Madiba - a six part review of the past 95 years. Part 1

We would like to celebrate Madiba's exceptional life and achievements with a 6 part series written by Steuart Pennington.

Madiba - Part 1
Wednesday, 26 June 2013

by Steuart Pennington

At the time of writing, Monday morning 24th June, radio news announced that Madiba’s health had taken a turn for the worse, and was in ‘crisis’. Our prayers as a nation are ubiquitous.

On Sunday 23rd I had just been chatting with my good friend Christopher Till, Director of the Apartheid Museum, about his hosting of the hugely successful Nelson Mandela Exhibition “De Prisonnier A President” that had been staged in Paris last week.

The Eiffel Tower was lit with the colours of the South African flag, and Paris was abuzz with reflections on Madiba’s life, his contribution to our peaceful transition, his enormously rich leadership…

and:

SAISON AFRIQUE DU SUD 2012 & 2013 FRANCE

I thought it appropriate to run a series of six newsletters on Madiba’s life, consistent with the themes of the Exhibition.

The first has to do with his early life in the Transkei and the factors that formed his character.

For some years now the Apartheid Museum has featured an exhibition on the life of our first democratic President, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

This exhibition is divided into six periods of his life (as above)

1. The circumstances that contributed to his Character
2. What shaped his becoming a Comrade
3. How he emerged as a Leader of both the ANCYL and the ANC
4. His time as a Prisoner
5. He ability as a Negotiator
6. His contribution as President

I would suggest that relatively few South Africans have visited this exhibition (also available at the Capture Site near Howick on the R103)

So I thought that in the weeks that precede his 95th birthday, and for a few weeks after I would run a series of newsletters which, in bullet form, will describe these six periods.

I will also try and juxtapose some of the global and South African events that inevitably played a role, but that, sometimes oddly, were not seen as important or influential.

Names:

• Nelson - Slave Name (he was given this name by a teacher on his first day at school who found it difficult to pronounce Rolihlahla – for many years black people gave their children English middle names for ease of pronunciation and retention by their ‘masters’. This became coined as the ‘slave name’ and is a practice that continues to this day. Thankfully first name use is now much more the practice).
• Rolihlahla - Means “Pulling branch of tree, disturbs the established order”
• Mandela - Birth name given to Grandfather
• Dalihunga - Circumcision name, means ‘founder of Parliament’
• Madiba - Clan name, reconciler, filler of ditches

Born in 1918 on the 18th of July in Mvezo Thembuland

• Father Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa Mandela Chief of Mvezo. He had 4 wives and 13 children
• Mother Nosekeni Fanny Mandela, the 3rd wife

1853 qualified franchise in Cape for blacks introduced.

In 1885 after 100 year war between Xhosa and British Thembuland annexed as part of the Cape Colony.

1902 end of Boer War -Treaty of Vereeniging – qualified franchise for blacks removed as part of the peace negotiations and the incorporation of the OFS and Transvaal Republics into the 1910 Union of South Africa.

Father Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa Mandela clashed with local magistrate over oxen (trumped up as a land issue), he argued that he did not answer to British authority, he was stripped of everything, wives dispersed, Nosekeni Fanny settled in Qunu. Madiba saw his father once a month.

1913 Bantu Land Act implemented, 87% of land zones for whites.

1913 Mahatma Gandhi leads Indian Sugar strike.

In 1920’s Qunu life typical of migrant labour dispensation. School uniform his father’s cut down suit. At 12 his father died (1930). Madiba loved to listen to stories of Chiefs Makana and Magoma standing against colonialism, both sent to Robben Island.

1923 Urban Areas Act introduced to enable native locations. Slums explode in urban areas.

1926 Colour Bar Act introduced to ban blacks from practising skilled trades.

1927 Native Administration Act introduced which made the British Crown, rather than the Paramount Chiefs, the supreme authority in black areas.

His father, now striped of his title, wished Madiba to be raised by the Regent of Thembuland Jongintaba Dalindyebo. Jongintaba had a great influence as he presided over the Amaphakhati, teaching consensus decision making and tensions between traditional and modern society.

Madiba shared a room with Justice, Regent’s son, at 16 he was circumcised. At the time he lamented ‘the ritual promises of manhood, which will never be fulfilled, for we are a conquered people.’

1936 Native voters struck from role in the Cape

Schooling

After initiation sent to Clarkebury, founded by Thembu King in 19th Century.

That is where Madiba first shook hands with a white man, from there to Healdtown. Dr Arthur Wellington Headmaster.

BA Degree at Fort Hare – Met Seretse Khama, Kaiser Matanzima.

While at Fort Hare he is expelled for disagreeing with the University leadership over the process for electing prefects. At Fort Hare the student body (150 students)) was responsible for electing a six-person SRC. Shortly before the election the student body met, it was agreed that the student diet be improved and the powers of the SRC be extended. Unless the University Administration agreed the elections would be boycotted. Madiba voted in support. The next day 25 students pitched up to vote, Madiba was elected. He and the other six resigned. The Vice –Chancellor, a Dr. Kerr, then advised that if he insisted upon his resignation he would be expelled. At a subsequent meeting Dr.Kerr advised “you may return to Fort Hare next year, provided you join the SRC – you have all summer to make up your mind!”

Madiba felt he could not compromise. He left Fort Hare at the end of his second year.

The Regent was furious.

Early in the new year the Regent arranged marriages for Madiba and Justice with immediate effect. The Regent agrees to pay lobola on Madiba’s behalf.

Justice and Madiba, both unhappy with this, resolved to run away to Johannesburg in 1941.

At a stroke Madiba had abandoned his prospects of becoming a powerful local leader – and had destroyed his future – or so it seemed – Johannesburg beckoned.

Conclusion

It is often said that we are products of our up-bringing, some will have it that we are “victims” of our youth. Madiba grew up in a strange combination of traditional Xhosa life, antagonism to colonial rule, increasing legislative isolation of blacks, the rejection of white authority, but a deep respect for the Church and the British ‘way’.

It is almost paradoxical that in his early twenties he rejected simultaneously the authority of the administrators at Fort Hare and the authority of the Regent’s traditional dictates.

When he set off for Johannesburg politics was not uppermost in his mind, it was independence from tribal traditions and a “new” urban life that had exciting appeal.

He was ‘penniless’.

Nevertheless, many of the characteristics for which he became so well known, and so highly respected, were formed in those early days.

In my view the fact that Madiba always displayed a gentle respect for human dignity whilst at the same time being a man of unwavering principle is as much a tribute to him as it is to the community in which he grew up.

Next: Part 2 - Comrade