Mandela the patriarch rests in peace … but can his family settle their feuds?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/07/nelson-mandela-family-squabble

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When Nelson Mandela is finally laid to rest next Sunday it will be on the same windswept hillside in Qunu, his childhood village in South Africa's Eastern Cape, where three of his children already lie.

The "son of the soil" as the Mandelas call him, first chose the resting place, according to early drafts of his will seen 20 years ago, because of his desire to return to a family that his lifetime in prison and politics had kept him from.

And yet the unquiet graves of his daughter Makaziwe and his sons Thembi and Magkatho, the last of whom died in 2005, are testament to the turmoil within South Africa's most famous family.

Their remains were the subject of a ghoulish tug of war between the former president's grandson Mandla Mandela and much of the rest of the family, led by his eldest surviving daughter, also named Makaziwe.

The dispute laid bare deep divisions within a family that rarely left the headlines earlier this year while the world kept vigil for their frail patriarch. An uneasy truce which has held since June will face greater scrutiny than ever during the next seven days.

Yesterday the Mandelas sought to reassure South Africans with a statement that mourned the loss of a man "whose greatness in our family was in the simplicity of his nature in our midst, a caring family leader who made time for all, and on that score we will miss him dearly."

But others are already questioning how long the unity will last.

"The family has stopped their public disputes for now," said Mkunzi Ngonyama, an advisor to Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, the King of Thembu royal family, a branch of the Xhosa people of which Mr Mandela's Madiba clan is part. "We call on them to observe the peace but you never know."

The wildcard, as ever, is Mandla, a man who has made headlines for everything from assault charges to bigamy and grave tampering.

On the day of his grandfather's death, the 39-year-old, who bears a striking resemblance to his revered relative, had been due in court to face charges of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The hearing was delayed but he stands accused of pulling a gun on a man in October after an argument in traffic.

These charges pale against the revelation that Mandla, an MP with the ruling ANC party, had the remains of his father Magkatho, uncle and aunt exhumed two years ago – without permission – and transported half an hour's drive away to Mvezo, the village where he is chief and his grandfather was born but never lived.

Makaziwe, who has emerged as the matriarch of the Mandelas, resorted to the courts to forcibly have the remains returned to their original resting place.

In remarkable scenes in June, police used bolt cutters to break the padlocks on a compound in Mvezo and escort a trio of hearses in to reclaim the remains.

The feud over Mandela's dead children was, of course, a battle over where he himself would be buried. Four days after his death it is already clear that his grave will be a site of international pilgrimage, and Mandla had intended that Mvezo should benefit from this tourism.

Having lost the battle, the volatile grandson publicly sued for peace in July, saying his grandfather had been "dedicated to reconciliation" and that his family should follow this example.

Many of the apparent failings of the house of Mandela were foreshadowed by the man himself, who admitted to having neglected the family in favour of the struggle and later public life.

"In South Africa it is hard for a man to ignore the needs of the people, even at the expense of his own family," he wrote in his memoir, <em>Long Walk to Freedom</em>. "But that did not lessen the sadness I felt."

The former leader of the ANC has 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren, a family which showed little hesitation in exploiting his name while he was alive.

Some fear they will be even more mercenary now he is dead. There have been clothing brands and even an auction of family land in Qunu to the international media, all diminishing the standing of the family in the eyes of the public.

"House Mandela" is already the brand name of a winemaking company, the marketing director of which is his granddaughter, Tukwini Mandela. <em>Being Mandela</em> is the name of a trashy US television reality show that stars two more of the granddaughters, Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway and Swati Dlamini.

The crass commercialisation has been accompanied by an increasingly hard-edged approach to the checks and balances that Mandela himself put in place to protect his legacy.

Makaziwe, his daughter from his first marriage, with the late Evelyn Mase, has formed an alliance with Zenani, the eldest daughter from his later union with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. The duo, a businesswoman and a diplomat (Zenani is South Africa's ambassador to Argentina), have spearheaded a legal challenge to seize control of trusts that oversee Nelson Mandela's money.

They accuse trustees, including the eminent human-rights lawyer George Bizos, of misusing funds generated by two companies who oversee the sale of handprint artwork by Mandela, meant to benefit his family.

Bizos, a Greek-born South African, credited with helping Mandela avoid the death sentence at the trial in the 1960s where he was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment, has defended his handling of the trust.

He has suggested that Makaziwe launched the court proceedings after he prevented her from withdrawing an estimated £700,000 in funds from the companies.

Nelson Mandela, the radical lawyer who became a resistance leader and symbol of defiance during his two decades of incarceration before emerging to become a symbol of reconciliation, will be laid to rest next week … but the battles that rage around his legacy will not.

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