Some years ago Nelson Mandela inadvertently flattered me by seeming to act on a suggestion I had made. I had written an editorial for the Mail & Guardian, arguing that he should stand down as president after serving just one term, instead of the two allowed by the constitution.
Some months later he announced he was going to stand down after one term. My sense of ”omigosh, now what have I done!” was compounded when he was subsequently asked by a journalist why he had decided to go early. ”Because the M&G told me to,” he replied.
I suspect that the incident reflected Mandela’s puckish sense of humour — that he had long since made the decision and could not resist the temptation to stoke the hubris of a leader writer — rather than his susceptibility to advice from newspapers. The argument I had mounted was a fairly obvious one: Absolute rulers have been a blight on Africa.
History and circumstance potentially gave Mandela the power to be an absolute ruler. By going early he would set a precedent which, hopefully, his successors would not dare to ignore.
I tell the tale with much admiration. I am an unmitigated fan of the man. And it is as an unquestioning admirer that I watch, with irritation, the financial exploitation of Mandela’s celebrity status, which has somehow been tied up with the great man’s 85th birthday celebrations.
There has been a long history of attempts to make money out of Mandela’s name. In fact his ex-wife, Winnie, with the help of an American shyster, actually tried to secure copyright on the name while he was still in prison.
Since his release Mandela himself has long made clear his readiness to tap his fame for charitable purposes. But somehow the rendering of his birthday party at the weekend as a Coca-Cola event struck me as unfortunate. By all means allow the occasional bottle of coke to intrude into a camera shot, but to have an executive presenting himself as host and rabbiting away about his product…
Another recent instance of a bizarre coupling of the Mandela name for financial reasons (although what the financial reasons might have been, heaven knows) has been the merger of the Rhodes scholarship programme with the Mandela Foundation.
Those involved in the merger have attempted to justify it as some sort of ”completion of a circle”, whereby Rhodes’ scholarly 19th Century bequest will be returned to Africa in the 21st Century. The linkage of Mandela’s name with that of Rhodes is not only historically inappropriate, but raises puzzling questions as to where the quid pro quo lies.
Mandela’s sudden emergence as an artist whose work commands hundreds of thousands of rands has also startled some of his colleagues who had thought (if they thought about the matter at all) that his talent in that direction was limited to doodling.
The late flowering of artistic talent is nothing new, of course. There is even neurological evidence that damage to brains can lead, paradoxically, to the expansion of the artistic mind. Mandela clearly has not suffered brain damage. But, whatever the source of his new-found talent, Mandela — with the help of Cape Town art teacher Varenka Paschke – has been churning out lithographs, selling for $2 600 to $3 200 a piece.
Mandela’s artistic appreciation does not, unfortunately, extend to another money-making mechanism being exploited in his name — the sale of 27 copies of his hand, wrought in gold and selling for more than quarter of a million rand each.
The preoccupation with Mandela’s hands has something of a history. While he was still president, two white businessmen, the Krok twins, persuaded him to agree to the erection of a sculpture of his fist — of a comparable size to the Statue of Liberty — on Robben Island. The idea was hurriedly dropped when the plan was leaked and it was pointed out that the twins had made much of their fortune from skin-whitening cosmetics.
The life-size golden hands now on offer, while perhaps they are more politically correct than the massive monstrosity which enthused the Kroks, have an un-nerving resemblance to a dismembered limb. Which perhaps explains the alacrity with which the only recorded purchaser of one of the golden hands, after paying nearly half a million rand for it at an auction, immediately returned it.
What Mandela will do with the thing now is open to speculation. Hopefully melt it down, on the grounds it has served its purpose. – Guardian Unlimited Â