Everyone wants a share of Brand Mandela

By DANIEL WESANGULA and AGENCIES

Nelson Mandela was truly an exceptional, one in a lifetime character. But in old age, sickness and eventual death, he was a storyline, similar to many others on the continent, that cuts through his lineage with a finality that reminds us that he, too, was human.

Even before he was put off the life machine, squabbles within his immediate family had come to the fore regarding his name. “Brand Mandela” – estimated to be well worth over Sh1 billion – remains at the centre of the squabbles.

In 2011, Mandla Mandela, who Mandela anointed head of the family after the death of his son Makgatho Mandela, dug up his relatives’ three graves in Qunu, the village in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, to which Mandela retired and according to his will, his preferred resting place.

Mandla moved the remains to Mvezo, another village a short drive away, where the senior Mandela was born and where Mandla is building a four-story luxury hotel.

Critics accused Mandla of doing this simply because he anticipated a windfall after the death of the patriarch, and that upon death, his burial site would be turned into a national monument that would receive hundreds of thousands of visitors annually with millions collected from gate charges. By moving the remains of Mandela’s children, Mandla would “justify” the decision to bury Madiba near his hotel.

A court order was later issued allowing for the exhumation of the remains and their reburial to the original gravesites. A lawyer in the case in which Mandla was accused of “grave tampering” said Mandla dug up the remains “in the dead of night”.

In his will, the statesman requested to be buried next to his children, three who have already died. Mandela’s first daughter Makaziwe died as an infant in 1948, his second son Madiba Thembekile died in a car accident in 1969 and his eldest son Makgatho, Mandla’s father, died of complications due to HIV/Aids in 2005.

But even before Mandla’s machinations came to light, Madiba’s second wife and fiery anti-apartheid heroine Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was in 2003 convicted of fraud, further tainting the brand.

In 2002, an HIV/Aids charity set up in his honour branched out into the clothing industry. The charity, 46664, started a fashion range named after the number he was given during his 27 years in prison. As a result, a bitter row with the Mandela family members has ensued over who ought to benefit from the sales from the fashion house after it emerged that there exists a licence that “guards against the commercialisation of Mandela’s name and image” obtained by a lawyer who represented the family at some point.

Launch of clothing line

The clothing range, which includes $100 jeans made in China, was launched in New York in a glitzy ceremony at the South Africa consulate, 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.

The same grandchildren, Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway and Swati Dlamini, earlier this year starred in a reality TV show, Being Mandela, billed as South Africa’s answer to the long running American TV series Keeping up with the Kardashians. The half hour show follows the two sisters and shows them giving viewers an inside look at their lives, close-knit family and personal aspirations. The opening episode of what was South Africa’s newest reality show this year begins with two wealthy teenagers bickering about boys and chatting up a shop assistant.

Only when the girls pay a visit to Robben Island – the remote jail that once held their grand father for 27 years – does it become clear this is not quite Keeping up with the Kardashians.

And 59-year-old Makaziwe Mandela, his oldest living child, started a wine label – House of Mandela – with her daughter. In an interview with a South African daily, she said: “The driving force for us is not only to get into the wine as a commercial entity. This is about honouring all those who have gone before us.”

The label was started in 2010 with various winemakers selected in the country’s famed Cape vineyards.

The range’s premier collection consists of two reds and one white dubbed the “Royal Reserve”: A 2007 Syrah, a 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon and a 2009 Chardonnay.

At the time they were introduced to the market, the two top-drawer reds sold for Sh3,600 a bottle.

Technically, Mandela’s brand is copyrighted and his foundation has shut down several brazen attempts over the years to cash in on his revered global status. A court battle currently rages over the control of firms in his name. Even as the man whose brand, some say, ranks only second to soft drinks company Coca-Cola in global recognition is laid to rest, he leaves behind a family bickering over the monetary value of his name, deviating from the tenets of forgiveness and equality that he lived by, and famously said he was ready to die for.