MISQUOTING MANDELA

Wherever you turn, charlatans are co-opting the legacies of late statesmen — or engaged in outright fabrication thereof — in service of their own interests

e’ve become relatively inured to the annoying habit some people and organisations have of trotting out a quote by a leading struggle figure when they want to attack post-apartheid institutions while disguising their innate conservatism.

You know the sort of thing. Every time a government official is exposed as a high-living ne’er-do-well (a word you don’t have to put “alleged” in front of, unlike “criminal”), we’re treated to the one from Chris Hani.

Often deployed under the guise of righteous indignation, it goes something like this: “What I fear is that the liberators emerge as elitists who drive around in Mercedes-Benzes and use the resources of this country to live in palaces and to gather riches.”

The people who post this on social media aren’t really indignant — they’re delighted. It’s one thing criticising the new(ish) SA from your position of unreconstructed racism, but it’s a whole other pleasure to be able to co-opt the country’s founding figures into your narrative.

Oh, the joy of being able to claim that Hani’s worst fears are the same as your smug schadenfreude, and that you’re not just someone who takes delight in pointing out what you see as the inevitable failures of an African democracy.

Africa Check earlier this year did a factchecking piece on three of the common quotations used by the sniggering alt-right.

While Hani did actually say something like the quote used here, the other two turn out to be made up. Well, Africa Check uses the term “unverifiable” for one, but I’m happy to go with “made up” for both. If the fact-checking maestros at Africa Check can’t find a source for something, I doubt the people using the quotations for their own ends have done any better at attribution. Which is basically the same as making it up.

The other two popular quotations are by Nelson Mandela (former SA and ANC president, for those born after 2000), and Oliver

WTambo, also a former ANC president.

According to the self-serving experts on social media, Tambo apparently said that “a corrupt ANC will be far worse than apartheid”, and Mandela is supposed to have said: “If the ANC does to you what the apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the apartheid government.”

What it means: A vital thing to consider is that it’s often dead people being quoted

Africa Check is unequivocal about the alleged Tambo quote. “The quote has no source, date or reference. Africa Check was unable to find any credible evidence linking it to Tambo.”

It’s more equivocal about the Mandela quote, which is often cited as having been part of a 1994 speech he delivered to a gathering of trade union federation Cosatu. But ultimately there is no record of him ever saying it. Mandela did, however, say: “Power corrupts. Anybody is corrupted by power, can be corrupted by power. And a society should have means of ensuring that power will not corrupt those you have put in power. And one of the ways of ensuring that does not happen is for you to be critical, to be alert, to be vigilant.”

I don’t need to point out why that would be creatively edited to include the ANC and apartheid. We’re living in a moment when antivaxxers are invested in claiming that proof of vaccination is the same as the apartheid-era dompas, and where gleeful conservatives love to point to surveys saying that something is worse today than it was under apartheid.

I don’t even know if “conservatives” is the right catch-all term here. There’s a wide spectrum of people and organisations invested in spreading discord via made-up ideological affiliations with heroes of the past, for reasons that range from old-fashioned racism to populist opportunism.

For example, the EFF and supporters of our beloved radical economic transformation (RET) faction are fond of using a (fake) quotation attributed to former Mozambican president and anticolonial fighter Samora Machel.

The quotation is usually trundled out when they want to discredit a black person’s criticism of the organisation, and especially a criticism that is applauded by white people. It’s intended to imply that the criticism is just selling out.

“The day you hear the whites speak of me in good terms, don’t share your secrets with me, because that means I would have betrayed you already,” the quote supposedly goes.

Former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs told Africa Check that the quotation isn’t real. “I’m not surprised that you couldn’t find that quote. It is totally alien to the way Samora spoke, and totally in conflict with his many denunciations of people claiming to be patriots who used language like that. All the evidence points to the statement being totally false.”

So, yes, when you see these sorts of quotations flying around, the first thing to consider is that they’re probably made up. And the clue is that it’s often dead people being quoted, so they’re not available to renounce the association.

But even on the rare occasions when the quotations are genuine, it’s worth thinking about what the person doing the quoting is trying to achieve. And you can be pretty sure that it’s something that the figure being quoted would not have agreed with.

To return to my opening paragraph: while we might be relatively inured to this sort of misquoting for evil ends, I can still be rendered aghast at some of the other creative uses of political figures’ legacies.

On September 1, Sanctuary Mandela opened. It’s “a one-of-a-kind boutique hotel with nine curated rooms and offers retreat spaces for reflection, healing and thought-provoking experiences inspired by the life and times of Nelson Mandela”.

Yes, Mandela’s old home is now a hotel. But it’s not just any old hotel, it’s a curated experience that reflects the apparently more benign proclivities of the once-revolutionary hero. Sanctuary Mandela offers “the perfect combination of tranquillity, heritage and mindful experiences. Time spent at Sanctuary Mandela promises momentous healing and reflection.”

There’s more: “Set in Nelson Mandela’s primary place of residence in the leafy-green suburb of Houghton, Johannesburg, Sanctuary Mandela is the home Madiba lived in after he returned from Robben Island, where he hosted the likes of Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton and which later became the headquarters of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.”

Leaving aside the “after he returned from Robben Island” bit, which makes it sound like he was away on a spiritual retreat, why does this make me recoil with distaste? The rooms range from the “deluxe studio” for R4,000 a night, to the “presidential”, at R15,000 a night. Meeting room 1 “provides a place for important discussions, much like Nelson Mandela had in this residence during his tenure”.

There are other choice bits to be found in the marketing bumf. “Paying homage to Madiba’s philanthropist nature and pondering spirit, Sanctuary Mandela is surrounded by lush gardens and retreat spaces filled with perfectly curated exhibits that evoke memories of the legend himself. Every corner of the hotel is envisaged to provide the perfect combination of tranquillity, heritage and mindful experiences. Affording guests the opportunity to dine on Madiba’s favourite cuisine, soul-search and gain historic insights.”

The fine-dining restaurant, “in memory of Mandela’s love for food … serves as a tribute to his favourite dishes as previously prepared by his longtime personal chef, Xoliswa Ndoyiya”.

It’s hard to see how they’ll mash up the fine-dining concept with chef Ndoyiya’s recollection of Mandela’s food philosophy, which is that “Tata believed food should be shared among all, and his dining table was a place to comfort people. It was not a place for formal dining but rather a place for family and friends.” But I guess that’s the triumph of marketing.

Misquoting an elder statesman is one thing, but an entire architectural intervention that, if not misquoting him, certainly selectively quotes from his memory, is next-level. Can it really be true that the “sky lights” and “quality finishes” are, as the website informs us, a reflection on the extraordinary life of Nelson Mandela?

That, I’d like to see.

But as Jacob Zuma once famously said: “Presidents are like buildings. Some are fire pools, some are libraries, and some are hotels, but what they all have in common is that someone is always ready to move into their legacies and redecorate.”

Or, indeed, to make up something they said so as to push their own agenda.

We’re living in a moment when antivaxxers are invested in claiming that proof of vaccination is the same as the apartheid era dompas