I first met Madala (as we used to address each other) at Flat 13, Kholvad House – the Joburg Market Street apartment then occupied by Madala’s fellow law-student, Ismail Meer.
One day in 1946, I happened to be at the flat when the two students returned from law lectures at Wits University.
Like my first reaction on meeting Meer, I, a matric student, was dumbstruck and in awe when I met this tall man – a second-year university student!
More than that was the manner in which he related to me; not condescendingly, but more or less as an equal.
This was the hallmark of Nelson Mandela’s attitude towards all – a peasant or aristocrat, a worker or employer, even a monarch, a male or female, a child or adult.
This was a leader I could be frank with, one I could tease and even play a trick on.
In a media supplement on his 80th birthday I wrote:
“…however remarkable his known qualities, they need to be shown in real life situations. Like all human beings Madala is not free of shortcomings… He is an uncommon amalgam of the peasant and the aristocrat; the democrat par excellence, but not without a touch of the autocrat; at once proud and simple; soft and tenacious; determinedly obstinate and flexible, vain and shy, cool and impatient. An ordinary human being.”
In prison he got used to the Pantene brand of hair oil, and the tenacious Madala would go to all lengths to acquire it.
With that in mind, on his 80th birthday (and marriage to Graça), I told him he should come out of the house to greet Walter Sisulu. What he was confronted with was Walter, and a large media group. And the crowning piece – our former prison warder, Christo Brand, with a “Happy Birthday” banner and two bottles of Pantene that I managed to get from America.
He simply burst out with laughter.
His love for children knew no bounds.
Take 13-year-old Michelle Brits from Secunda – aware that she was terminally ill with leukaemia, she had a birthday wish to meet President Mandela. I asked him if I could bring Michelle to him.
He declined, typically saying we should rather visit her in Secunda. Which he did! He flew there in his helicopter. The whole of Secunda was in turmoil.
One morning he invited my partner Barbara Hogan and me to breakfast. He was finishing his phone call with “Goodbye Elizabeth.” In answer to my question, “Who is this Elizabeth?” he said “The Queen”.
To my question, “How can you address the queen by her first name?”, he answered; “She calls me Nelson, and I call her Elizabeth.”
His loyalty to friends and colleagues knew no bounds.
Eddie Daniels was our fellow prisoner for 15 years. After his wedding, Madala and Graça flew to Somerset to spend the day.
When the presidency’s head of protocol, John Reinders, was seriously ill in Bloemfontein, he visited him.
On a personal level, we remained close. At his invitation I accompanied him to:
l The second Wembley Concert in London.
l The Scandinavian countries when he received the Nobel Prize; and again to visit the ailing Oliver Tambo.
l To America when he received the Congressional Award; and again when he addressed the UN.
l To India when he was chief guest at its 50th anniversary as a republic.
One day during his retirement I had a visit from his close aide, Zelda la Grange. Madala wanted to know if I was comfortable; did I have proper accommodation, a car, doctors?
I last saw him at his hospital bed. In spite of the difficulty of communication, he managed to convey his concern for my welfare!
As we celebrate Nelson Mandela International Day, let us emulate Madiba’s selfless traits, his love and care for others, and his vision for a better South Africa.
At 17, Kathrada participated in the Passive Resistance Campaign of the South African Indian Congress, and was arrested and imprisoned for defying a law that discriminated against Indians.
In 1952, he was in a group of 20, including Mandela and Sisulu, sentenced to nine months in prison with hard labour, suspended for two years, for organising the Defiance Campaign against six apartheid laws. In 1962, Kathrada was placed under house arrest. The following year he broke his banning orders and went underground to continue his political work, but was later arrested and, with Mandela and others, sentenced during the Rivonia Trial to life imprisonment with hard labour.
Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of them on Robben Island. While in prison he obtained four university degrees.
His Ahmed Kathrada Foundation organises seminars, lectures, debates and discussions and undertakes research on issues which promote a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa.