Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

In S Africa 10-year-olds take a cue from Mandela

.. Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela, two of many top role models for all ..

AFP Johannesburg, June 14, 2013
First Published: 10:34 IST(14/6/2013)
Last Updated: 10:37 IST(14/6/2013)

Breathlessly, the 10-year-olds at Rosebank Primary School in Johannesburg clamour to explain all about Nelson Mandela's life.

For them, Mandela is the hero they love but never knew -- as he is for the kids who this week have delivered cards, flowers and get-well messages to his
Johannesburg home a short distance away as the 94-year-old icon of the struggle against apartheid fights a recurrent lung infection in hospital.

Madiba -- as he is affectionately known in South Africa -- retreated from public office in the decade before these children were born.

But they quickly go deep into details of his life, not forgetting to translate Mandela's Xhosa name, Rolihlahla -- which colloquially means "troublemaker".

Even if he came from a poor family, they are proud that Mandela caused enough trouble to end white-minority rule and became the father of the "Rainbow Nation".

He was so "poor that his father cut his own trousers so he can wear it on his first day to school," said Junior Luthuli, 10, during break time.

"And the (pair of) trousers was big, and he didn't have a belt, so his father used a string to tie it," interjected classmate Sibusiso Ncube, also 10.

South African children start to learn about "Tata", or father Mandela, as early as pre-school.

By primary school Mandela is firmly on the syllabus along with lessons about Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, both offered as examples of good leadership.

Images of Mandela feature prominently in social science and history textbooks.

South African children are supposed to be taught about the American political system when the subject of democracy is first introduced in primary schools, but teachers find that irrelevant.

"These children need to know about their own history first, about Mandela, about (his apartheid predecessor and negotiating counterpart FW) De Klerk, before we start teaching them about other countries," said history teacher Mia Flourentzou.

Meanwhile the pupils eagerly await their turn to speak about Mandela.

"I have heard he has problems with his lungs. I feel sad because I don't want him to go away. He has done a lot for this country and he deserves the best," said Refiloo Mtheya.

In the course of a few minutes she retells Mandela's life story from the day he was born to him voting in the 1994 elections that ushered him in as South Africa's first black president.

"Mandela is important because he stopped apartheid. If he had not done that I probably would not have been in this school," said Luthuli, who commutes from the predominantly black Soweto township to his school in an upmarket suburb of Johannesburg.

"I just want to be like him, I don't want to be corrupt like some people."

The children may not understand what it is like to be in a jail, but they certainly know it was tough for Mandela to spend 27 years in apartheid prisons.

"South Africans are trying to push Mandela to go up to 100 years because he spent a lot of his life on Robben Island," said Masiko Dlamini, daughter of an expatriate Swazi lawyer.

"Mandela has made this a beautiful country. There is no more white rule because of him. If it wasn't because of him, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have seen South Africa because I am from Swaziland," said Dlamini.

Ncube, who recounted the story of Mandela's trousers, says the former president is his role model.

"He is very brave, he fought for freedom and he wasn't scared of anything, he fought against HIV/AIDS.

"And I am scared that if he dies maybe apartheid will come back."

Teacher Geraldine Nadas says the children "understand the role that Mandela played for us to be where we are. It's a subject that excites them."

In their last exam, the pupils were shown the iconic picture of Mandela walking from prison and were asked to write what they think was going through his mind.

Answers included "Freedom at last; Viva! Viva!" and "Democracy for our country".

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/MandelaNelson/In-S-Africa-10-year-olds-take-a-cue-from-Mandela/Article1-1076113.aspx

Then there is Hannity and Rand Paul.

======

Mandela: Qunu keeps the faith in its messiah

14 Jun 2013 00:00 Kwanele Sosibo

Former president Nelson Mandela's influence transformed the village, which, in turn, has cast its brightest son in a biblical light.


Nelson Mandela's association with Qunu has meant that the village children now have access to schools built by benefactors. (Delwyn Verasamy, M&G)

Our Coverage

* 'Beware of selfish prayers for Tata'
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-14-00-beware-of-selfish-prayers-for-tata
* ANC plays fashion police in Parliament on Mazibuko dress
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-13-anc-plays-fashion-police-in-parliament
* Seven things to do when there's no news on Mandela
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-13-8-things-to-do-when-theres-no-more-news-on-mandela

More Coverage

Mandela is responding well to treatment, says Cabinet
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-13-mandela-is-responding-well-to-treatment-says-cabinet

If you’re looking to gauge how South Africa is handling the extended hospitalisation of its most famous son, Qunu – where Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela spent a significant portion of his youth – is the wrong place to be.

Although the N2, at least from Mthatha to Dutywa, is dotted with road blocks (“business as usual”, the traffic cops protest), the first clear sign in the town of Madiba’s grave illness are hordes of helpless journalists crisscrossing the 18 villages and, more often than not, homing in on the main stretch of houses belonging to the extended Mandela family.

Across the N2 from the stretch that includes the family graveyard, lies the mansion sometimes referred to as Mandela’s “holiday home”, to the chagrin of the locals, many of whom see it as the former state president’s permanent residence.

Mandela had been spending an increasing amount of time here before his health deteriorated late last year.

Although they are suffering from “Q&A” fatigue, barring the odd, overt request for money most residents will oblige by answering questions and posing for photographs while tastefully relaying social taboos.

“We’re holding silent prayers for him in our homes,” says Nokuzola Thethani, the spokesperson for the Nelson Mandela Museum. “I’m sure in every home here [in Qunu] it’s the same. Before they go to sleep they put him in their prayers. I am also doing that.”

If you’re expecting mass hysteria or people on the edge of their chairs, earlobes glued to the speaker, you may as well pack up and ship out.

“We’re following it with our prayers,” says Nomiki Gcinindawo, echoing her neighbour, Thethani. “In church we pray for him because we want our children to see him.”

Nicodemus

Gcinindawo has impaired vision but she turns to two young children, no older than eight, milling about the yard.

“In December 2010, these little children went to the house and touched him by the hand,” she says.

“They saw him with their own eyes. The old man, he is like a messiah. We pray to Jesus but here we see a new manifestation, from whom we ask and receive. Our hearts and spirits won’t let him go. He showed love to all equally.”

Gcinindawo lives with her sister Nothozamile Majova. The two middle-aged women receive disability grants, which they attribute to the post-1994 dispensation.

Biblical references to Mandela often feature him as a messianic figure or a character swathed in supernatural imagery – like a neighbour’s remark that he should be “born again in a Nicodemus sense”, referring to a story in the Bible of Jesus teaching Nicodemus about the necessity of every person being born again.

These off-the-cuff references make outsiders cringe but, depending on who you talk to in Qunu, the messiah remarks hold gravity.

Facing south from the hilltop location of the Nelson Mandela Museum, one has expansive views of lower Qunu and the surrounding villages.

Mandela’s honour

Using the tome Long Walk To Freedom as your guide, from this vantage point (foregrounded by the familial pastoral lands Mandela roamed as a child), you can see where the young son of the royal counsellor hunted birds with a slingshot, drank milk from the udder of a cow and, humiliatingly, fell off his donkey. But the built environment reveals the patronage he was later to wield.

A confluence of established brands and international governments transformed a village that was not unlike any other into a promised land of sorts, attracting a sizeable number of migrants from other parts of the Eastern Cape.

In the distance you can see the Qunu multipurpose centre, built by Samsung Electronics Africa; the restored Methodist Church that was initially founded by Mandela’s mother, Nosekeni, and the Nelson Mandela No-Moscow Primary School that was rebuilt by the Lyoness Child and Family Foundation.

On the opposite end of the museum there is the Qunu Clinic, built by Southern Sun International and the Milton Mbekela Senior Secondary School, built by Caltex, to name but a few.

There are entire villages – like Nkalane, where Mandela’s mother grew up – that were electrified by international governments in Mandela’s honour.

Mvezo, where he was born, “is shaping up into a little Nkandla” (as one local put it), thanks largely to the fundraising efforts of his grandson, Mandla Mandela.

Then there’s the unmissable facelift in the form of the N2 road reconstruction.

Cultural mores

Over the past few years the world has also taken notice of Mqhekezweni, where Mandela lived under the guardianship of Jongintaba Dalindyebo, regent of the Tembu people and head of the Madiba clan. Jongintaba Senior Secondary School was officially opened in 2008, although building began about a decade before.

Nozolile Mtirara, the spouse of Mandela’s childhood friend and cousin, Justice Mtirara, lives in a modern face-brick structure in Mqhekezweni Great Place (a heritage site where Mandela went to live after his father died). She says Mandela looked after them and even sent them groceries before he fell ill.

In Qunu and the surrounding areas residents differ about the prospects of the town without Madiba – that is if they are willing to flout cultural mores and entertain the question to begin with.

“We were supposed to be getting houses here but I don’t think we’ll getting those houses any more,” says Mandela’s niece, Alice Ngcebetshana.

“Things that were happening happened out of respect for him. Children here can no longer find jobs, they are told to go look underground [in the mines].”

A teacher in Mqhekezweni believes these are irrational fears, “because the association with Mandela will always be there”.

Thethani says that the media hysteria, with hacks trawling the weather-beaten footpaths of lower Qunu conducting door-to-door searches for quotes, has brought merchants of unreliable oral history creeping out of the woodwork.

Others believe that by speaking of a living man as if he’s dead, journalists have overstepped cultural sensitivities.

“He’s an icon but he’s also a human being,” said a local petrol attendant who preferred not to be named. “In our culture here, it’s wrong to talk about a person’s death while he’s alive, out of respect for his life.

“For example, the thing of his daughters Zenani and Makaziwe talking about his money while he’s still alive is wrong. We don’t do that. I know it sounds radical but you guys should probably pack up and go now.”

http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-14-00-mandela-qunu-keeps-the-faith-in-its-messiah