Mandela makes many stories worth reading

By JENNIFER MUCHIRI

On December 6, 2013 the world woke up to the sad news of the demise of Nelson Mandela, arguably one of the most respected figures of our times. Mandela has always cut a godlike image, especially for black South Africans and Africans.

His departure was bound to cause immense pain and a feeling of loss around the world. Yet, much as many people ‘know’ Mandela for his efforts in freeing South Africa from the shackles of apartheid, few seem to have actually read books by and about his life, as several of the commentaries in the newspapers suggest.

 It is through these books that we can begin to understand Mandela the man, father, husband and friend – the human being and not just the mythical figure. The most read book about Mandela is undoubtedly the autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.  Mandela begins the story of his life in a most poetic manner: Apart from life, a strong constitution, and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla.  In Xhosa, Rolihlahla literally means “pulling the branch of a tree,” but its colloquial meaning more accurately would be “troublemaker.”I do not believe that names are a destiny or that my father somehow divined my future, but in later years, friends and relatives would ascribe to my birth name the many storms I have both caused and weathered.

 Years later, Mandela would not just pull the metaphorical branch but uproot the entire tree of apartheid in South Africa. The whites in South Africa viewed him as a trouble maker and he would pay for it dearly by spending 27 years of his life in prison.  Perhaps his father was right in naming him ‘Rolihlahla’, in which case Shakespeare’s question, “what is in a name?” would surely have an answer, a lot!

From the time of his birth in 1918 in a tiny village on the banks of the Mbashe River in the district of Umtata, Mandela walked a long journey to become a freedom fighter, the first black President of South Africa and a Nobel laureate.  Mandela is proud of his Xhosa heritage and attributes his personality partly to his father who had been a Chief. He was born into the Thembu royal household and even though he was not among those who were supposed to rise to the Thembu throne, the events of his life were to eventually place him on the throne not just of the Thembu people but of South Africa as a whole.

Principled father

Mandela identifies his father in himself not just in terms of physique but also in his stubborn and rebellious but principled character. Mandela’s father lost his Chieftaincy after defying a white magistrate, something Mandela narrates with a lot of pride especially because he would later exhibit the same defiance against white rule.

His patient narration of his genealogy reveals a man who is proud of his roots and his description of the Xhosa as a proud people almost subconsciously explains why he chose to sacrifice his freedom and family to defend the dignity of South Africans.

Mandela recalls growing up in the Regent’s house where he learnt not just the ways and traditions of his people but also developed virtues of discipline and responsibility.  It is while at the Regent’s that Mandela was initiated into manhood through the circumcision. His description of the moment of his initiation is the first demonstration of his admission that he is just as human as the rest of us.

He remembers feeling such immense pain that he almost forgot to shout Ndiyindonda (I am a man!) and felt that the other initiates had been braver than him.  His memories of the rituals surrounding his initiation are a reflection of his pride as a son of the Xhosa and the beginning of his life as a man when he would have to make life changing decisions.

Life as a politician

His training as a lawyer was perhaps the best preparation for his later life as a politician, a defender of human rights and a foremost leader in South Africa’s liberation struggle. The ‘walk’ that he describes in this autobiography is not just his as an individual but that of South African blacks and indeed, all who seek freedom from oppression. He describes his achievements and failures, paying glowing tribute to all heroes of South Africa’s liberation struggle.

His long walk, he indicates, was not his alone but he was only able to get to the end because there were men and women who made it worth the effort. He confesses that he put his love for his country before that of his family and was therefore an absentee husband and father.

His involvement in the fight for freedom and justice cost him his first marriage and he would stay without seeing his second family for extended periods during his incarceration. He may have lost his immediate family but he gained a global one.

Revelation of Mandela

The worth of Mandela’s autobiography is not in its record of his liberation struggles but in its revelation of Mandela, the man. He succeeds in demonstrating that although the world regards him as indomitable he has his weaknesses like all human beings. The story is weaved beautifully and its memorable ending makes you want to read more: I have walked that long road to freedom… I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.’  Well, Mandela’s physical walk may have ended on 6th December 2013 but his memory will linger for a long time to come.

Conversations with Myself (2010) records a different kind of his memories. While Long Walk to Freedom offers an account of Mandela’s life, couched in a kind of collective memory, Conversations With Myself gives us snippets of Mandela’s private life compiled from letters to and from family, friends and comrades in the struggle, conversations with family and colleagues, unpublished manuscripts and calendar entries of private thoughts and daily experiences. These bits and pieces are a reflection of the loneliness and pain that characterised his long years in prison and the feeling of loss at not being able, for instance, to take care of his wife, children and mother.

 Source of information

They are a demonstration of his conviction that once imprisoned, memory is all that one has as a source and reservoir of information. The memories in Conversations With Myself enable us to see a contemplative Mandela and what incarceration meant for him. Part of a letter that he wrote to Hilda Bernstein, regarding the Rivonia trial reads: In my current circumstances, thinking about the past can be far more exacting than contemplating the present and predicting the course of future events. Until I was jailed I never fully appreciated the capacity of memory, the endless string of information the head can carry.

An excerpt from a letter to Winnie demonstrates his agony at not being able to hold intimate conversations with his wife: My sense of devotion to you precludes me from saying more in public ... One day we will have the privacy which will enable us to share the tender thoughts which we have kept buried in our hearts during the past eight years. And again in a letter to K D Matanzima, Mandela expresses his grief at the death of his mother: I last saw my mother on September 9 last year. After the interview I was able to look at her as she walked away … and somehow the idea crossed my mind that I would never again set my eyes on her.

Perhaps the words that would best speak to us as we celebrate Mandela’s life are those from a draft of the unpublished sequel to his autobiography, men and women, all over the world, right down the centuries, come and go. Some leave nothing behind, not even their names.

 Ordinary human being

In Conversations With Myself, just like in the autobiography, Mandela continues his attempts at contracting himself and persuades the world to look at him as an ordinary human being. His last words in this book indicate his constant desire for us not to treat him as an extraordinary person: One issue that deeply worried me in prison was the false image that I unwittingly projected to the outside world; of being regarded as a saint. I never was one, even on the basis of an earthly definition of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.

 Ironically, it is this very insistence which makes the world view him as a saint, the epitome of honour. Mandela may be departed but this record of some of his most intimate thoughts will keep our memory of him alive.

To read biographies on Mandela is to obviously meet and see a different man from the one recorded in his memoirs. David Smith’s Young Mandela (2010) is an account of Mandela’s life when he was a young man fighting the battle against apartheid. Smith’s account reveals, for instance, part of what Mandela calls in his autobiography a thoroughly immoral life which he says contributed to the break-up of his marriage to Evelyn.

Where Mandela’s account may have edited out reference to his ‘immorality,’ Smith’s account goes as far as revealing the identities of the various women in Mandela’s life.

This is perhaps part of what Mandela refers to in Conversations when he says that he should not be regarded as a saint. Nevertheless, Smith’s book unravels the proud, just and committed lawyer and ANC activist that Mandela was by getting information from his colleagues, friends and family.

 Smith’s research brings to the fore Mandela the man, a person with flaws and who has made mistakes in his life. It narrates the private life of Mandela in his early days and how his experiences might have contributed to the political figure that he would become and the commendable achievements he would attain later in life.

Smith’s aim, it seems, is to counter the myth about Mandela being superhuman; to reveal the real person behind the stunning smile, the early impressive three-piece suits and later multicolored shirts.

Departed icon

Anthony Sampson’s Biography of Mandela (1999) is so far the only authorized biography of the departed icon. Sampson’s account is more comprehensive than Smith’s since it covers Mandela’s entire life including the post-presidency period. Sampson acknowledges the difficulty of writing about Mandela given that the image of the mythical Mandela often blurs the picture of the human Mandela.

This biography is a valuable complement to Long Walk To Freedom because it tells Mandela’s story without the discretion and modesty that may have been required in the writing of the autobiography which was published when the subject had become president.

It is a worthwhile read not just because of its account of Mandela’s involvement in the struggle but more so its record of Mandela’s life after prison and his constant struggle to lead  a normal life with family and friends after being in confinement for so many years.

 In addition, the biography allows us to see the struggle of a father, husband and grandfather trying to regain a sense of family which he had lost when he literally married the struggle. That Sampson includes Graca’s involvement in Mandela’s later life in this biography makes it easy for the world to see the private Mandela after prison and during the presidency. Sampson paints Graca as the force behind breaking the wall of aloofness which Mandela had developed while in prison and his effort to express himself freely.

World of symbols

 Graca’s words about Mandela perhaps capture what the world often forgets in its portrait of Mandela: This world needs symbols, probably nowadays more than before. He is a symbol and he is good at projecting what he represents, his values. But at the same time you have to look at him as a human being who has strengths and weaknesses. He is a symbol, that’s correct, but he’s not a saint. Just like Smith, Sampson’s book tries to bridge the gap between the saint-like image of Mandela and the reality. It is a reminder that the man, other than being a respected and admirable leader was a human being after all.

As we lay Madiba to rest, we celebrate him for showing the world what justice and fairness mean.

We remember him for his role in freeing South Africa from the oppressive apartheid regime, but we remember him more for retaining his humanity. He has left behind lessons on love, selflessness, humility, fairness and justice which leaders around the world should take seriously and live by. 

As Chinua Achebe says of Aminu Kano in The Trouble with Nigeria, the world will never be the same because Nelson Mandela lived here.

Dr Muchiri teaches Literature at the University of Nairobi