Mvezo decked out for Mandela celebrations
Ramaphosa to deliver the keynote speech as preparations in full swing for Wednesday’s centenary festivities
President Cyril Ramaphosa, former state presidents – including Jacob Zuma – and African heads of state are among the 500 VIP guests expected to attend the Nelson Mandela centenary celebrations in Mvezo on Wednesday.
Nkosi Mandla Mandela, the head of the Mandela royal house and chiefdom in Mvezo, told the Daily Dispatch the event was being organised by the Mandela royal family and the Mvezo Traditional Council with support from the Universal Peace Federation.
“It is with regret that former president Thabo Mbeki will not be at the event. Former president FW de Klerk will send a recorded video of his message,” he said.
He said two former presidents – Jacob Zuma and Kgalema Motlanthe – would be speakers while Ramaphosa would deliver the key address on the meaning of the day and Madiba’s legacy.
Among the expected international guests are Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta and former prime minister Raila Odinga.
This event is different to the main government event being held in Nasrec in Johannesburg.
Mandla Mandela said the event in Mvezo would be held in the same 5 000-seater dome used for Madiba’s funeral service on December 15 2013 in Qunu.
“We set up the dome in the same fields of Mvezo which we feel is befitting, as it is on the hills where Madiba enjoyed walking. Even after his prison release he enjoyed taking walks in Mvezo, Qunu and Mqhekezweni.”
“Madiba was not born in any another place, including Nasrec, but in Mvezo. A centenary is about about one’s birth and birthplace where his umbilical cord was buried.”
Mandla said that his grandfather loved music and dancing.
“So we have reached out to the theme of 1988 of Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday which was championed by the anti-apartheid campaign in London.
“We have invited the Mahotela Queens, who performed at the concert, and Vusi Mahlasela, Amanda Black and Simphiwe Dana to be a part of this occasion.
“But the day will not be complete without us as traditional council showcasing our culture. We have an ensemble consisting of
500 VIP guests expected at Nelson Mandela centenary celebrations in Mvezo ‘It is with regret that former president Thabo Mbeki will not be at the event’ ‘We have invited the Mahotela Queens who performed (in 1988)’
many traditional groups from across the Eastern Cape who will be rendering performances, and also a choir.”
He said he was not happy with the treatment the family had received from the InterMinisterial Committee set up by Ramaphosa to oversee the centenary celebrations for Madiba and Albertina Sisulu.
Mandla said they had never had an audience with the leader of the committee, Minister Jeff Radebe. “We have sent him dozens of letters requesting to have a meeting to engage on the plans of this centenary, but to this hour, we never had any joy out of his office. I believe that government and even the ANC itself is inundated with many programmes that are they committed to. So ours is just to locate ourselves in this land where Madiba was born, confine ourselves within our jurisdiction as the Mvezo Traditional Council and do what will please our people most in this locality.’’
In celebration of former president Nelson Mandela’s centenary, the Amathole Museum in King William’s Town will be opening a photographic exhibition titled Mandela @ All Saints on Wednesday.
The exhibition will showcase 15 photographs documenting Mandela’s visit to All Saints College in 1992. The images were taken by Peter King and Andrew Stevens, both teachers at All Saints – and amateur photographers at the time.
The exhibition will also include an extract from the impromptu speech Mandela delivered to the pupils on the day and will see then principal Michael Burton being the guest speaker.
“We’ve already got quite a few All Saints photographs up at the museum, documenting the college’s history, but our idea with this exhibition is to provide a platform for the two colleges – the old and the new – to meet while focusing on the role of Mandela’s legacy in both their stories,” said museum historian, Stephanie Victor, who curated the exhibition. All Saints College was a private school established in 1986 in the apartheid-created Ciskei bantustan, yet it prided itself on being a non-racial and anti-apartheid institution, striving for academic excellence in an unsettling political era.
“All Saints stood for ‘education for liberation’, because of this, I and many other staff members were threatened, some arrested and imprisoned, but it was worth it100 times over,” said Burton.
“We had lived through a very hot kitchen for a decade. A world icon stood and talked to me and the college which had come through it all and we were thus honoured.”
The college later became what it is today, the SAPS Detective Academy All Saints, with both schools prioritising the education of the leaders of tomorrow.
“The Madiba visit was momentous and I recall the event well. As he passed through the large foyer of the school, he was ‘persuaded’ by the students to address us and gave one of his wonderful speeches/homilies that had us teachers inwardly cheering, since he was underscoring the points we were trying to make to restless and impatient students: that education was most important at this stage of South Africa’s liberation,” said Stevens.
“It was the first time that many of the staff and students had seen Mandela in the flesh, so it was pretty extraordinary.”
Both men admit to being far from professional photographers, but said they were both involved in taking many photographs of school activities during their time at All Saints and still enjoy capturing images.
King said he always had his camera with him during the 1980s and 1990s and that a few of his photographs are already on display at the museum.
“I acted as the ‘official photographer’, taking all the school class photos. This was before the digital era so all of the All Saints photos, including those of Mandela’s visit, were taken on colour film, processed in Bhisho,” said Stevens. “The photographs of Mandela’s visit are there to record and tell the story of a remarkable visit by a remarkable man to a remarkable school. Sadly, all are now part of history.”
King said the exhibition was a great way to honour and reflect on Mandela’s legacy.
The exhibition opens at 1pm on Wednesday and it will be up until December. For more information please contact Victor at
A world icon stood and talked to me and the college which had come through it all and we were thus honoured