Pula

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela has been laid to his final rest at his home town of Qunu (pronounced Kunu if you don’t want to risk using the wrong one of the eighteen Xhosa click varieties).  So much has been written about him over the last two weeks, and so many eulogies have been delivered, that there is really nothing original that I can add.  Stan’s tribute to him last week movingly summed up the feelings of many South Africans of our age.  (Mind you, Stan is much older than I am.)

On Tuesday Soccer City, the huge football stadium in Soweto (built for the world cup in 2010), was packed to capacity with people of all races and from all walks of life, from the unemployed to superstars and presidents.  Unusually for Johannesburg in summer, rain settled in and drenched the mourners, many of whom had waited since the early hours of the morning to be sure of a seat.  One woman said that even the angels were crying. Still, in Africa rain is always a blessing, which is why the unit of Botswana currency is the Pula, meaning rain.

At the memorial, it was Barrack Obama whose speech seemed to best capture Mandela’s life and the mood of the audience.  It focused on Mandela’s contribution and what it means for all of us – not only in South Africa but everywhere.  It demands that, while we may fall short, we should at least try to emulate his example.  If you haven’t already heard President Obama’s speech, and if you are still reading this blog you will want to hear it, you can find it HERE. 

President Zuma booed at the memorial

South Africa did come together to pay due respect to Madiba, but by the memorial service cracks were beginning to emerge.  The president of South Africa, leader of Mandela’s African National Congress, was booed during his speech.  President Obama said he fell short of Mandela’s example.  Maybe so, but Jacob Zuma isn’t in the ball park.  And some in the crowd didn’t want him in the football stadium either.  Perhaps it wasn’t the most appropriate of moments, but isn’t that what Mandela’s courage was about?  Not doing what's appropriate, but what you believe to be right.  By Sunday, we had the Thembu king boycotting the funeral, apparently unwilling to share the stage with Zuma.  No doubt he had his reasons, but then again Zuma is a Zulu whereas the king, of course, is a Xhosa.  There was some discussion that the king wasn’t very happy with the behavior of Mandla, Mandela’s grandson, either.  (Mandla arrived at the family home in Qunu at the weekend to find himself locked out.  The locks were changed while he was at the Union Buildings where his grandfather was lying in state.) 

President Obama being "translated"

Then there was the embarrassment of the signer who shared the stage at the memorial with the speech makers.  He's incomprehensible to deaf sign language users.  Apparently the sign for “prawn” occurred frequently in his translation of President Obama’s speech, but nothing made sense.  A representative of the deaf community complained that she'd drawn the translator’s incompetence to the attention of the authorities on more than one occasion, but summed up their response rather charmingly by saying that “no one listens to us deaf people.”   The fact that he is not merely incompetent but also a self-confessed schizophrenic who claims to have seen angels at the memorial (apparently not crying) and has been accused of fraud and violent acts, suggests that the security was lax to say the least.  Thank heavens it all passed off with nothing worse than drenched clothing and a few sniffles.

Looking ahead to 2014, South Africa will face its first election without Mandela.  The landscape has changed forever.  It’s twenty years since the first free elections; the youngest voters next year are “born frees”, people to whom Apartheid and the Struggle are history rather than personal experience.  There is no doubt that the ANC will win comfortably, but if its vote drops significantly, Jacob Zuma will be out.  That will be none too soon for many people.

Madiba casts his vote in 1994

But I hope that Madiba will be at that election after all, watching over long lines of people waiting to vote as they did in 1994, trying to find their way back to the trail he blazed.

Since “selfie” is the word of the year, I can’t resist concluding with this cartoon, sent to me by a friend in the US.

Michael – Thursday.

A Grave Matter

As an army coup in Egypt ended that country’s brief skirmish with democracy, South Africa awaits the passing of the man who was responsible more than anyone else for a democracy that has lasted twenty years.  Yes, it is imperfect and, yes, many new problems have arisen to replace the old, but the country has developed and grown a robust economy.  It is peaceful and relatively well-governed in comparison to most of the rest of Africa and much of the rest of the world.  Last week I was at a conference in Florida.  I was only asked about two issues in South Africa – was Oscar Pistorius guilty of murder and how is Nelson Mandela?

Well, the answer to the latter is that he is critical.  Despite on again, off again denials, he is on life support in a Pretoria hospital.  Despite prayers and vigils, it seems very unlikely that he will return home.  His illness overshadowed the visit of President Obama, who has not made Africa one of his priority areas in any case.  The president met with the Mandela family and said the right things, but any thought of a meeting with Madiba himself had to be dropped.

Yet even now, the family is in the midst of squabbles.  The tasteless issue around the Mandela Trust that I described in Don't live too long (perhaps I regret the rather prophetic title now) is in abeyance.  Even this family couldn’t contemplate suing an old man on his death bed for his money!  But a tit for tat has played out in the meanwhile, which would be farcical in any other circumstances.

Mandla Mandela

Mandela’s grandson, Mandla, who has expressed disgust over the Trust lawsuit to grab Mandela’s money, has been doing a bit of grabbing on his own account.  It seems that in 2011, he quietly authorized the removal of the bodies of three of Mandela’s children from the graveyard in Qunu to Mvezo where Nelson Mandela was born and where Mandla now holds court as clan chief.  It isn’t quite clear why he did this, but the speculation is that he sees Mvezo as a future shrine and tourist attraction for the great man and wished to have all the exhibits on ‘display’ there.  Mandla’s complex in the area is in the process of an expensive upgrade.  He complains that his side of the story hasn’t been heard, and his spokesman claimed that he has had “dirt thrown in his direction by all sorts of individuals baying for a few minutes of fame and media attention at his expense.”  A small issue is that Mandela has expressed the wish to be buried at Qunu with his relatives.  But then maybe he hasn’t kept up with their travels around the area.

Police and herse approach Mandla's complex at Mvezo

The three bodies on tour are those of Mandla Mandela’s father, Makgatho Mandela, who died in 2005; Mandela's first daughter, named Makaziwe, who died as an infant in 1948; and another son, Madiba Thembekile Mandela, who died in a traffic accident in 1969.

On Friday a court agreed with the majority of the family that the bodies should be returned to their former resting places while newspaper headlines cried:  ‘Mandla in Grave Trouble’ and ‘Mandla Faces Prosecution’.  Mandla appealed, but yesterday a court dismissed his objection as ‘frivolous’ and called his behavior ‘scandalous’.  Rather dramatically police and funeral workers left immediately for the Mvezo site, broke open the gates with a pick ax, exhumed the bodies, and carted them off to a morgue for forensics tests.  What those tests might be or why they should be required is unclear.  Maybe there is a concern that Mandla might have switched bodies?  The whole matter is at least as complex as the plot of DEADLY HARVEST, which has a few grave troubles of its own.

Meanwhile the wait for Mandela’s passing continues.  Hopefully, when that happens, he will be allowed at last to rest in peace.  And at one place.

Michael-Thursday

PS Happy Independence Day to all American readers!

Don't live too long...

My stepmother, who will be celebrating her ninetieth birthday this year, is fond of telling me that it’s a bad policy to live too long.  I reply: ‘Yes, but look at the alternative.’  I’m sad to say that Nelson Mandela, or Madiba as he is affectionately known, may be in agreement with my stepmother on this issue now.

The Mandela daughters with Madiba in happier times

First, he had to watch his chosen successor to lead his rainbow nation, Thabo Mbeki, lose touch with his people and lose many of their lives by his HIV denialist policies in the process.  At one point Mbeki’s minister of health, who had a highly checkered medical background, proclaimed the efficacy of a type of African potato and of beetroot against the infection.  There is no question that good nutrition is important in a third world environment and these healthy vegetables are valuable in that context.  They are as useful to stave off AIDS as ground-up rhino horn is to cure cancer.

Mbeki was so out of touch that even his party noticed and after one term the African National Congress replaced him by Jacob Zuma.  Zuma walked smiling into the presidency despite accusations of rape (almost certainly trumped up to try to keep him out of the presidency in the first place) and corruption.  Zuma has kept his supporters well-oiled, so to speak, and is cruising to a second term.  A recent biography suggested that Zuma doesn’t even recognize certain actions as being corrupt, for example, the appointment of family and friends to government positions.

Nelson Mandela made it clear when he stepped down as president after one term that he would stay out of politics and, like all his commitments, he’s honored it to the letter.  Nevertheless, he can hardly be pleased with the way things have developed.  Recently the opposition Democratic Alliance party – desperate to gain a bigger share of the black African vote – ran a picture of Mandela with the doyenne of their party, the late Helen Suzman.  The ANC was horrified by this ‘co-option’ of their icon and the senior group rushed to Mandela’s home for a group picture with the ailing ninety-three year old.  Madiba’s expression says it all:

He is not a well person.  He has been in and out of hospital for lung infections and he is very weak.  He deserves a little peace.

Zenani and Makaziwe trying to keep the wolf from the door

But that is not what he is getting.  He has a number of trusts established for his children, but it has been his clear wish that these should not be touched while he is alive.  In 2005 he approached his long-time friend George Bizos to act as trustee.  He was joined by other trusted and financially astute colleagues. Mandela's daughters, Zenani and Makaziwe, have applied to the Johannesburg High Court to remove Bizos, Tokyo Sexwale, Temba Sangoni and Bally Chuene as directors of the companies, contesting the legality of their appointment. They also want their powers as trustees reduced.  Basically the daughters want the money.  The value of the trusts is around three million US dollars – a substantial sum but nothing like the huge fortunes with which many leaders leave office.  To his credit, Mandela’s son, Mandla, who is a traditional Xhosa leader, is horrified by the proceedings. "It is immoral to fight over an inheritance while the individual is still alive,” he said.  “I have never heard of it in my life. It is like he is being stripped of his clothes and they are being sold off."

Mandla Mandela

The grandkids are on the bandwagon too. Tukwini has made scathing public attacks on Bizos, while Zondwa has registered a company - Mandela 95th Birthday - to ‘corporatize’ the celebration of his grandfather’s birthdays. Two others have started a clothing range called ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ (the title of Mandela’s autobiography) and two are behind a reality show in the US titled ‘Being Mandela'.

This week Mandela’s daughters announced that they would be suing Madiba personally for the control of the trusts and his artwork.

Don’t live too long.

Michael - Thursday