Long live the loving spirit of Madiba
‘THERE is a sense of praising Mandela for his sacrifice. Somehow we have forgotten that we have to sacrifice.”
So said Rivonia Trialist Denis Goldberg yesterday, as he remembered Madiba ahead of Nelson Mandela International Day.
Tomorrow, the world will celebrate Nelson Mandela’s life and legacy as both young and old give 67 minutes of their day to a good cause.
Nelson Mandela International Day was launched in recognition of Mandela’s birthday, July 18, in 2009 by a unanimous decision of the UN General Assembly.
“Nelson Mandela is a symbol throughout the world for his service to people.
“The greatness of Mandela was in his ability to work with people like Oliver Tambo and others to mobilise people nationally and internationally… and begin to rebuild our country.
“It is not that he single-handedly brought about freedom, it is the greatness of his leadership. It is remarkable,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg, 82, said he would continue to remember Madiba for his political and personal courage, and urged the public to do more than their allotted 67 minutes.
Nelson Mandela Foundation chief executive Sello Hatang said: “Nelson Mandela’s legacy has created the opportunity for us to achieve a bright future. Madiba aptly said: ‘What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead’.”
Hatang said it was Mandela’s humanitarian philosophy and how he sought to live it every day that made him one of the most inspiring leaders in the world.
He said Madiba believed that every person has the ability to change the world for the better, no matter how big or small their contribution.
“In his twilight years, he encouraged all of us to carry his life’s work forward when he famously said: ‘It is in your hands now’.”
Struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada wished that the volunteerism demonstrated on Mandela Day could be a daily act.
“Mandela Day will be marked by people across the globe. I am heartened by the thousands of activities across the world aimed at improving the lives of people – all of it done by volunteers. This is something that I draw inspiration from,” he said.
Kathrada, 85, added that volunteerism played a huge role during the Struggle.
“Mandela himself was a volunteer throughout his life. Just spending an hour a day helping a struggling child with schoolwork and resources is what would have satisfied Madiba,” he said.
The Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation staff, led by executive director Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu, the daughter of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, will honour Madiba by giving soup and bread to people awaiting medical care at Groote Schuur Hospital today.
“Nelson Mandela International Day underscores our special responsibility as human beings to each other, to serve others.
“People visiting public hospitals often leave home in the dark to spend hours in the waiting rooms before being able to see a doctor.
“Many are unable to afford takeaway food, adding hunger to their burden of poverty and illness. Ours will be the privilege to feed them,” Tutu said.
Ndileka Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s granddaughter, is the chief executive of the Thembekile Mandela Foundation, which was launched last year. She talks to Janet Smith about how her father’s death affected her grandfather, her relationship with her cousin Mandla (who exhumed her father’s remains) and the responsibility of being a Mandela. She also speaks about the work of her year-old foundation.
JANET SMITH: The Thembekile Mandela Foundation is only about a year old. It has a very special meaning, in that Thembekile, your father, died while your grandfather, Nelson Mandela, was still in prison. You’ve set out to honour your father, to bring his memory into the light. How did this affect your grandfather?
Ndileka Mandela: Granddad was not allowed to offer the last rites or attend his funeral, so it was a pain that existed in granddad until the day he died. Whenever we asked him about my father, it doesn’t matter what topic we’ll be talking about, even if he was laughing, he would completely shut down.
I used to go to Qunu about four days every month, and on a particular day, my granddad and I were watching a documentary and there was a scene when (former prison guard) Christo Brand came to tell granddad that dad had died. Christo narrates the story that afterwards, when he went past granddad’s cell, he saw him sitting in the corner, huddled with a blanket around him as if he was clothing himself in his pain. And yet, when I looked at my granddad’s face in that room in Qunu that day, there was no expression.
Not showing emotion was part of the fabric of his upbringing. Granddad was a patriarchal man, a Tembu man to boot… a traditional man who cannot show emotion in front of a grandchild. Remember, an African man losing their firstborn child who is a boy, is such a blow. The only person who could console him was Walter Sisulu.
And I think, for the first time then, he actually asked himself, was the Struggle really worth it, because he had lost two people he loved dearly. His mother had died six months before dad died.
Because I was only four when dad died, it became a quest for me to find out a little more about my father. But for granddad, it caused him so much pain, to an extent that I stopped asking about dad. It was only really when I was reading his letters, that I found out that the last time my granddad had seen my father was when my dad was 16.
Suddenly, because my granddad had been underground for a long time, he saw this young man who had his own opinions about politics and everything, and he was not there to be able to guide him.
Little did I know that, I was exactly the same age as that when I first saw granddad in prison. He made me feel so comfortable and he didn’t show the hurt that he must have been going through, because of that resonance of us being the same age.
JS: What was happening for you around the time you decided to launch the foundation?
NM: When I turned 40, I started a spiritual journey of, who am I in this milieu of this big name, of the Mandela name. I strongly believe God put us on Earth for a specific purpose, so I had to ask: what is my purpose? And it is then that I started searching, also going through therapy, because that’s about the time I also lost my grandmother, who was a focal point. She was the person who brought me up from the age of 2. When Evelyn (Mase, Mandela’s first wife) died, everything got unstuck for me because I had lost my mother. I was 42 and I was a basket case. I was in therapy for three years, coming to grips, because she was my anchor. She used to tell us, it doesn’t matter whether you are a Mandela. In the end, it is what you can give to people that will differentiate you, and that’s the value I’ve kept to this day.
Then granddad got sick in 2011 and, because I am an ICU nurse, I knew it was the beginning of the end for him, and I took a concerted decision to say, I will stay by his side. It was in talking with him generally, really, that this foundation was born, and I knew, this is what I wanted to do, to keep my father’s memory alive.
JS: You had an extraordinary turning point at your grandfather’s old school, Clarkebury, in Engcobo.
NM: I went to granddad’s school, which I had adopted before all of this happened. Through some businessmen in Joburg, a state-of-the-art lab had been built there, we’d organised some tablets for some of the kids, and the school seemed to be doing well. It had reached a 96.3 percent matric pass rate.
But when I went to the school, I saw the hostels, which broke my heart. Girls were basically squatting. There were no ablution facilities, they were sleeping on the floor. Their crime is wanting to be educated, and I saw that I had to do something. The SABC then flighted the plight of these girls, and I went on to Morning Live and talked about it. I said then, I have to get on with it.
Come May last year, by God’s grace, me and my COO, Kenny Boshego, who used to work for my grandfather, started with zero rand, nothing whatsoever, but we started.
JS: Please tell us about your projects.
NM: I think the main one has been built around the fact that up to 3 million girls in South Africa do not have access to sanitary wear. On average, a girl will lose 50 days of schooling a year because of that, and so we thought, let’s do something over a five-year cycle, from Grade 8 to 12, because girls will have missed almost a year of schooling because of this problem by the time they finish school. And they’re not cut any slack, but it is a reason why some girl learners perform poorly.
Then we went on to offer camps once a year to talk about life skills. Other projects we’re working on are involved with equipping schools in the rural area and in informal settlements with labs, libraries and sports facilities. And we’re very interested in getting children to think about agriculture again.
We’ve signed an MOU with the Agricultural Research Council to use schools as an incubator of an agricultural corps.
(Laughs) It’s all going very quickly. We have not sat back to absorb the impact. In terms of the sanitary towels, we’ve covered 12 000 girls so far, so we feel we can sleep pretty at night knowing we can make a difference.
It brings tears to your eyes to see someone jubilant over a pack of towels, which are something we take for granted.
JS: Do you feel closer to your dad through the work of the foundation?
NM: I keep a picture of granddad and dad in which dad must have been about 15, in my room, and I talk to them and to God. I know we’ve reached this stage because of His miracles every day. I talk to them to say, keep me authentic, keep me focused on the causes that would make you proud of me.
JS: The events of the past few years must have been very difficult. Some members of your family are controversial. How have you dealt with the complications of being a Mandela?
NM: The thing is, as human beings, we make mistakes every day. And who am I not to forgive, because I sin every day. And, yes, things happened. For example, with Mandla (the ANC MP and chief of the Mvezo village in the Eastern Cape, who exhumed his father’s remains as part of a move to consolidate the family under his watch). But he is my cousin, and we have had a heart-to-heart talk, to come to grips with what happened.
For me, I do understand perhaps what drove him to do that. I’m not saying it was right, but I’ve completely forgiven him.
It’s a difficult thing to carry this name. You know, granddad was a larger than life person and it’s the tendency of not just the media, but everybody to want to put you, us, in that spectacle.
What they seem to forget is that, by the time granddad was released, our identities were already formed. Mine was fashioned after Evelyn, whereas some of my cousins are fashioned after Mama Winnie and so on. Granddad was not there to mould us to what he would have wanted to see.
In fact, I feel that Evelyn also lives through the foundation. She had a quiet resolve, and that is actually what made me. She’s the one who taught us the value of hard work. We didn’t have time to go around with friends because, after school, we had to go home quickly to eat. Then, after study, we’d go work in the shop and then go home and cook. There was no time to laze around. It was myself, Mandla, my brother Ndaba, my sister Nandi, and she was like a real mother hen.
So, yes, I have decided to honour her, and my father, and carry his legacy forward. But that’s not to say that every member of the family should be doing something like that because we have different interests.
JS: Has the foundation allowed you to find a sense of destiny?
NM: I am so content. I love what I do. Now I see that I am exactly where I was supposed to be.