Space is virgin territory, yet, for Sir Richard Branson.
But even that, he appears set to conquer commercially with his company Virgin Galactic this year.
One of the greatest business minds on earth, Branson is in the space race.
In a CNN interview mid-February, commenting on South African billionaire Elon Musk’s recent SpaceX test-launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket, Branson said: “I was a little bit jealous,” and called Musk’s feat “extraordinary”.
The British tycoon, known for his profound love for adventure and sport, admitted in the interview that Virgin Galactic is hoping to put people in space in the coming months.
He also hints about it on his blog: “The team are working tirelessly, and each flight brings us one step closer to commercial service in New Mexico’s Spaceport America.”
“One of our biggest investments has been the space companies, which we have already invested $1 billion to set up,” he says in FORBES’ 100th anniversary issue in 2017.
And should Branson – worth $5 billion according to FORBES – be one of the first space tourists to look down on earth, he would no doubt marvel at the continent he often visits – Africa.
In his new autobiography, Finding My Virginity, launched last year, you find multiple mentions of Africa, and memories and images of the people and places he keeps returning to on the continent.
Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Graça Machel… are revered in these pages.
Branson tells FORBES AFRICA, in an exclusive interview in November last year when in Johannesburg for Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Business is an Adventure’ event, that “almost since the day Nelson Mandela left prison, I got very involved in Africa”.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/11/03/lessons-ideas-100-greatest-living-minds/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Lessons And Ideas By The 100 Greatest Living Business Minds</a>
Almost three decades on, he continues to be.
On the continent, Virgin’s biggest presence is in South Africa.
Worldwide, Branson owes his fortune to diverse businesses bearing the Virgin name. The son of a barrister and flight attendant, he started almost 50 years ago with a mail-order record business. He was a school drop-out, but never looked back.
He founded the Virgin Group, which now has interests in mobile telephony, financial services, travel, hospitality, holidays and health, among others.
He created his music label Virgin Records in 1972, signing on artistes such as Mike Oldfield, Janet Jackson, The Rolling Stones and the Spice Girls.
A disruptor in the aviation industry, Branson started Virgin Atlantic in 1984, and the airline has been flying between London Heathrow and South Africa for the last 21 years, and Nigeria for over 16 years.
<div id="attachment_35451" style="width: 330px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35451" class=" wp-image-35451" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Richard-Branson-Getty-Images-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="480" />Richard Branson (Photo by Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images)</div>
In his new book, he says he is often asked the question: “How do you go about becoming a millionaire?” And his answer has been the same: “Start as a billionaire and launch a new airline.” He recounts the first 15 years of Virgin Atlantic as “a topsy-turvy tale of excitement, innovation and survival”.
Branson famously lives on Necker Island, a British Virgin Islands retreat, which, according to FORBES, he bought for $180,000 in 1978. Tutu has been a visitor: there is an endearing 2006 image of Branson planting a kiss on him with the azure sea in the background.
Far from Necker, at the ‘Business is an Adventure’ event in South Africa in November, Branson, the man who never wears ties, is in a pale blue shirt and khaki chinos. He enters, waving his hands in the air simulating the wings of an aeroplane. And on stage, much to the audience’s delight, rips off fellow panelist and Discovery Group CEO Adrian Gore’s tie, saying: “I believe the workplace should be comfortable, it should be relaxing.”
He recounts his entrepreneurial experiences, and pulls out a little black book to note down everything he learns from the people he meets.
“A notebook you can refer back to, especially if people share pearls of wisdom,” he quips.
And he has found enough wisdom in Africa.
Along with British pop musician Peter Gabriel, Branson was instrumental in starting The Elders, formally launched by Mandela in Johannesburg in 2007. An independent group of global leaders working together for peace and human rights, it also includes stalwarts Tutu, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon.
In 2005, the billionaire also started the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in South Africa to “address a critical need for entrepreneurs, at a time when there were few organizations offering free, practical business training and mentoring to start-up businesses”.
The physical center in Johannesburg is now closed as they “review their entrepreneur support strategy”, but has over 12 years supported more than 4,300 entrepreneurs.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2015/07/01/man-pouring-millions-rich-slice-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Man Pouring Millions Into A Rich Slice Of Africa</a>
Tracey Webster, who headed the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in Johannesburg for almost three years from 2011, vividly recalls her interactions with Branson.
“He is shy and unbelievably humble,” she says. “He is smart about getting everyone else to do the talking – he’s so charming and gracious about giving others the platform; he just has a way in which he promotes people on the ground.”
Webster, who is currently CEO of Enterpriseroom in South Africa, says the most important leadership lesson she received from Branson was “to respect absolutely every single human you came in contact with”.
“He taught me to be a listener rather than a talker,” says Webster, of the shy, introverted man millions look up to.
<div id="attachment_35452" style="width: 410px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35452" class=" wp-image-35452" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Richard-Branson-with-Archbishop-Desmond-Tutu-pic-courtesy-The-Elders-300x266.jpg" alt="Richard Branson Archbishop Desmond Tutu The Elders" width="400" height="355" />Richard Branson with Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Picture courtesy of The Elders)</div>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">‘Africans Are Natural Entrepreneurs’</h1>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">In our interview with Sir Richard Branson, we let him do the talking, about his new ventures in Africa, his work for the communities around his businesses, his take on wildlife, and that moment he almost fell off the stage in South Africa.</h4>
You have a special affinity for Africa. Why, and what is on the cards for you on the continent? 
Almost since the day Nelson Mandela left prison, I got very involved in Africa and one of the first things we did was put up a statue to [South Africa&#8217;s anti-apartheid activist] Steve Biko in East London [in South Africa’s Eastern Cape]. That was an incredible event with Nelson Mandela presiding over it. I have told quite a few of these stories in my latest book.
I have done quite a few things with Mandela, and Desmond Tutu, and Graça Michael and Kofi Annan, for things like The Elders and so on.
We are building a mobile phone company or financial services company, [then there’s] Virgin Active, Virgin Insurance…
But I suppose the thing I love the most is the bush. I spend a few days in Ulusaba [the reserve Branson owns], which was voted the best game lodge in Africa last year. And we love working on protecting species and wildlife. We also draw circles around any of our properties and try to help the communities within those circles, so quite a lot of our time and energy is spent on [work], for example, near Ulusaba, we set up quite a big clinic to make sure the people got anti-retroviral drugs, malaria tablets and TB tablets and were helped in other ways. We set up orphanages and small schools and so on.
Around our Virgin Active health clubs, we are doing similar things. Not for companies to draw circles around themselves, but to help the communities within those circles. Hopefully, one day all the circles will join up and most of the problems will be solved.
<div id="attachment_35453" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35453" class=" wp-image-35453" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Richard-Branson-with-Nelson-Mandela-on-the-creation-of-The-Elders-pic-courtesy-The-Elders-201x300.jpg" alt="Richard Branson Nelson Mandela The Elders" width="300" height="447" />Richard Branson with Nelson Mandela on the creation of The Elders (Picture courtesy of The Elders)</div>
Your most abiding memory of Mandela?
I was at his funeral and invited by the family to join them by the graveyard. The coffin had been put in. And then I saw one of his grandsons falling into the hole and I thought ‘why is everybody not reacting, everybody just looks very calm about it’ and I saw another grandson jump down in and I assumed he was going to rescue the first one and then another grandson jumped in and I had to turn to somebody on my left and ask, ‘are they okay’ and he said ‘oh, they are just putting personalized gifts on the coffin to send Madiba on his way’. Anyway, I felt pretty foolish after that.
When we did the original Steve Biko statue in East London, there was just myself and Peter Gabriel there who weren’t local. There must have been a 100,000 people in the crowd and Madiba was standing on a small stage with the other main African leaders. He was president at the time, and he made this incredible and impassionate speech trying to unite the country and all the people on stage. The politician in him was coming out as well as the philanthropist he had become and when he finished, I went up on stage and whispered to him and he then gestured Peter forward who then took the microphone from Mandela and sang the song Biko with all the 100,000 in the audience singing along with him. It was the most wonderful moment. And then the crowd rushed to the stage and the whole stage started collapsing and we only just got Mandela and everybody off just in time before the whole thing collapsed.
After all your visits here, what are your lessons for Africa’s youth?
Because of the Branson School of Entrepreneurship, I got to know lots of wonderful young people over the years, and I think Africans are natural entrepreneurs and need help and need encouragement. This morning [November 10], I was at this wonderful center, the GEN 22 On Sloane [a start-up campus in Johannesburg], where they are going to have a few hundred entrepreneurs working there and in fact, [we] may end up doing something there as well.
We spend a lot of time encouraging entrepreneurship in the UK as well and managed to encourage the government to start something – start-up loans – which is loans to help budding businesspeople. Britain is the only country doing it. And what we are trying to do is to encourage Africa to do the same thing&#8230; The other thing the government could do is to get out of business completely themselves, as best they can, and break up any businesses the government is doing into small units and get entrepreneurs to run them. And I think governments have got to encourage competition… and the most important role governments can play is break up monopolies in order to enable thousands and thousands of new jobs to be created by new businesses being started.
The fourth industrial revolution, AI, robotics… where do you see Africa headed? Do you have any investments in these sectors?
One area of AI that we are working with in Africa is with a wonderful foundation and they are trying to get 50,000 women in African villages to have an iPad each; they are not trained as doctors or fully-trained as nurses, but using that iPad, through the fact that thousands and thousands of women have used this iPad and every time they make an answer, it gets better and better and better, they can actually act almost as good as a doctor or a nurse by just asking questions and getting answers and then prescribing malaria tablets, or TB tablets, and even anti-retroviral drugs and so on. Obviously, with serious cases, they’ll refer them to a surgeon or doctor, but again, the tablet will show that. So that actually will create 50,000 jobs and definitely save a lot of lives.
If it works, it will cost about a dollar a person, for a pretty good health service. And that should be happening, they have already trained up to 7,000 and the idea is to go up to 50,000.
You own a wine estate in Cape Town, is that something you see your future in? 
Well, we need to be able to party as well and relax after all the hard work. We found Mont Rochelle and fell in love with it three or four years ago and felt we could turn it into one of the best vineyards in Africa. I think the team have done a great job and of course a lot of people who get to the bush want to come down to the Cape as well, so it’s nice they can stay in the Virgin family.
You started your entrepreneurial journey at the age of 16, any advice for innovators that young?
One of my books is called Screw It, Let’s Do It and I would just say follow that philosophy and give it a go. If you fall flat on your face, beat yourself up and do it again until you succeed.
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/richard-branson/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: FORBES&#8217; Profile On Richard Branson</a>
<div id="attachment_35449" style="width: 511px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35449" class=" wp-image-35449" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Richard-Branson-on-stage-with-Adrian-Gore-at-the-Business-is-an-Adventure-event-in-Johannesburg-in-2017-pic-supplied-e1519893950896-300x179.jpg" alt="Richard Branson Adrian Gore" width="501" height="299" />Richard Branson on stage with Discovery CEO Adrian Gore at the Business is an Adventure event in Johannesburg in 2017 (Picture supplied)</div>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Branson’s Ventures in sub-Saharan Africa</h1>
<ul>
<li>The Virgin Group operates 140 Virgin Active health clubs across southern Africa. More recently, it opened its first club in Botswana and a second in Namibia, a strong indication of the growth potential that exists in Africa for the group.</li>
<li>Virgin Active’s presence in South Africa came about following a request by Nelson Mandela to Richard Branson, asking him to help save the country’s Health &amp; Racquet Club chain, which was about to collapse. This resulted in Virgin acquiring the 76 Health &amp; Racquet Clubs in South Africa.</li>
<li>In South Africa’s Western Cape province, in the wine town of Franschhoek, Branson owns Mont Rochelle, a luxe hotel and vineyard an hour’s drive from Cape Town.</li>
<li>Mahali Mzuri is Branson’s safari lodge in Kenya, positioned within the Maasai Mara ecosystem.</li>
<li>The Virgin Limited Edition’s Ulusaba private game reserve in South Africa supports the local communities through a not-for-profit called Pride ’n Purpose, focusing on sustainable development initiatives and improving access to food, water and health services.</li>
<li>Elsewhere in Africa, projects include an investment in M-Kopa, focused on solar power in East Africa and primarily Kenya, helping families gain access to energy using solar technology at affordable prices.</li>
<li>In the financial services sector,Virgin Money has just launched a peer-to-peer payment service called Virgin Money Spot. The app allows customers to send money to friends in a simple, safe and social way.</li>
<li>The Virgin Group has recently invested in South African mobile software firm wiGroup.</li>
<li>Virgin has initiatives called Living Goods and Last Mile Health, aiming to have just under 50,000 digitally empowered community health workers across sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2021, reaching a total of 34.3 million people. This will be through a mixture of digital devices, including iPads.</li>
</ul>

The Shy Billionaire In Space

South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) is mired in a serious leadership crisis, and President Jacob Zuma faces an ignominious end to his political career. The 74-year-old has refused to take responsibility amid corruption and conspiracy charges. Having been <a href="https://theconversation.com/cyril-ramaphosa-prepares-to-confront-south-africas-bleak-future-89410" target="_blank" rel="noopener">replaced as party president by Cyril Ramaphosa</a> in December 2017, he faced the choice between resigning or taking his chances with a no-confidence vote in parliament. After days of mouting pressure, he <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43066443" target="_blank" rel="noopener">finally walked</a>.
The whole episode carries more than an echo of recent events in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where a bloodless military coup removed President Robert Mugabe but left his ruling ZANU-PF party in power, while the coup’s leaders were rewarded with cabinet posts.
The global public seems glued to every move in South Africa’s political drama. But is the attention actually warranted? Is the country really at one of its most momentous crossroads yet? That will only be clear with hindsight.
Perhaps Zuma’s removal will help transform South Africa’s political culture and regenerate the ANC, which is still stuck in its old anti-apartheid/Mandela mode. If it revives the ruling party and ends the era of old men clinging to power and acting with impunity, Zuma’s departure will be one of the great Rubicons in South Africa’s post-apartheid history.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/21/lessons-south-africas-jacob-zuma-robert-mugabes-misfortunes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Lessons for South Africa&#8217;s Jacob Zuma in Robert Mugabe&#8217;s misfortunes</a>
<h2>Falling short</h2>
Just before the 1994 elections, ANC activist <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/ns-interview-albie-sachs-lawyer-and-anti-apartheid-campaigner" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Albie Sachs</a> declared that the ANC had at best two terms in power to bring electricity and running water to the majority of South Africans and to address the inequality in educational, health and infrastructural services. Any longer, he said, and young South Africans would start to challenge its authority.
To give the party its due, what has been achieved is remarkable. It is easy to forget just how momentous the country’s problems were when the ANC took power in 1994. Given it started with one of the world’s largest gaps between the wealthy (at that time almost exclusively “white”) and the poor (almost exclusively of colour), post-apartheid South Africa has been tremendously successful in creating a stable and solid <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/178079/how-big-south-africas-black-middle-class-is-and-why-the-anc-are-concerned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">black middle class</a>.
The party had to try and refashion the country on all levels – political, economic, social, cultural – and in some ways, it has made great strides. While it has its many critics, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the late 1990s helped the nation start to move on from one of the most intense protracted experiences of racial discrimination in recent history.
But some of the deep problems apartheid wrought are anything but solved: millions <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/08/22/more-than-half-of-south-africans-living-in-poverty-stats-sa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">still live in poverty</a>, and levels of violent crime (notably sexual violence) are <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/south-africas-crime-statistics-201617/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strikingly high</a>. All the while, many among the ANC’s elite (not least Zuma himself) have conspicuously accrued tremendous wealth, and their extravagance has become a significant problem for the party’s legitimacy. But instead of cleaning house or changing its ways, the ANC has over and over again chosen to fall back on its victory against apartheid and the memory of its most famous member, Nelson Mandela.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/12/01/zuma-thief-must-voetsek/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: &#8216;Zuma The Thief Must Voetsek&#8217;</a>
<h2>Behind the figleaf</h2>
In 2013, a month before Mandela passed away, the South African High Commission in London hosted the exhibition “We Love Mandela”, which included a <a href="https://www.enca.com/life/mandela-portrayed-jesus-last-supper" target="_blank" rel="noopener">painting</a> by South African artist Simon Dean entitled “The Last Supper”. It portrays Mandela as Jesus, surrounded by an astonishing cadre of “disciples” – from Desmond Tutu, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.
This sort of Mandela-worship has been the party’s figleaf, and a useful device for silencing opposition, criticism, and calls for change. For far too long, it kept the party safe enough from electoral humiliation that Zuma remained secure in his office. But underneath it all, the political crisis that now confronts both the ANC and South Africa writ large has been brewing for years, and Zuma’s demise is long overdue.
To judge by the coverage outside South Africa, with the global public glued to every turn in this political drama, one might think Zuma’s demise had come from nowhere, and that it is guaranteed to change the country for good. But in reality, nothing new has come to light in some time. The latest investigation into his connections with corrupt interests began with <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2013-05-07-the-beginners-guide-to-the-guptas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exposés</a> by the South African Mail &amp; Guardian newspaper in 2013. Most of the assorted corruption charges against Zuma predate his presidency, as does the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/10/khwezi-woman-accused-jacob-zuma-south-african-president-aids-activist-fezekile-ntsukela-kuzwayo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">controversial rape case against him</a> in 2005-6.
Zuma’s presumptive successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/cyril-ramaphosa-prepares-to-confront-south-africas-bleak-future-89410" target="_blank" rel="noopener">is not exactly the embodiment of radical change</a>. But Ramaphosa will have the chance to finally seize the impetus for a true political transformation – to find a way of tackling poverty, violence and discrimination while reforming the ANC from top to bottom.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91873/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />Only if that happens will the end of Zuma really turn out to be the moment of transformation much of the world thinks it is guaranteed to be. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/heike-schmidt-444690" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heike Schmidt</a>, Associate Professor in Modern African History, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-reading-902">University of Reading</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.

Zuma’s time is up – but what does it mean for South Africa?

Oprah Keeping The Promise Made To Mandela

While Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and Desmond Tutu are rightly venerated for their role in opposing and ending white minority rule in South Africa, another leader of the liberation years has been remarkably overlooked: Bantu Steven Biko, who led the enormously influential <a href="http://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/sanov75.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Black Consciousness Movement</a>. Four decades after his death in police custody on September 12 1977, he deserves to be recognised as one of the towering heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Black Consciousness re-energised black opposition to apartheid and helped draw the world’s attention to the brutality of South Africa’s white minority rule. It began after the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sharpeville Massacre</a> in 1960, when established liberation movements such as the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) were banned by the South African government and forced into exile. With the organised opposition apparently moribund, the South African state presided over an economic boom for the white minority and created the conditions for apartheid’s so-called <a href="http://www.sadet.co.za/road_democracy_vol1.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">golden age</a>.
In 1969, with overt political activism and leadership largely dormant, Black Consciousness emerged from the South African Students’ Organisation to fill the void. Biko advocated that black liberation would only follow once psychological liberation from the internalised acceptance of racial oppression was achieved, <a href="http://www.sbf.org.za/home/index.php/steve-biko-quotes/">arguing</a> that “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”.
At its heart, Black Consciousness demanded pride, self-assertion, and self-confidence. Biko’s idea was that this would in turn stimulate a “revolution of the mind”, allowing oppressed peoples to overcome the racial inferiority <a href="http://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/sasep71.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">and fear</a> propagated by white racism so they could appreciate that they were not just “appendages to the white society”. This relatively simple idea radically changed perceptions of the struggle. It helped instill a new cultural and psychological outlook among the black population, and thereby renewed the challenge to the apartheid system.
Biko turned ideas into a potent new weapon, and the white minority state was slow to appreciate that the spread of ideas could not be contained by physical force alone. As a consequence, Biko was given a banning order in 1973, which confined him to King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape, and prevented him from speaking in public.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2016/12/01/steve-biko-still-alive/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">If Steve Biko Were Still Alive&#8230;</a>
In fact, as <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2253092.stm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nelson Mandela</a> put it, the apartheid state was so fearful of Biko’s influence that “they had to kill him to prolong the life of apartheid”.
In 1977, Biko was killed in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG5Zjt2SE28" target="_blank" rel="noopener">police custody</a> after brutal interrogation and torture. Despite a subsequent political <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/11/18/lawyer-alleges-coverup-on-biko-death/ee85b03e-b0de-4a17-ba4c-d68e0d0f6634/?utm_term=.c578f80a0310" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cover up</a>, the circumstances of his death were exposed, laying bare the violence of the apartheid state. His death led to greater international pressure against white minority rule, particularly via the global <a href="http://www.aamarchives.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anti-Apartheid Movement</a> and influential people such as white journalist and activist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/world/donald-woods-67-editor-and-apartheid-foe.html?mcubz=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Woods</a>, whose friendship with Biko was the subject of the 1987 film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq4VjE0_AVQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cry Freedom</a>.
<h2>Squeezed out</h2>
So why hasn’t Black Consciousness left as deep an institutional footprint as the ANC and its like? Part of the answer is that as a movement, it was relatively weak organisationally.
Beyond its activists’ community projects, Black Consciousness was never an effective or broad-based organisation; with most of its leaders imprisoned or banned by the mid-1970s, it was predominantly an intellectual movement confined to South Africa’s urban areas. As newly politicised South Africans variously joined and formed alternative organisations, it fragmented and began to lose influence. By 1977, it was deemed illegal under the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/apartheid-government-declares-19-organisations-unlawful" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Internal Security Act</a>, and Biko’s murder robbed it of its intellectual and political leader.
But the movement was long outlived by its ideology. Ideas are very difficult to extinguish, and they don’t necessarily need an institutional home to flourish. The “revolutionary consciousness” Biko called for enabled people to appreciate their subjugation, and to take action. It inspired the children of Soweto to protest against the imposition of Afrikaans in schools in 1976, resulting in <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an uprising</a> that caught the world’s attention and put the regime under more pressure than ever.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2012/08/01/the-struggle-continues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Struggle Continues</a>
In fact, Black Consciousness was a more powerful catalyst than the established liberation movements. It “freed” minds, revived and mobilised political opposition, and re-energised the declining ANC as militant young activists joined the exiled armed struggle.
Yet since the end of apartheid in 1994, the governing ANC has worked hard to <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2017-07-20-the-anc-has-captured-the-countrys-history/#.WZ2eGD6GOpo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">monopolise</a> the history of liberation. A plethora of groups including Black Consciousness, the <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/udf/origins.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">United Democratic Front</a>, the <a href="http://newafricanmagazine.com/sobukwes-unremembering/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PAC</a>, and student organisations were all involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, yet the ANC has worked to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/31/anc-centenary-airbrushing-history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">disregard</a> the efforts of alternative actors. To fully recognise the power and influence of Biko’s ideas would disrupt the ANC’s preferred version of history.
So even though Biko became a martyr for the anti-apartheid struggle in his day, he is too often left out of the story. The same goes for other figures who helped topple the system, especially those who worked outside the ANC. It’s long past time to properly celebrate these other elements of the struggle – of whom Steve Biko was surely among the strongest. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/matthew-graham-405047" target="_blank" rel="author noopener">Matthew Graham</a>, Lecturer in History, University of Dundee
Originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>
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Why is Steve Biko’s legacy often overlooked?

Amid conjecture, speculation and a sea of assumptions about a book – <a href="http://www.sundayworld.co.za/news/2017/07/25/mandelas-last-years-now-a-collectors-item" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Mandela’s Last Years”</a> – that most people have not been at liberty to read, including myself – it’s only fair and reasonable to raise a number of questions we hope will be addressed in the near future.
The book was released at bookstores throughout South Africa in <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-07-24-controversial-mandela-book-hits-the-shelves/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">late July</a>. The author, Dr Veejay Ramlakan, head of Mandela’s medical team, reportedly wrote the book to document the courage and strength of this global icon up to <a href="http://www.news24.com/Books/mandelas-last-years-in-the-bleak-midwinter-20170718" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the very end of his life</a>.
But, some family members &#8211; notably his widow <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/special-features/mandela/new-book-on-mandelas-last-days-angers-graa-10407174" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Graca Machel</a> &#8211; and executors of the Mandela estate, have publicly distanced themselves from the book. Machel also reportedly sought legal counsel. Objections have been raised about alleged breaches of confidentiality and disclosure of private information.
While the author claims that he wrote the book with the permission of a <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-07-21-family-members-gave-blessing-for-doctors-book-on-mandela-publisher/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">family member</a>, the identity of this member remains unknown. The publishers, in acknowledgement of respect for family unhappiness and threats of legal action, subsequently <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-07-25-mandela-book-withdrawn-after-outrage-from-widow" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">withdrew the book</a>.
Many questions remain about the content of this book. What was already in the public domain prior to publication? What new information was disclosed? Does the public have a legitimate interest in the alleged disclosures in the book?
Historically, many books have been written and published about public figures. Think of <a href="http://www.mkgandhi.org/bk123.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahatma Gandhi</a>, Diana, <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2013/0701/5-books-about-Diana-the-people-s-princess/Diana-by-Sarah-Bradford" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Princess of Wales</a>, and other prominent politicians, statesmen and leaders, including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/books/review/Ledgard-t.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nelson Mandela</a> himself. What is unique about this book is that it has been written by a medical doctor and anti-apartheid activist. And that it has been written about the last years of his patient and comrade who is also a global icon.
It’s not the first time that a medical professional has written about his life, work or patients. But most such works have been written with the subject being portrayed anonymously, or with consent – to adhere to the sacrosanct rules of professionalism that promote confidentiality around the doctor-patient relationship. In this case, however, it is clearly impossible to anonymise a story about someone as uniquely identifiable as Mandela.
One can only imagine that this dilemma must have created several competing conflicts of interest for the author based on competing loyalties. These include loyalty to a patient during his lifetime and posthumously (as enshrined in the <a href="https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-geneva/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Medical Association’s Declaration of Geneva</a>), his loyalty to the state as an employee of the <a href="http://www.dod.mil.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">South African Defence Force</a> and his personal right to freedom of expression. On the face of it, satisfying all these loyalties would have required a number of negotiations and engagements – with professional bodies, medical ethicists, the South African Defence Force as well as the next of kin and executors of Mandela’s estate. This is an assumption and so the extent to which this did or did not occur remains unclear at this point in time.
<div id="attachment_33054" style="width: 231px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33054" class=" wp-image-33054" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Mandela-book-196x300.jpg" alt="" width="221" height="338" />Photo supplied</div>
<h2>Family dynamics</h2>
Family dynamics are complex and challenging at the best of times in almost all families. This has been illustrated globally with the British Royal family, the Kennedys, Obamas, European monarchy and many others.
In Africa, the personal and public lives of leaders, statesmen and politicians have been widely discussed in the public media. When such disclosures, debates and publications are in the public interest, it’s often easily sanctioned by civil society. The public figures and their families accept such transparency as an integral part of public life.
In South Africa the complexity of family dynamics is increased in traditional cultures where individuals are embedded tightly within communal structures such as families and communities. In the context of such a communitarian ethic, value systems of families need to be explored. This is so because such value systems are linked to respect for family, elders and even ancestors. Respect for those who may exist in the afterlife is a strongly held value.
Hence one can assume a heightened sensitivity to literary works that may be perceived to dishonour not only the deceased but the family as well.
<h2>What the law says</h2>
Legally, journalism and authorship fall within the limits of contractual relationships. It is not uncommon for claims of defamation and invasion of privacy to arise in the setting of disclosure in literary media. This must often be balanced with rights to freedom of thought and expression which is constitutionally protected in South Africa.
Is it possible for claims of defamation or invasion of privacy to be raised on behalf of those who are no longer living? This falls out of my area of expertise and more directly in the realm of legal experts and publishers. One can only assume that such matters were discussed and that the publishers involved secured written consent from next of kin/executors and that this was included in any contractual arrangements with the author.
Evidently, this contentious book has focused attention on potential ethical and legal issues related to both the medical and literary worlds. Many questions remain unanswered and in keeping with the ethical principle of justice, judgement must be suspended until a detailed account of factual, objective content of the book is in the public domain. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/keymanthri-moodley-392813" target="_blank" rel="author noopener noreferrer">Keymanthri Moodley</a>, Director, The Centre for Medical Ethics &amp; Law, Stellenbosch University
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>
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Mandela’s Last Years: a narrative shrouded in conflict and assumption

Yvonne Malan still gets threats more than 13 years after a campaign for a posthumous degree for Bram Fischer. She fled her African home for England after the furore that brought down wrath that has left her looking over her shoulder for more than a decade.
In the early years of this century, Malan was a young researcher at Stellenbosch University, in the Western Cape. She nominated lawyer Fischer for an honorary law degree, saying it was long overdue.
Fischer was the leader of the legal team in the Rivonia Trial that saved Nelson Mandela from the gallows in 1964; he was vilified by his own people and suffered, for years, from cancer, in prison. When he died, not even his ashes were handed to his family. The apartheid authorities also tried to erase him from history; his image was banned until South Africa’s transition to democracy.
<blockquote>“As a kid, I saw an old history book with one of the pre-1994 photos with Fischer’s face whitened out. It was terrible, it really shocked me that you could just erase someone from history like that,” says Malan from London.</blockquote>
Malan is the grandchild of refugees who fled Nazi Germany in fear of their lives. Her family was all too aware of people being erased from history, she says.
Years into democracy, Malan nominated Fischer to the university’s council and honorary degrees committee. The nomination was accepted with mixed feelings. The university granted an honorary doctorate in law in 2004. It was received by his daughter Ilse Fischer.
But later, newspapers came out strongly against the degree, kicking off a campaign to have it revoked, says Malan.
“This was led by senior Naspers members, a regular columnist for the Naspers papers, a few apartheid-era National Party ministers and MPs, and the [alumni body]. Since they all knew there was no mechanism for the university to revoke the degree, they used the Naspers papers and what one Stellenbosch University academic described as ‘Stalinist tactics’ to attack Fischer as a person and myself as the nominator.”
Naspers refused to talk to FORBES AFRICA regarding the allegations.
This led to months of death threats and assaults. Attackers cracked her ribs and pushed her around. It forced her, after 300 days of chaos, to leave for Oxford, in 2005, to study. Thirteen years on, Malan still looks over her shoulder.
“As to why Afrikaners became so angry, many saw, and still see, Fischer as a volksveraaier (traitor to his people). Secondly, Naspers journos and certain Afrikaner historians proclaimed that Fischer wanted a race war/genocide in South Africa. They never cited any proof, and had they bothered to read Fischer’s remarkable statement from the dock, they would have known that he wanted to avoid violence. Still, many Naspers readers bought this lie and it played a big role in the so-called Fischer ‘debate’ spinning out of control. Thirdly, they claimed that, as a Communist, he was responsible for all the evils committed in the name of the ideology. And that Communism was far worse than apartheid,” says Malan.
In 2017, on a windy Wednesday morning, we follow the Fischer story to the Castle Of Good Hope, in Cape Town. FORBES AFRICA visits 84-year-old veteran, and one of South Africa’s struggle heroes, Denis Goldberg, who escaped the death sentence with Mandela through a defence led by Fischer. Goldberg was the prisoner who eased the last painful days of Fischer in jail.
Goldberg made a walking stick for him, which was confiscated because prison authorities thought it could be used as a weapon. Fischer spent his dying days in his prison bed with Goldberg at his side.
“Bram Fischer gets arrested, Bram Fischer defended us, he was often at Lilliesleaf (a farm used as an underground hideout in Johannesburg), and the farm workers at Lilliesleaf knew him. And then it was strange seeing a man arrive in his beautiful car, his beautiful hat, suit, tie, and briefcase – the perfect life – come to the headquarters of uMkhonto we Sizwe with geese at the farm. But Bram, being a country boy, just walked through them,” he recalls.
<div id="attachment_32738" style="width: 234px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32738" class="size-medium wp-image-32738" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Bram-Fischer-01-224x300.jpg" alt="Bram Fischer" width="224" height="300" />Bram Fischer (Photo by Jacana Media archives)</div>
The Rivonia Trial could have seen Fischer also facing the death penalty. During the trial, the prosecutor presented documents which had Fischer’s fingerprints, along with prints of other members of the Communist Party, and a letter in Fischer’s handwriting.
“The prosecutor said, ‘There is a document here, that if we knew who the author was, he would be on trial with the accused too.’ while looking at Fischer, because they knew it was his writing,” says Goldberg.
“But they didn’t want to arrest him, so Bram played this political game with them to defend us. I believe by his very careful work and careful understanding of his politics, of what we were doing, was able to convince the judge that while we were talking about an armed uprising, we’d not made that decision, and that was a key moment in that trial.”
With the help of Fischer’s argument in court, the judge gave the accused a life sentence for sabotage instead of death.
“My mother calls up to me and asked what it is. I told her its life, life is wonderful,” laughs Goldberg.
In the end, years later, the authorities got Fischer. They charged him for forging a driver’s license and using a false name and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
“In prison he was absolutely strong. As he develops cancer, he becomes very ill. He was very unhappy that the accused could see that he wasn’t well because Fischer didn’t want to burden anyone with his problems,” says Goldberg.
Fischer was worried about everyone but himself, recalls his cell mate.
<blockquote>“He just wouldn’t show, he wouldn’t show pain, he wouldn’t show pain,” he says.</blockquote>
Fischer eventually got treatment, but it was too late.
Today he is remembered with the Bram Fischer International Airport in Bloemfontein and a play by Harry Kalmer called Bram Fischer Waltz. Plus a disputed honorary degree at Stellenbosch.

The Painful Price Of Courage

We meet Dikgang Moseneke exactly three years after Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013. Dikgang, the retired deputy chief justice and the executor of Mandela’s will, is in a pink Polo golf-shirt, navy chinos and matching loafers; reclining in a floral sofa in his home study in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital city. It may be three years after Mandela passed away, but Moseneke shows deep emotion as he relives the day the man, who mentored him on Robben Island, left him.
Upon entering Moseneke’s home, two large portraits of Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, the founding president of the Pan Africanist Congress and a fellow Robben Island prisoner, greet you. On the day Mandela passed on, Moseneke was at a year-end dinner for judges and his phone was off.
“Towards the end of the dinner I switched on my phone. There were these several messages from Mama Graca Machel (his wife) and Bongi Mkhabela (CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund), and they were all saying ‘Tata is gasping. You have to be here.’ I ran out of the dinner to [Mandela’s] house in Houghton. And the old man had just surrendered, he had just passed on. And Mama Graca was seated there crying and on the side was [Mandela’s daughter] Makaziwe. It was terrible. It was like a father who had passed on. I have my own father of course, but he was a father on Robben Island,” he says.
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Politics brought them together a lifetime ago. By the age of 13, in high school, Moseneke, born in Atteridgeville, a township near Pretoria, was engrossed in the African Students Union of South Africa (ASUSA) and later the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). It was a risky passion under apartheid.
“Our headmaster at Banareng (Primary School), Mr Ramopo, had related to us the fables of James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey, a champion of African nationalism, and in 1960 I had been horrified by the Sharpeville (massacre) corpses I had seen on the pages of the newspapers we read daily,” he says.
The headmaster had planted a seed in young minds.
“I hated oppression. I hated the difference and I still hate it now. I dedicated my life in trying to advance equality, to get African people out of bondage, out of oppression. The fact that we have failed to do it now makes me angry. Too few of us have come out of that terrible economic situation for African people. Even then, when I was growing up, I could see the differences between the suburbs and townships, the lawn and the dust, differences in our schools, we had great teachers but the facilities were inferior. Young people have a deep sense of what’s right and wrong.”
It was at the crack of dawn, in March 1963, when Moseneke was at the mercy of a dozen rough policemen who kicked open his front door, ransacked the house and took him away.
“Mercifully, they missed all the banned literature and leaflets that were meant to rouse the populace into a revolt that morning. I froze with fear, but I didn’t cry… They cuffed my arms behind my body. I was under arrest for terrorism, they told my crying mother, but they were not permitted to tell where I would be kept. They blindfolded me and we sped off into the darkness,” Moseneke says.
He faced a gruelling trial on charges of sabotage and treason, and spent nearly a year in solitary confinement in a Pretoria prison.
In July 1963, in the winter rain and piercing wind, Moseneke paid the price for his principles when the guilty verdict came out. The 15-year-old Moseneke and other political prisoners were chained in pairs and cramped in the back of a police van all the way from Pretoria to Cape Town, where they were ferried to Robben Island. In oversized prison clothes, he started a 10-year sentence.
Despite Moseneke’s group affiliating to the PAC, a breakaway of Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), senior prisoners from the ANC and other banned political formations took the youngsters under their wing. Between toiling in the prison quarry, Moseneke studied English, political science and law through the University of South Africa. He co-founded the Makana Football Association, a prison league.
On the day he was released in 1973, grinning policemen came to his home and told him he was banned for another five years. This meant he was on curfew and couldn’t mix with more than one person at a time.
Mandela remained in prison but the bond between the two was strengthened.
“In fact, I went to see Mandela in Victor Verster Prison before he was released. I did a lot of assignments for him, very critical assignments in his life. And he relied on me in a variety of fronts; for example Mandela asking me to write the interim Constitution.”
Upon retirement in 2016, Moseneke published a book called My Own Liberator: A Memoir, in which he talks of his political rite of passage and time with Mandela.
“I have a chapter in the book where he says ‘Dikgang, I am glad I have found you’. He traced me down to the Kruger National Park, I was in the Malelane Lodge, hiding, and he said ‘Well, Dikgang I am glad I found you, you must come and run the elections’, so I became the deputy of the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission). I made it quite clear I was not going to run for a political office. I am going to become a lawyer, and possibly a judge, but not a political leader.”
Indeed, Moseneke was true to his word. He stayed as a lawyer. Moseneke and George Bizos, the lawyer that defended Mandela in the Rivonia Trial, represented Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, his ex-wife, when she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, for the abduction and murder of a 14-year-old Stompie Seipei. Moseneke was on Mandela’s defence team when he divorced Madikizela-Mandela in 1996. Madikizela-Mandela hired Moseneke when she was fired by Mandela in Parliament for visiting Ghana without permission.
“I won that case against him. Winnie was reinstated. But that didn’t tear us apart, it got us even closer. When the Mandela Children’s Fund was formed, he asked me to chair it, which I did for 16 years non-stop. It was one of his first loves, the children. That’s why we opened the hospital which was conceived under my leadership, and Bongi Mkhabela ran with it. I retired from the Children’s Fund and allowed for a new leader. Otherwise, I would have been like President Mugabe and stayed on forever.”
“This day, I am still the executor of the will. Mandela said: ‘Dikgang will you look after me when I am not here?’ It was big ask, from a big man. I said ‘yes Tata’.”
Moseneke is one man who can say he was close to three South African presidents but he cannot be accused of being a lackey to the powerful.
When Thabo Mbeki took over from Mandela in 1999, he appointed Moseneke to be the judge of the Constitutional Court and as Deputy Chief Justice, in 2005, a position he retired in.
“He asked me to go to Zimbabwe to monitor the (2002) elections; I wrote a report which Mbeki didn’t quite like. It wasn’t made public until the courts ordered that it be revealed. I said the elections weren’t free and fair. Even though we were close but he came to know that Moseneke was independent,” says Moseneke.
Mbeki, who wrote the foreword for his book, had told Moseneke if he had not been recalled in 2007, he would have made him the chief justice.
“Our world view has a lot in common, he’s by and large an Africanist, he believes in African renaissance and the greatness of African people, and the need for them to rise again. I believe in the

The Young Rebel With A Cause That Shone Through Tears  And Violence

For 96 years, Richard Maponya has been battering down barriers of prejudice and proving that a black man can do anything.
His journey began in the dusty streets of Lenyenye, a township in the Limpopo province of northern South Africa, where he was born. He moved to Polokwane, where missionaries trained him as a teacher. With a qualification under his belt, he moved to Johannesburg, in 1948, in search of a teaching post and greener pastures. This was during the early days of apartheid and it wasn’t easy for a black man to do anything.
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“Back in those days, you had to register your presence if you moved to a new area. I had moved to Alexandra township and I went to the pass office to register,” says Maponya.
There, he found an Afrikaner man looking for people to work at his potato farm in Delmas, 65 kilometers north east of Johannesburg. Little did he know he was going out of the frying pan into the fire.
“He asked for my documents, looked at my pass and all my documents and said ‘this boy would fit in well with the group I am looking for’. I told him I was there to just register in the new area but he took my pass, paged it and he spoke in Afrikaans with another gentlemen with him and said ‘this man is 28 years old’… He took my pass and altered my birth year from 1920 to 1926. He also took my birth certificate and never brought it back to me. I think he wanted a group of people who were about 20 to 22 years old or so.”
On that day, Maponya lost his identity forever.
“I have employed lawyers to fix that but even in the archives of our government, they don’t have any records, so I walk as a man everyone thinks was born in 1926 yet I was born in 1920. This is one thing I never talk about, you are the first journalist I’ve ever disclosed this to,” he says as he reveals the pain of his past.
Like the bags of potatoes they were going to carry, Maponya and a group of young black men were loaded in a truck and taken to the fields to work.
“During those days, black people were terribly ill-treated. We had no rights whatsoever; I was lucky my uncle worked for a liberal Englishman who rescued me from being abused while digging and loading potatoes. They gave me a small job of washing dishes and my uncle’s boss came to pick me up a week later… I stayed with him for a few days and then went back to Alexandra.”
As we meet, 69 years later, Maponya has swapped his matchbox room in Alexandra for five mansions in Africa’s richest square mile, Sandton. When we compliment his beautiful Victorian-style home, he says, “Have you ever been to my other homes?”
It is hard work, smart decisions and some laughs, like this, that have helped him make millions. Even though he is suffering from flu, he talks to us.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4575" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dr-Richard-Maponya-Tata-Nelson-Mandela-Ms-Nomvula-Mokonyane-218x300.jpg" alt="" width="218" height="300" />
Maponya’s journey into entrepreneurship began 70 years ago when South Africa was no country for budding black entrepreneurs. The tough times steeled him for his long journey to become a legendary businessman.
Rattling along in the back of the potato truck, he never thought of a life in retail but then came an interview for a job in a department store.
“They were offering me more money than a teaching post would and the gentleman who interviewed me liked me from the word go,” he says.
Even more money was coming his way. Within months, he was promoted to a fashion buyer for the store. His boss, Mr Bolton, a kind and intelligent businessman, he says, taught him about fabrics, how to select clothes, and customer service. The two worked hand-in-glove for three years; turnover increased and Bolton was promoted to CEO of the group in 1951. Maponya thought he had struck gold.
“When he got promoted, he called me to his office and thanked me for helping him reach that point. He said ‘unfortunately I can’t promote you because you have a ceiling over your head, you cannot oversee white people. All I can do is maybe make you baas boy but that doesn’t really help you with anything,’” says Maponya.
The dapper looking 31-year-old Maponya nodded his head and muttered a courteous response, expecting little else to follow.
“I was very surprised because Mr Bolton continued to speak. He said ‘I am going to let you buy clothing samples here so that you can sell them after hours and on weekends so you can make a bit of money’.”
And he did. Before long, Maponya began to recognize the budding businessman in himself. His after hours hustle paid off.
“I realized people didn’t have money to buy upfront and I started a wear and pay system and it worked so well. People would take clothes and pay for them at month end and I was making a lot of money,” he says.
After a year of good business, Bolton was diagnosed with a brain tumour and was forced to retire. With him, he took Maponya’s business.
“The person who took over from him didn’t want to hear anything about it. He redirected the stock they gave me and gave it to Indian hawkers.”
It was a blessing in disguise. Maponya was angry. To be big, Maponya thought he had to risk big. He resigned from his job to pursue the uncertain world of entrepreneurship. He started buying clothing from wholesalers. The business flourished.
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Maponya applied for a trading license for a shop in one of South Africa’s biggest townships, Soweto, but was turned down. He went to Mandela and Tambo, a law firm run by South Africa’s struggle heroes Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. At the time, it was the only black-owned law firm in the country.
“Nelson was still a very powerful speaker. He was so powerful that, I would say, he could say to a mountain, move and it would move. They fought for my license but we didn’t succeed in getting a clothing store. But, they got me a license to trade daily necessities,” says Maponya.
At the time, there was no milk delivery in Soweto. There was also no electricity for fridges, so people bought milk for the day. Maponya saw a gap.
“I was shocked. People ate breakfast with milk everyday but had no place to buy close to them. I opened a little dairy there. I started with 10 boys cycling the neighborhood on bicycles everyday selling milk, cash, door to door.”
It was from these humble beginnings that his empire grew. The business moved extremely fast from 10 to 100 men cycling and selling for him; then, big business woke up.
“Clover saw the potential of selling milk in the townships and they started coming with big trucks to sell. They took the bulk of my clients and I realized I couldn’t compete with them,” says Maponya.
With the wisdom of knowing when to let go, Maponya gave up the milk-selling business for Maponya’s Supply Stores, a backstreet store that grew into a massive retail empire that was to make him a household name.
“I started with a butchery, then a fruit and vegetable store, and then a grocery store with two tables inside where we sold cooked food,” he says.
Maponya’s Supply Stores expanded across Soweto.  Growth meant problems.
“I struggled with getting the right people to manage the stores. The only stores where people were making profit are the ones where my wife and I were operating. The other stores would break even or run at a loss.”
It became frustrating, again, he knew he had to let go.
He closed the stores he and his wife couldn’t manage. This encouraged him to look for other opportunities. There was a long list because there were no services in the township. So, he built Mountain Motors, the second black-owned garage in Soweto.
“It surprised everybody. Some say it was the biggest in the southern hemisphere. We were selling petrol in an unbelievable manner. We were getting support from every black person in Soweto. We were selling over a million liters per month,” he says with a smile.
Mountain Motors became the first black-owned garage to have a motor vehicle dealership. Like all his other businesses, it took off.
“Later on, I was invited by BMW to take over a dealership in Soweto. That made history. I would get orders from people from America. It was history that a black man would sell cars those days… I would get an allocation of about 30 cars per month and I would sell all of them in a week… I would borrow cars from other dealers and sell three times my allocation per month,” he says.
It meant, when new stock arrived, he would return the cars he borrowed and would spend two months without stock. He tried and failed to get his allocation of cars increased. Paying staff, when there were no cars to sell, was hard.
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“As an entrepreneur, you should always know when you have made money and the business won’t be worth your energy anymore. It doesn’t mean it has failed, it means you have dug everything you can from it and it is time for something new that may make you more money,” says Maponya.
Again, following his own advice, he closed down the motor business and went on the hunt for a new venture. It ushered in some of his worst days in business.
“I applied for a casino license. I qualified for everything they required [besides the skin color] because it was still during apartheid. When we went for an interview, they asked me if I have R10 million, a lot of money at the time, and I told them I don’t have it in my pocket but I can make means… they said its either you give it now or lose the license… the licence was awarded to white brothers. This is a frustrating and terrible thing I chased and never succeeded.”
As painful as it was, Maponya used his canny and shrewd characteristics to go after his lifelong dream – a world-class shopping mall in the heart of Soweto. It took him 27 years of sweat, court applications and fundraising.
“You won’t believe it if I tell you I started building it on the 28th year… I even went to Parliament to make a presentation but I kept being turned down… They said the people of Soweto would never support a mall in Soweto because they want to shop in the city where there are brighter lights and I told them it’s not true… I have been fighting and fighting but I said as long as they don’t put a bullet on my forehead I won’t stop,” he says closing his eyes to emphasize his point.
In 1979, Maponya acquired land for the mall, in Soweto, on  a 100-year lease and, in 1994, the year South Africa got its independence, after several attempts, he acquired it outright. But the battle was only just beginning.
Various attempts to finance construction failed, until Maponya’s holding company entered into a joint venture with Zenprop Property Holdings. The sweat and pain paid off and on September 27, 2007, Nelson Mandela, the man who had been in prison for as long as it took Maponya to build the mall, cut the red ribbon to open Maponya Mall.
“It was the highlight of my entire life. It was a tough exercise to get money. I could have met about half of that but I needed help. To see this come to life made all the pain I have ever gone through in business worth it,” he says.
Today, the R650-million ($48.7-million) mall has more than 200 stores and a cinema; it is also one of the largest shopping centers in South Africa and one of the growing Johannesburg attractions.
“I am very proud of the mall. It can stand anywhere in the world and compete. I am proud I have built something for the people of Soweto because I have always wanted it to be an economic hub.”
A world-class mall was not the end, merely a milestone. The Maponya Group is also in the poultry industry. They count Pick n Pay and 24 hospitals, in Gauteng, the province of Johannesburg, among their customers for eggs. They also grow vegetables.
Maponya still has filling stations. He also intends to build another mall in Soweto. Maponya Group’s ventures also include property development, horse racing, retail, automotive sales and liquor.
“I wasn’t born to be an entrepreneur, I learned to be one. I don’t think anyone is born to be an entrepreneur, you learn. I looked at the young boys of my age, when I was young, managing their father’s businesses and I had to go and say ‘baas’ to small boys like that? No, I was not going to allow it. I told myself I am going to create a business for myself and also create jobs like they do,” says Maponya.
While this unfair advantage inspired him, he was also inspired by many black small businessmen; among them was the late Richard Baloyi.
“When I was staying in Alexandra, Baloyi was the only richest black man I had ever known. He owned buses. That man inspired me, he was my role model. When I looked at him, I said ‘I want to be rich like that man, one day I will be richer than that man and indeed I did it. If he was still alive, he would shake my hand and say ‘boy you have done it’.”
Maponya’s success has earned him many friends. Apart from being married to Mandela’s cousin, Marina, he calls Mandela, his lawyer back in the early 1950s, his greatest friend.
“Mandela asked me to pick him up at the airport when he was released from prison because he knew I owned a car dealership. I picked him up at the airport and that was the most frightening time of my life. We were chased by people on foot, helicopters, motorbikes and cars. Everyone just wanted to touch Mandela. They could kill him just trying to touch him,” he says.
According to Maponya, Mandela was scheduled to sleep at one of Maponya’s houses in Sandton but there wasn’t enough security. They booked a place to sleep for the night. He says the most frightening part was when he drove Mandela to FNB Stadium, in Soweto, the next day. People were streaming from all areas for a chance to meet him. The stadium was packed.
“We managed to go in but coming out was a nightmare. There were more people outside than inside. We realized they will squash us and never allow the car to move.”
Mandela was picked up by a helicopter bound for Orlando Stadium, where there was another crowd waiting.
“When we were on our way to Orlando Stadium, we could see all the people from FNB Stadium running to Orlando Stadium.”
“I drove him after that to a few meetings but I realized I can’t cope with his schedule… I gave him a BMW 7 Series as a gift and a driver who drove Mandela from that time until he died,” he says.
To top that, Maponya has dined with the Queen and calls Bill Clinton and the Oppenheimers friends.
At this time of his life, Maponya has a lot to be proud of but still has more up his sleeve.
“I am 96 years old now and I am not going to retire. The day I retire would be the day you say to me ‘lala kahle’ (rest in peace), then that would be my retirement. I would know I have done my piece. People who retire are lazy people. You retire and do what? Bask in the sun? I am not that type of a man,” he says.
Mentoring young people is a big part of Maponya’s life. Monalisa Sam says she was lucky to be mentored by Maponya. The two crossed paths when Sam was a general manager for Maponya Mall Property Trust in 2007. A friendship was forged in the two years she worked there, before she left to co-found Tungwa Retail Holdings in 2011, a company run by black women.
“Mr Maponya has been such a big part of my journey. I think he is probably one of the most underrated elders in business in the sense that young people don’t know the lessons they can learn from him. There is so much pressure on achievement and success that we forget to build a legacy which is what Maponya did. His life story is so important for young people in business,” says Sam.
You have to admire Maponya for doing what many can’t. He could have chosen the easier path instead of pushing his way into business in a white man’s world. Easier still would have been to stick with what he was trained to do – and teach.
Maponya has been the first in many things, but this is not the last we will hear of him.

‘As Long As They Don’t Put A Bullet On My Forehead  I Won’t Stop’

It’s a Thursday afternoon in November, with the summer sun baking the pavements, and everything in sight. Being a weekday, South Africa’s famous Vilakazi Street, home to two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, in Orlando West, in the historic township of Soweto, is not too busy – there are fewer tourists compared to the usual.
I am looking down the linear street, no more than a kilometer, filled with history, craft and commerce, not to mention an assortment of tourists.
It’s a far cry from the street it was in the apartheid days, days before its most-famous resident, Nelson Mandela, was whisked off to prison for 27 years. His home here, number 8115 or Mandela House, which he said is marked with an ‘X’ in his mental geography, is a museum now, the street’s biggest draw. Mandela had returned to this house when he was released from prison in 1990.
Vilakazi’s other famous resident was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel prize-winning social rights activist who also opposed apartheid.
I strap the camera around my neck, put on my sunglasses and become a tourist, walking from one end to the other exploring the street; it almost feels like I am not in Soweto, this is one of Africa’s world-renowned pieces of real estate.
It takes me less than a minute before I see an urban building to my left, The Box Shop, a shop created primarily for locals but with international tourists streaming in and out.
Launched as a fashion store in 2015 employing about 11 staff, it has extended its retail offerings to furniture and food – mouth-watering delicacies such as mogodu (lamb or beef tripe).
Sifiso Moyo, marketing director of The Box Shop, is one of the store’s four founders who decided to open the store on Vilakazi Street.
“It was a combination of things that made us pursue Vilakazi, we looked at the Gauteng government mandate in terms of revitalizing townships, so we looked at how we are going to align ourselves with that strategy and contribute positively to the dream of township revitalization,” says Moyo.
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I walk again for three minutes, and stop, as I see a gentleman with a snake around his neck. I step closer to make sure I am not imagining things.
It is a snake, a real one, a Red Tail Boa. After introducing myself to the gentleman, he directs me to the house to meet his mother, Lindiwe Mngomezulu.
Her business is offering tourists the Soweto Live Snakes Show. The inspiration for it came when she joined a snake club in Edenvale, east of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Her daughter, Lwandle, had forced her mother to part with R5 to see snakes at the Soweto Arts Festival. Curious, Mngomezulu asked how they could join the club. They were told to visit on Saturdays.
“Love. I wouldn’t have them [the snakes] without love. But the business started when my daughter was seven years old, when she first held a snake. As a mother, I gave her support; wherever she wanted to go where there was snakes, I took her, only to find that I have an interest too,” says Mngomezulu.
I am speaking to Mngomezulu in her living room, which is almost like a mini-zoo – to my right is a monkey, behind me, a parrot, and next to her, a hedgehog. I am a little uneasy knowing there are pythons in the next room, which was once one of the bedrooms in the small home.
The mother and daughter started volunteering at the snake club cleaning the enclosures of 300 reptiles including crocodiles; shortly after, by 2009, they were bringing snakes to the township for snake shows, so it could generate revenue for them. At first, business wasn’t good because they didn’t know how to charge, but worst of all, the community was not in agreement with the idea of snakes in their township as they thought the mother-daughter duo were practicing witchcraft.
“The entrance fee was R5, we didn’t know what we were doing, and people were scared,” says Mngomezulu.
Not long after, Mngomezulu bought her daughter her first pet, a Corn snake, and called it Pikinini because it was small. But the fact remained; they were not making money and had to return the borrowed snakes to the club.
That was when Mngomezulu decided to buy her own snakes to start her own mini snake park. After the Corn snake, it was twin pythons and a boa.
During the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Mngomezulu went back to the club and borrowed snakes for a show in Soweto, the day of the final game, which drew visitors from all over the world. This time, she made wads of cash, enough to share with the club.
Sadly, in 2013, three of Mngomezulu’s snakes died because of pneumonia. Her four-roomed house in Vilakazi Street wasn’t warm enough for the snakes.
Today, thankfully, business is okay, and Mngomezulu can more than afford a loaf of bread. She is now extending her house to accommodate more snakes and tourists. The entrance fee is worth it. People come in to touch the snakes and pose with them for photos.
“Our show is not just a show, it’s an educational show, we educate you about the snakes we have, because I take care of them, we grow them, train them. They are used to cameras, noise and people,” says Mngomezulu.
Not only does she make money on Vilakazi Street, she also has her snakes starring in films and the small screen, namely a South African TV show shot in 2015 titled Ngempela.
Although her show also includes her other pets: a monkey, parrot, bearded dragon lizard, hedgehog and a yellow anaconda, Mngomezulu says the fear of snakes can drive people away.
“When one stands at the gate and fears going in, others get scared too,” she says. The tour guides are also an issue; they don’t spend time at the Soweto Live Snakes Show which affects her business.
I don’t get to watch the show, so I move on to the house next door, a space selling art.
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Thamaga Montjane is CEO of JHTCE (Joining Hands To Create Employment). He says the challenges he faces are people going only to one end of Vilakazi Street and not going further up – to this spot where his shop is.
I can relate to it. As I was walking towards Mandela House, I could see more action – more cars, more color, more tourists thronging the stalls there – than here, by Montjane’s shop.
I speak to one of the vendors a few feet from Mandela House. Bongane Ngcobo sells t-shirts, caps and African art. An entrepreneur in his own right, he says he makes about R4,000 ($282) on a good day and about R200 ($14) when it’s not so good.
As I stroll further down, the street is getting busier. I am drawn to a group of idling youngsters outside an art gallery named Shova Lifestyle Origin.
Thabo Modise, the owner here, started off selling t-shirts in the streets of Soweto; now he owns the gallery and the boutique next to it.
“It is a lifestyle boutique, where we have local fashion designers showing their work and we have a gallery for locals to do the same,” says Modise. He is an entrepreneurial success on Vilakazi Street.
The ambience of the street gets more vibrant as the afternoon progresses. I go across the road from the gallery, to Sakhumzi; a popular restaurant in Soweto, right next door to Tutu’s house. I step in to speak to a few tourists gulping down drinks and South African food.
“It feels awesome being here, we went to the Mandela museum and it was great, proper energy, real place,” says Tavis Wright, a tourist from England.
Lorenzo Grifantini, a tourist from Italy, says there is life and movement in the street and the people look happy.
Not too far from where I am seated at the restaurant, I spot more tourists savoring the local food.
“I didn’t expect a vibrant and classy restaurant like this here, I’m really surprised and I’m loving the food. I had tripe, it was very delicious,” says Adrian Seigs, also a tourist from Europe.
At the end of Vilakazi Street is Kwa Lichaba, a busy car wash corner on the opposite side.
Eventually, what was meant to be a 10-minute walk for me with my camera, turned out to be an hour-long expedition.
On the journey, I learned that the street boasts more South African tourists than foreigners and that hawkers could possibly make more money on a daily basis than a business with a counter, cash register, tables and a door.
As I look at the street again, I think of Benedict Wallet Vilakazi, the South African Zulu poet, author and linguist who died in 1947, and after who the street is named.
Little did he know that school children would be fighting for education on that street, that Winnie, the former ANC Women’s League president and ex-wife of Mandela, would be arrested on that very street, that Nobel accolades would arrive all the way from Sweden to this street in Soweto, or that today Vilakazi Street is more about preserving history – and making money off it.

Vilakazi-Str-043

Pythons And  Peacemakers Down Vilakazi Street

Africa has had its fair share of great leaders, like Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah. However, political power in Africa is often seen as an easy path to become wealthy. Too often, cronyism and patronage oil the wheels of governments, ensuring that corruption goes unpunished and impunity reigns. Enter Tanzania’s President John Magufuli, who is defying all the purportedly accepted norms of African leadership.
Magufuli wasted no time in implementing his campaign promises, quickly living up to his nickname &#8211; the Bulldozer. Tanzanians first felt the effect of his fresh leadership when he ordered the funds for their extravagant Independence Day celebrations be redirected to buy much-needed beds for public hospitals, immediately gaining him worldwide admiration.
His firm stance on fighting corruption, his introduction of severe austerity measures, and his seemingly aggressive development agenda, have earned him accolades. The United Nations Economic and Social Council recently named him the World’s Best President.
With just one year in office, Magufuli has amalgamated several ministries, downsizing his cabinet from 30 members to 19. He has banned the purchase of first class air tickets for ministers, and government meetings and conferences are now held in state buildings rather than high-end hotels. To the dismay of senior officials, he auctioned off their luxury cars, seen as both a right and a necessity, with the generated income being channeled into public services. He has also banned any future purchase of such vehicles.
“The president’s approach so far has been commendable and his battle with corruption impeccable. I think he will sustain his current style and won’t be putting his guns down anytime soon,” says Nicodemus Minde, a Tanzanian political analyst.
By channeling resources back into Tanzania’s economy, Magufuli’s austerity measures have been lauded and the impact is already being felt. His somewhat autocratic style is facilitated by the powers allocated to the Tanzanian Presidency. These allow him to appoint and dismiss officials, and to leverage state security apparatus to flush out and punish corruption and economic crime. He has pledged to double development spending, funded by cutting government wastage, which may enable economic gains to trickle down.
Although a chemical engineer by profession, Magufuli is not new to politics. He has been an active member of parliament for two decades, heading various ministries throughout his tenure. His radical, yet effective, methods of governance set an example for transparency, good governance and strict control of government spending. Tanzanians have grown to love his style, while citizens of neighboring nations look on enviously, hoping their leaders will take a leaf from his pragmatic book.
Ali Mufuruki, Chairman and CEO at InfoTech Investment Group, describes Magufuli’s style as steadfast.
“He has demonstrated a unique kind of consistency, an undiminishing stamina and an unswerving steadiness in his fight against the vices of corruption, abuse of office and waste of public resources.”
While Magufuli’s first year in office has been impressive, it remains to be seen whether this will translate into more economic growth, given that Tanzania was already growing by 7.9% in the second quarter of 2016. His success so far has been met with skepticism in some quarters, with some pundits warning that celebrations may be premature.
Magufuli has taken up the challenge of transforming his developing nation into a world-class economy and shown a willingness to challenge the long-standing negative views about African leadership. Years from now, Magufuli’s name might be mentioned alongside Mandela and Nkrumah.

The Bulldozer Crushing Corruption

Any visitor to Palestine is guaranteed a few things. Delicious deep-fried balls of ground chickpeas inside pita bread, the call of the muezzin five times a day, a permeating strong smell of black coffee through a cacophony of hooting cars and shouting in Arabic. And getting lost.
Driving, especially through the bustling streets of the de facto capital Ramallah, is a nightmare. Not because the roads are particularly unsafe but because assistance comes in the form of no street names, no street signs and no house numbers. A colleague of mine spent the better part of a year paying the wrong electricity bill because, well, he couldn’t read Arabic and the bill kept arriving under his door. It turned out to be for another apartment in another street – neither his street nor apartment were named or numbered!
Only in the last seven years, following the Ramallah centenary celebrations, have street names caught on in the growing metropolis. Yasser Arafat, former chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, now has his square and dozens of Palestinian fighters have their streets. The criteria are simple – heroes, places and ideas supported by the Palestinian people.
So it’s no surprise that South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela has been given his spot – if anything, the  surprise is that it took so long. But residents say it was worth waiting for. The east of the city is now nestled in the shadow of Madiba’s towering figure – a six-meter, two-ton bronze statue with right fist raised.
The statue is the first of its kind outside South Africa and took artists Christina Salvodi, Lungisa Khala and Tanya Lee seven months to create – and another 30 days to get through Israeli customs. But that’s nothing, muses Ramallah’s Mayor Mussa Hadid, compared to the 27 years Mandela spent in prison.
“The erection of Mandela’s sculpture in Ramallah carries a symbolic significance,” he says. “Mandela was an international symbol of peace and a torch to people striving for freedom and liberty.”
A staunch supporter of the Palestinian struggle against Israel, Mandela once declared that, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” It’s a view he repeated after warmly embracing Arafat in their first meeting in Zambia after his release in 1990.
“Like us, he is fighting against a unique form of colonization,” Mandela said of the Palestinian leader at the time, “and we wish him success in his struggle.”
Mandela is revered across the Arab and Palestinian world. The square now boasting his name is in a quiet part of the city and traffic here slows down to circle around his statue so drivers can get a good glance – looking upwards – of their hero. If you stand on tiptoes it’s almost possible to reach up high enough to touch his left hand.
Mamoun, a 19-year-old engineering student who lives not far from the now aptly renamed Mandela Square, exclaims, “He is our hero and it’s only right that a man who stood for the fight against oppression, now stands tall and proud in our city!”
Amira is another Ramallah resident who believes the square bearing Mandela’s name will become a major tourist attraction in her city.
“I am so excited that we have our own Mandela in Ramallah now,” she smiles. “Our struggle is like the struggle of South Africa – and hopefully he can watch over us just like he watched over his own people.”
Mandela’s relationship with Israel was more complicated. He was a firm supporter of the right of Jews to a national homeland, but he never forgot Israel’s support for the apartheid regime during the 1970s and 80s.
“We insist on the right of the State of Israel to exist within secure borders,” he remarked in 1993, but “with equal vigor” stressed support of “the Palestinian right to national self-determination.”
Mandela didn’t visit Israel during his presidency but agreed to receive an honorary doctorate from one of the country’s universities shortly after leaving office. He used the opportunity to impress upon the then newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak his concern about the conflict with the Palestinians and the failure of the Oslo peace process.
Israelis, like most people in the world, hold Mandela in high esteem but unsurprisingly, whereas the ceremony to unveil his statue in Ramallah received much attention in the South African and Palestinian press, it was hardly mentioned in the Israeli media.
Speaking at the inauguration, Johannesburg’s Mayor Parks Tau, who presented the statue as a gift from his city said, “Nelson Mandela himself would have been extremely proud of what has been done here today.”

Mandela Stands Tall Over People Fighting For Liberation

Every morning, as the sun rises over the deep blue of Hout Bay near Cape Town, you can catch a glimpse of one of the last survivors of the men who faced death with Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia Trial in 1964.
Denis Goldberg retired to the light and air of Hout Bay, maybe to banish the dark of his stinking Pretoria prison cell where he was incarcerated for 22 years. Here he learned a few sad notes to feed sad souls. As condemned men waited to hang, they would sing their last song. Goldberg taught himself to play along on guitar and recorder.
“I was never good enough to play by ear, but somehow when those men sang, the chords just came to me. When I left, I felt sad that no one was going to hear those notes from my recorder again,” he says.
Fast forward 50 years to a lighter world above the crashing surf of Hout Bay and yet there is no escape from the ills of South Africa.
“I read the negativity, day after day, because scandals sell newspapers; the newspapers which used to be a place of solid analysis for developing ideas and finding solutions to problems. What you read is the absurdity that South Africa is worse today, than what it was under apartheid. How can that be?”
On the walls around him is African art; an unspoken statement against the bleak walls of prison. Goldberg points to a portrait of an elegant black man writing in a book.
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“He’s not protesting; he’s not toyi-toying; he’s not at a political rally. It turns out that the artist is an anaesthetist and has presumably done a portrait of a colleague in a hospital, writing his diary at the end of the day. A white artist is painting an intellectual activity of a black South African. That for me reflects everything we fought for,” says Goldberg.
These pictures of hope contrast with the less hopeful picture of leadership in Africa.
“Perceptions are important in politics. I have to say President (Jacob) Zuma has played a heroic role in developing the country. He was a herd boy, who gained an education, one way or another, school education, by reading and reading. If you talk to him and speak to him off the cuff, he really is an extremely well-read person in politics. In a discussion, he is fluent and his ideas are fluent. His role in the ANC intelligence apparatus, it was enormous. Creating peace in KwaZulu-Natal, negotiating with leaders brought peace. Mandela started negotiations in Rwanda, Zuma brought them to a climax. That’s his ability. Now, I believe sadly, this circle around him is stealing the democracy of our people.”
Despite misgivings, Goldberg believes that the ANC is the only hope of closing the gap between the rich and poor.
“To oppose the crony economy we have allowed to develop; it’s not going to happen overnight, but we have to start.”
Goldberg says it’s high time to root out corruption.
“[In 1994], one of the first things that happened was new ANC members of Parliament demanded of Nelson Mandela a salary increase&#8230;When I said to leading members, ‘why are you looking for this huge increase in salaries, which puts you at the level of white management?’ Their answer was ‘do you think we are not worthy of it because we are black?’”
In the days when Goldberg fought for education, he never dreamed he would see students wreck universities.
“It angers me that students, who are supposed to be the intellectual leaders of the future, don’t think and don’t know our history. Don’t they understand the history of South Africa, don’t they understand how far we’ve come in only 20 years?&#8230; Students who throw excrement over a statue think they have solved a problem. Does that solve the problem of accommodation or worker’s wages? What does it create&#8230; disgust, and I hope they get charged.”
The protests at Parliament?
“We have serious problems and we reduce them to petty insults, its outrageous behavior. The politics in the media and in Parliament has become politics of personality and not issues.”
Amid the turmoil of politics, Goldberg has a silver lining of his own. He wants to build a center where children can dance, play music and paint in the sea breezes of Hout Bay
“When I watch kids out of the townships, with their patched best clothes, walking up and down with their violins, it’s a joy. Even if they don’t play the damned instrument properly, they had the opportunity to find themselves.”
A search he knew all too well, 50 years ago, when he played along to sad, condemned, voices.

Lament For A Stolen Dream

Friendships are sometimes forged in the most unlikely of circumstances. Against the backdrop of legalized racism, apartheid South Africa was one such circumstance. During its darkest years one could be forgiven when reading a “white” newspaper for thinking black people did not exist. And yet it was in this environment that Nelson Mandela and a young, promising, white journalist forged a friendship that would last a lifetime.
Benjamin Pogrund, 82, sits in his Jerusalem apartment, smiling. The veteran journalist and a pioneer of black reporting at the then all-white daily newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail, joined the press as a missionary which, he’s quick to admit, is a very bad thing for a journalist.
At the time, black South Africans were not featured in the mainstream press. There were some stories about court cases, riots or mine accidents where black people were mentioned but it was “crazy” how they were ignored, remembers Pogrund. He took it upon himself to change things.
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“Benjy Boy”, as Mandela called him, describes his success as being in the right place at the right time. He says the Rand Daily Mail was an awful paper when he joined, with a new editor, Laurence Gandar, who luckily had the same political views as Pogrund.
“He liked what I wanted to do, because I started covering black politics, which hadn’t been done before,” says Pogrund and a friendship between the junior reporter and senior editor soon flourished.
But covering black South African life meant being ostracized at work and in the Jewish community to which Pogrund belonged.
“I was dealing with an all-white paper,” he explains. “So I was like a cat being dragged in from the night, they hated me.”
At the time the Jewish community was split, between businessmen who surrendered to apartheid so their businesses would succeed, and liberals.
Soon Pogrund began covering everything from housing, education and jobs, to pass laws. And through the years he became a confidant for the leaders of black resistance, among them Mandela.
The two had countless secret meetings. While most of the police force would be out hunting for Mandela, he’d show up on a dark street corner disguised with worker’s overalls to meet Pogrund.
“His followers probably wanted to cut my throat, they probably thought I’d trapped him and I’d hand him over&#8230; but we got away with it,” he chuckles.
For Pogrund, it was Mandela’s generosity of spirit that always stood out. He sums it up with one specific story – Mandela called for a major strike against the government. The day came and the government issued a statement saying it had failed. The Rand Daily Mail ran with the headline “Strike Has Failed, Says Government,” without consulting Pogrund. The strike itself didn’t go as planned but it wasn’t the failure the government claimed it was. Hundreds of thousands of workers did stay home, but when they read the newspaper, a paper which they respected, they were scared of being dismissed, and went to work.
Pogrund remembers sitting in his office, feeling miserable, when his phone rang.
“And there’s Mandela’s warm, cheery voice, and I started stuttering an excuse, ‘Nelson, I’m sorry we screwed up’&#8230; He said to me, ‘It’s okay Benjy boy, I know it wasn’t your fault.’ I loved that man ever since.”
Pogrund and Mandela’s relationship extended beyond the clandestine meetings. While still in prison, Mandela insisted that Benjy Boy bring his second wife, Anne, for a visit. He even sent a card to their son Gideon for his bar mitzvah – a coming-of-age ceremony in Jewish tradition.
As for the Mandelas, Pogrund jokes that he was their Jewish uncle, telling how he helped Mandela’s daughter, Makaziwe, get into an American university.
“Over the years, now and again I’d go and visit her regularly, and she’d say to me, ‘please get my father off my back, he’s driving me crazy. He wants me to go to Harvard, I don’t want to go Harvard, I’m happy here at UMass Amherst!’’
Pogrund eventually found sanctuary in Britain where he worked on Fleet Street. From there he went to America and onwards to Israel to help build the Yakar Center for Social Concern. He’s been here almost two decades.
But ties with South Africa run deep and although he believes a lot has been accomplished, he is sad and angry by what hasn’t been.
“The country now has clean water and more access to healthcare, jobs, everything like that. Everything is better… but on the other hand, the failure is colossal.”
The reasons include government corruption, the heritage of apartheid and the currency. But most importantly &#8211; education.
“The majority of schools are described as dysfunctional, lacking ordinary toilets, electricity, blackboards, desks, books.”
Pogrund looks at how countries like Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan used education to come out of poverty, but says South Africa just isn’t getting there.
“There are a lot of people doing well. But the bottom people have it bad, and this carries over into people going to universities who shouldn’t be there&#8230; they haven’t achieved enough.”
And his beloved profession has become a disappointment.
“Under apartheid, we had some very committed, very good journalists. People didn’t sit around discussing press freedom, they just did it. They had a commitment, they got on with it. But whereas we were unable to exercise our full rights, now the opposite is true – and there isn’t the competence to do it.”
For a man of many words, there’s one thing he can’t get himself to talk about: Mandela’s last days. The laughter stops and sadness takes over; at times it’s even difficult to hear him.
“He had a miserable last couple of years. Miserable. It’s too personal.”
In the just over two years since Mandela passed away, Pogrund is more convinced than ever that the world desperately needs another Mandela.
“Israel is in a need of another Nelson Mandela, England is in need, every damn country is in need of a Nelson Mandela.”
Sadly, he is gone.

The White Knight Who Wrote Black

She was destined to be a teacher but fate had grander plans for the young Graça Simbine. Born in 1945 in rural Mozambique, the youngest of six children, she survived the dismal conditions of Portuguese colonial rule, and rose to being one of the most influential women on the continent.
However, ambition distinguished her early on. A prodigy, Simbine consistently found herself at the top of her class at the missionary schools she attended. Her academic talent led her to become one of the first Mozambican women to win a scholarship to study at the University of Lisbon in 1968 where she focused on German Philosophy and Linguistics.
Moved by the plight of those she left behind during her time in Europe, she became increasingly politicized and began campaigning for the independence movement back in Mozambique. Courting the attention of Portuguese authorities and facing arrest, she eventually abandoned her studies to join FRELIMO [Frente de Libertação de Moçambique or the Mozambique Liberation Front], a political movement that retains substantial popular support to date. Her first posting was as teacher at a school run by the movement in Tanzania where she taught languages and served as deputy headmistress.
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Respected by her peers and senior officers, as a courageous and articulate member of the movement, Simbine found herself taking on greater responsibility within the movement. On one of those assignments, stationed in Mozambique in 1973, she met Samora Machel, then commander with FRELIMO. They married a year later.
Her standing within the movement earned her an appointment as the country’s first post-independence Education Minister. She held the post for over a decade. During that time, she put in place the foundations of Mozambique’s education system. One of her achievements was pushing primary school enrolment rates from 40% to over 90% for boys and 75% for girls, an absolute increase of 1.5 million pupils nationwide. Today, she remains deeply passionate about ensuring universal access to education for every child, not only in Mozambique but across the globe.
For Machel, education is not merely a right, it is the means to a greater end; political and economic liberation.
“I believe that education is freedom, and it must provide our children with the skills they need to become who they want to be,” she said at a press conference announcing the launch of the African Leadership University (ALU) in Mauritius last month.
Machel believes education for every child is within reach and, despite resource constraints, Africa is capable of providing world-class education to its professional and leadership cadres.
As an experienced policy-maker, Machel understands the importance of strong institutions in addressing intractable social challenges. Social institutions, Machel believes, must be designed to evenly empower citizens to achieve their individual and collective conditions. The challenges within the higher education system in Africa are only symptoms of a system that needs to be rethought.
“There is something quite courageous in interrogating the kind of education we’ve been providing our young people. Our children today are learning the same things that I was taught when I was in school in the 1950s. We never took the time to reimagine our education,” she says.
Commenting on the recent turbulence in South African universities, Machel points out that it is evidence of a systemic rather than a philosophical problem.
“This is not an emotional issue, it’s an issue of economics, it’s an issue of social justice. It is not only about higher education, but all the way down to early childhood development. This is the only reasonable way to look at it. There is a danger of #FeesMustFall playing against the students themselves. There is an issue on deciding who gets the benefits of the new system. We have not yet done the math.”
Machel’s voice on the issue matters.
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She has served as a Chancellor at the University of Cape Town and as President of the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Her argument also makes sense. For an education system to fully play its social role, it must also be accessible to as many people as possible at every stage. The trick is to strike a balance.
“There are only about 100,000 [South Africans] in university today. What about the millions who need to go to secondary school, primary school or kindergarten? We haven’t navigated the mathematics of such a system. You can’t give to tertiary education without taking away from something else.”
Machel is confident transformative solutions exist and only need to be developed. She is currently focusing her energies on the newly-established ALU that is seeking to position itself as the premier leadership education institution in Africa.
“It’s important to look at the future of our continent in the eyes of the human capability that we have. Take the faces and voices of the young people who will come through these doors, we have to present them to Africa and then to the rest of the world,” she says.
ALU is built on “a resource efficient model that pioneers technology and innovative learning to provide high-quality tertiary education at scale”. The university plans to build 25 campuses that would each host 250,000 students each.
But even at those numbers, Machel argues that the university will only address a small portion of the continent’s education needs.
If the challenge today is to provide a solution at scale, Machel reflects, the long-term challenge is to develop institutions that are distinctively African, designed to solve the problems of today but constructed to stand the test of time.

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‘Education Is Freedom’

South Africa’s Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955. The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted in 1990. The United Kingdom followed five years later with the Disability Discrimination Act. Yet where are all the great leaders championing access for people with hearing loss?
Nelson Mandela wore hearing aids but he is only known for overcoming apartheid in South Africa. Malala Yousafzai wears a cochlear implant, but she never mentions it when she speaks about educating girls. Academy Award Winner and actress Jodie Foster stood up at the Oscars to declare she was a lesbian but never mentioned she wears a hearing aid despite its prominence in a Daily Mail photograph.
There are 360 million people worldwide with some form of hearing loss. How can an issue be so pervasive but with no recognizable role models or leaders? There are great advocates within the insular hearing loss community but no person who captivates the world.
Why are people willing to discuss their race, religion, gender, age and sexual orientation but unwilling to discuss their hearing loss? Is hearing loss so stigmatized that we have created what Dr Julie Gurner, a leadership consultant, calls a “culture of shame”? She explains: “Prominent figures hide their hearing loss so perhaps other people feel maybe they should hide theirs as well.” The press ridiculed Prince Philip when he was first seen wearing hearing aids.
The media’s handling of hearing loss and other disabilities is part of the problem. Their coverage is typically focused on inspirational stories. The person appears as a “Super Crip”. Just think of all the YouTube videos featuring children hearing their parents’ voice for the first time as their cochlear implant is activated. The message communicated is: look how this amazing “crippled” person overcame this horrible obstacle, and so now you too can conquer whatever is preventing you from achieving success. We might as well have the person wear a cape like a superhero.
The media also likes sensational photographs of people with disabilities. The most notable being when American activists crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capitol to show it was the only way to enter a building that lacked ramps. The public seems to respond only to dramatic activism or a “moment” rather than common sense.
We shouldn’t need a “moment” to engender the change that is so desperately needed globally. Hearing loss shuts people out invisibly. Their needs are just as pressing and should be addressed globally.
Part of the problem is a lack of understanding that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to communication access. The following three-prong approach should be offered whenever there is live voice or recorded audio: assistive listening systems such as an induction loop, captioning, and qualified interpreters.
For people with hearing loss, communication access is their “ramp”. South Africa’s Apartheid Museum and Robben Island do not have effective access for people with hearing loss despite being monuments to eradicating discrimination. The museums claim tight finances prevent them from providing access. But that is the same unacceptable excuse used during apartheid by white people for why they couldn’t provide books to black children. Such excuses weren’t acceptable then and aren’t now.
People with hearing loss cannot become leaders when they aren’t included in society. According to Dean Williams, a faculty member of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and author of Leadership for a Fractured World, “A person needs to expand their personal boundaries in order to lead.” Museums provide valuable opportunities for enlightenment and critical thinking that foster such expansion.
The Apartheid Museum and Robben Island museums need to provide effective access for people who are deaf or hard of hearing so they too can benefit from the enrichment that is being offered. We need to inspire the next great leaders and role models of our world.
The writer is based in New York and is CEO of Hearing Access &amp; Innovations, which works to improve accessibility for people with hearing loss.

Tag: Nelson Mandela

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