Mandela not a brand exclusive to ANC

Published Jul 6, 2016

Share

NELSON Mandela’s grandson,
iNkosi Zwelivelile Mandla Mandela, and many others associated with the ANC have taken umbrage at the DA using the older Madiba’s voice in their election campaign adverts.

It seems to be a developing trend. You might recall that the EFF won a case against the Solomon Mahlangu family, who objected to the EFF using Mahlangu’s name for a public lecture.

Like Zwelivelile, the family argued that Mahlangu was an ANC man, and only that party was entitled to use his name.

I can see why the Mandela name can be such an emotional issue, especially when used in the context of what experts say will be the most hotly contested local government elections yet.

But this being when South Africa and the world celebrate the month in which Mandela was born, it might be as good a time as any to discuss who can or cannot use the Mandela name.

I say everyone can use the Mandela name, but nobody has the right to airbrush the historical legacy of Mandela they do not like.

The appropriation of Mandela as an exclusively ANC brand is the other side of the coin that refuses to recognise that Mandela is a product and an embodiment of the best of the ANC. They are both ahistorical and probably insulting to the Mandela memory.

It is disingenuous and fanciful to try to locate Mandela outside the ANC. It is self-serving to choose to see him as an exception to, rather than as a true ANC cadre.

Those who think they praise Mandela for not being like “the rest of them” actually insult him because he was what he was because of “them”.

It is always conveniently forgotten that the Mandela man of peace and father of the rainbow nation was also the Mandela who was first to enlist his name for the armed struggle and was Umkhonto we Sizwe’s first commander in chief, who openly associated himself with a violent overthrow of a white supremacist state.

It is a historical fact that Mandela’s politics were nurtured in the ANC Youth League and refined by the likes of Walter Sisulu. For that reason, the ANC should be proud of itself that it created a political entity that is Madiba, and which other parties want to colour themselves by.

Such was Mandela’s undying commitment to the ANC that he openly said that the first thing he would do upon getting to heaven would be to find an ANC branch and join. So, if there is a heaven, and Mandela is there, then we know that he has either joined or founded an ANC branch there.

But the ANC should know better than anyone else that Mandela was more than just another ANC leader. He was not only a South African leader but a global icon. To say only the ANC should invoke his name is to minimise Madiba’s stature.

Would those who say only the ANC is entitled to exploit Mandela’s name also demand that the world stay away from commemorating Mandela Day? I doubt it. Only ignorance of the Mandela brand or deliberate politicking can seek to reduce Mandela to a party brand.

I bet you would be hard-pressed to find how many people actually care or know in which denomination Martin Luther King jr was a pastor.

That is because King’s church denomination, let alone Christian beliefs, became secondary to what the Nobel Peace Prize laureate 
stood for.

It is the type of pettiness displayed by Zwelivelile Mandela that results in other South Africans being denied access to the minds of some of the foremost political thinkers – like Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe – because they were with the “wrong” political parties.

If we are to be true to what Madiba stood for, we cannot pick and choose the Madiba we prefer. He was an ANC man who became a man of the world. He was a man of war and when the time came, 
a man of peace.

It is not every day that your country or the organisation you associate yourself with will produce a person whose stature transcends geography and ideology borders. When it happens, it is a moment to be savoured rather than an opportunity to behave like a schoolchild who is unhappy their friend now has a new friend and will not play with them any more.

Instead of the ANC and those associated with it seeing the use of Mandela’s name and iconography as a threat, they should see it as a commendation of a job well done by the party.

They should see the use by others of his name as proof that imitation is indeed the best form of flattery.

Related Topics: