Mandela at 94: S’Africans celebrate Mandela with pageantry
• Event reveals scramble for slice of his reflected glory
Photo:
Sun News Publishing
Date:
Thu, 07/19/2012 - 01:01
South Africans celebrated Nelson Mandela’s 94th birthday yesterday with
giant cakes, mass renditions of “Happy Birthday” and 67 minutes of good
deeds, one for each year of the anti-apartheid leader’s struggle against
white-minority rule.
But beyond the mawkish tributes to South Africa’s first black president,
the day revealed the unseemly scramble among companies, politicians and
charities for a slice of the reflected glory of “Madiba”, the clan name
by which he is affectionately known. The ruling African National
Congress (ANC) released a 1,450 word eulogy to its totemic former
leader, exhorting the country’s 50 million people to “continue to build
the South Africa of Madiba’s dreams”.
Yet only last week, anti-apartheid heroine and Mandela ex-wife Winnie
Madikizela-Mandela was accusing the ANC in a leaked letter of “shabby
treatment” of the family and wanting to wheel them out only “when we
have to be used for some agenda”. The “67 minutes” Mandela Day charity
push has also re-opened old wounds amid criticism it is merely a vehicle
for whites and the newly rich black elite to assuage the guilt of
living at the top of what remains one of the most unequal societies,
even 18 years after the end of apartheid.
Leading the charge was Luther Lebelo, head of an ANC branch in
Johannesburg, who wrote an article in the Sowetan newspaper suggesting
the day was about “little cosmetic charity activities” that only served
to perpetuate class divisions. The Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, as
the official guardians of his image are known, hit back in the same
paper, taking particular exception to Lebelo’s reference to the
“so-called Mandela Foundation”.
The jibe reflects a view widely held among South Africa’s overwhelming
black majority that whites have managed to co-opt Mandela and his image
since the first all-race elections in 1994. The Mandela centre has also
become embroiled in a commercial battle with members of his family over
the selling of Mandela-branded clothing via its ‘46664’ fashion range,
named after the number he was given during his 27 years in prison.
Set up in 2002 as an HIV/AIDS charity, ‘46664’ has since gone into
business to raise funds, with official Mandela wristbands, mobile phone
starter packs and clothes - all protected by a licence that “guards
against the commercialisation of Mr. Mandela’s name and image”.
The clothing range, which includes $100 jeans made in China, launched in
New York with a glitzy ceremony at the South Africa consulate
yesterday, only a week after two of Mandela’s granddaughters debuted a
line of shirts, tops and hats under a “Long Walk to Freedom” brand named
after his autobiography.
“There are a lot of people out there who try to take advantage of the
name. We are aware of that,” said David Manaway, husband of LWTF
co-founder Zaziwe Manaway. “The two ladies who started this brand can’t
exploit their own name. They have a right to do whatever they want
around the family name,” he told Reuters.
Other organisations with no ostensible link to either charity or the
family were happy to cash in. A Johannesburg grocery chain offered a cut
price “Mandela Day Deal” on potatoes, onions and chicken, while
supermarket giant Pick ‘n’ Pay gave shoppers double reward points under
their “Happy Birthday Madiba” scheme.
Meanwhile, away from all the hullabaloo, an increasingly frail Mandela
spent the day with close family and friends and former U.S. President
Bill Clinton in his ancestral village of Qunu in the remote Eastern Cape
province. “While the elder statesman has now effectively retired from
public life, there has been no slowdown in the greedy ‘Mandela rush’ to
cash in and ‘keep his legacy alive’,” regional brand expert Thebe
Ikalafeng wrote in the Star newspaper.
