Five months before the death of Nelson Mandela, democratic South Africa’s revered first president, his family was embroiled in an ugly dispute about the illegal exhumation and reburial of the statesman’s three children.
His eldest grandson, Mandla, had apparently relocated their remains from Qunu, where Mandela had asked the family to be buried, to Mvezo, about 22km away. Others in the family believed Mandla was motivated by potential monetary gains. When Mandela eventually passed on and was buried in Qunu, it wasn’t without drama within and outside the family.
When Zoleka Mandela, a granddaughter of the statesman, died after a long battle with cancer in October last year, a long list of family members she wanted barred from her funeral was released on social media. This preceded court drama that saw Zenani Mandela obtaining a court order that barred Zoleka from being buried at the Fourways Memorial Park alongside her grandmother Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
The Sunday Times this weekend reports that a house in Houghton, Johannesburg, in which Mandela spent his last days in 2013 before his death, has fallen into disrepair as the family — once more — is at each other’s throats about whether to sell it.
On the face of it, it seems selling the house runs counter to Mandela’s wish for the family to use it in ‘perpetuity’.
A furious Ndaba Mandela told the Sunday Times this week that his aunt Makaziwe, Mandela's oldest daughter, was “trying to take the house away” from him and his brothers Mbuso and Andile.
“Why is Aunt Maki (Makaziwe) trying to take that away from us, orphans? Mbuso, Andile and I are preparing court papers as we want to go to court against the trustees and fight this and indicate the trustees' failure to discharge their fiduciary duties,” Ndaba said.
It was Makaziwe who, not too long ago, was stopped by the South African government from auctioning off Mandela’s identity book he used to vote in 1994. Ndaba also said they tried to renovate the house so it’s liveable, but Makaziwe stopped the repairs. Now Mandela’s house has become somewhat of a ghost house. Mandela, probably knowing his own children and his grandchildren, decided to be thorough in his last will and testament ostensibly to avoid conflict.
The Sunday Times notes: “Mandela's will stipulated that the home, where he died on December 5 2013, be used by the children of his late son Makgatho — Mandla, Mbuso, Ndaba and Andile.
“I bequeath ... the Houghton property to the Nelson Mandela Trust. It must grant, or procure the grant of the right to occupy the Houghton property, free of any consideration, to Mandla Dalibunga Sizwe Mandela.”
“I also wish that he should live in the house together with his siblings during his lifetime and that the trustees of the Nelson Mandela Trust decide for what special purpose the house may be used thereafter in perpetuity.”
On the face of it, it seems selling the house runs counter to Mandela’s wish for the family to use it in “perpetuity”. But the endless feuding, too, runs counter to Mandela’s wishes. “It is my wish that it (Houghton house) should also serve as a place of gathering of the Mandela family to maintain its unity long after my death.”
The irony is inescapable that the very house is the latest source of the Mandela family fissures. There can be no doubt that Mandela is respected across the globe. His work and his imprisonment for pursuing human rights, equality and social justice earned him a place among the most quoted authorities in human endeavour. He teaches us: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”
Yet his very children are the first, it seems, to discard his words, to contradict his written wishes.
The point is not that we expect the family to be the embodiment of unity and familial love — though there is nothing wrong with that — but we expected much more than the mini-wars that border on hatred and pettiness. Mandela must be turning in his grave if he’s aware his family members are frequently in courts making applications to deny each other’s burial rights, to seek exhumation orders and to stop something so positive such as a renovation.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.