democracy and freedom that showed no mercy to tyrants.

Obama came not only to praise Mandela but to shine a light on the values that made his struggle reverberate the world over, she said. “It was a moment for stony discomfort among those who traveled to South Africa representing undemocratic, repressive regimes.”

“Like America’s founding fathers,” Obama said, “(Mandela) would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations, a commitment to democracy and rule of law ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to step down from power.”

It wasn’t just Castro listening in the audience, who, along with his brother Fidel has ruled Cuba for more than 50 years without a democratic election.

It was countless other dictators and their advisers, including Swaziland Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini, who rules a country with shocking oppression, abject poverty, hunger and disease, according to Freedom House, Ghitis said.

Mandela was human and flawed, she said, but his ability to forgive his former enemies was superhuman. “That was a part of Obama’s message that should have made some of the visiting VIPs cower in shame,” she said.

Ghitis identified other despots in the audience including Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe since 1987.

“Like Mandela, Mugabe led his country to victory over white rule,” Ghitis said, “but unlike his neighbor, Mugabe grasped for power without letting go, and engaged in a vindictive campaign against white Zimbabweans that wrought misery for blacks and whites.”

Also in the audience were representatives from China, Saudi Arabia, Chad, Jordan and other countries whose leaders are not popularly elected and have records of repression and human rights violations.

In his speech, Obama called them out on the hipocracy: “There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom but do not tolerate dissent from their own people,” Obama said.

Mandela was not perfect, Ghitis said, but he stood for values that have gained universal legitimacy: the right to fair and equal treatment for all and the right of all people to choose their own government.

Mandela’s life, Ghitis said, was a call to forgiveness and reconciliation, and Obama served as Mandela’s main assistant at the service, giving a much-needed lesson for despots.