The man who would be chief
| SA’s most royal of families is a fractured, fractious clan
IN 2005, Mandla Mandela was just an ordinary guy — apart from belonging to the golden Mandela dynasty.
Back then he was a thirtysomething South African trying to make his way in the world — trying his hand at business and generally basking in the glow that comes from being a Mandela.
But tragedy struck when his father, Makgatho, died from Aids complications.
This moment of bereavement — as Nelson Mandela claimed publicly at a press conference — offered an underachieving Mandla a chance to transform himself into a worthy heir, albeit prematurely.
Makgatho’s death meant that Mandla became the eldest surviving male among the former president’s descendants.
On January 15 2005, the day Makgatho was buried, it became clear that Mandla was destined for a bigger role within the Mandela family.
He, along with a handful of people, remained behind at the Qunu gravesite after the other Mandelas had left, having put flowers and soil on Makgatho’s coffin.
Once Nelson Mandela had been led away by then-president Thabo Mbeki and businessmen Cyril Ramaphosa and Patrice Motsepe, Mandla remained behind — the most senior family member to whom villagers humbly submitted as they filled the grave with soil.
They addressed him as “Nkosi” (chief). In turn, Mandla responded with a calm demeanour — a very different figure to the one he now cuts.
Back then, Mandla could not have imagined the magnitude of his role in the Mandela clan.
Mandela had six children, among whom there were two sons — Thembekile and Makgatho.
Thembekile died in a car accident in 1969 while Mandela was incarcerated on Robben Island.
He was not allowed to attend his son’s funeral by the apartheid authorities.
That left Makgatho as the heir apparent. At the time of his death, the Mandelas were royalty by both name and association.
The Mvezo chieftaincy had not been restored to them; it had been stripped from the former president’s father, Chief Henry, for ignoring a summons from a colonial magistrate in Bityi.
Only in 2007 did the Eastern Cape government and the Tembu kingdom restore the chieftaincy to the family.
It appears that, after his father’s death, Mandla put up his hand when none of his siblings really cared to — he was, after all, the eldest male among Mandela’s children and grandchildren.
“Grandfather asked me to take responsibility after my father died,” Mandla told a press conference this week.
But although he might have been eager to accept the burden of chieftainship, Mandla was patently unprepared for the accompanying responsibility and power.
To this end, Mandela instructed his grandson to receive an education, which he duly did. So big was his graduation event in 2007 at Rhodes University that a press statement was issued. Granddad travelled to Grahamstown for it.
Mandla seemed to have come of age.
Like his grandfather, his romantic life has been “adventurous” — if only for want of a better description.
His first wife, Tando MabunuMandela, has repeatedly dragged him to court for maintenance negligence while seeking to divorce him.
He has remarried twice in the past four years in traditional ceremonies, despite court interdicts won by Mabunu-Mandela stopping him from doing so.
Mandla has denied paternity of Qheya, the son of his French bride, Anais Grimaud. This has become a source of many taunts.
And so, in the past few weeks, everything that Mandla has attained since his father’s death has been threatened.
Tembu King Buyelekhaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo has objected to Mandla being the rightful heir to the Mvezo chieftaincy, saying his claim is illegitimate because his father and mother were not married when he was conceived and born. Among Tembu royalty, an heir must be begotten in wedlock.
Mandla was installed as a chief of Mvezo in 2007 — without any objections about legitimacy.
One of the oddities at the coronation ceremony — overlooked at the time and now used as a tool to ridicule Mandla — was the fact that the young man was given the “wrong” royal robe, a gown made from animal skin. A chief usually receives a leopard skin. But Mandla received a lion skin — usually conferred on kings.
Dalindyebo insisted again last week that Mandla’s position had always been in question — long before his installation as chief.
“He is not Rolihlahla’s heir. He even received a wrong blanket,” he said.
But why only now deny Mandla the legitimacy?
The king himself has fallen out with government leaders and Mandla. Besides, experts say the lion skin Mandla received was meant to honour Mandela — and there was nothing problematic about it.
It does not help that Mandela has been married three times, creating three distinct wings in the family — two that had to get by without his presence, influence and guidance while he helped to fight for a nation’s freedom. The world’s gain was the Mandela family’s loss
Nombonisa Gasa, an expert on customary practices, said there was nothing wrong with the lion’s skin — umnweba in Xhosa.
She believes Mandla is a rightful heir, having been “legitimised” by the Mandela family and the rest of the Tembu kingdom — both through customs performed on him and his official coronation.
But questions of legitimacy persist and they are being raised in the family. Some believe Mandla’s younger brother, Ndaba, is the rightful heir.
On Thursday, Mandla, 38, re- futed that claim, saying Ndaba’s mother was married to someone else when his brother was conceived, implying she was having an affair with Makgatho.
But all these arrows of hatred point to a desperate desire to take ownership of Mandela’s wealth.
Mandla was blunt on this point on Thursday, saying the “socalled” family members who took him to court over the reburial of Mandela’s three children were “after my grandfather’s monies”.
To state that this is no ordinary family might be an oversimplification. Few South Africans can imagine the burden that those who bear this political giant’s name have to carry. They are, in effect, more royal than South African royal families.
Mandela’s children and grandchildren did not have the guidance, mentorship and love of their father and grandfather. The absence of this relationship is possibly one of the causes of a mismatch between the acts of the warring elements.
Mandla’s battle with his aunt Makaziwe is an example of hardened and deep-rooted ill-feelings that have prised open the deepest secrets within the family — in the full glare of local and international media. The hanging out of the Mandela dirty laundry in public is in stark contrast to the image the world carries of the Mandela name — that of being synonymous with peace and honour.
Mandela’s descendants are products of a home that was broken as a result of Mandela’s incarceration.
It does not help that Mandela has been married three times, creating three distinct wings in the family — two that had to get by without his presence, influence and guidance while he helped to fight for a nation’s freedom.
The world’s gain was the Mandela family’s loss.
Makaziwe, Mandela’s eldest surviving daughter, told the UK’s Daily Mail two years ago: “As a child, before my father went to prison, I yearned to have both of my parents in my life, but it was my mother who brought me up. I had a father who had been there but not really there. He was not available to us.”
She yearned for her father’s love, even doubting if he indeed loved her. “I don’t know if he loves me. Children must learn to accept that sometimes they’re not really loved by their parents.”
Of course, the corresponding question must be asked: Can a largely absent father really expect instant adoration from his children on his return? Or must it be that debts of longing must be repaid in one form or another?