For my part, this moment made me realize that my granddad needed me to stay close by. I’m not saying that there were any nefarious dealings going on or accusing anyone of wrongdoing, but for me, the takeaway from all this was that trust is fragile, and family is strong. At the end of his life, when he was at his most vulnerable, the Old Man knew I had his back the same way he had always had mine.
In December 2008, I wrote my final exams. The results came back in January, and when I showed them to the Old Man, he was pleased, which was a good feeling. He smiled broadly and offered me his palm to slap.
“You got your degree,” he said.
“Graduation’s in April,” I said. “Will you come?”
“Of course! Absolutely. Speak with the security people. Make the arrangement.”
As the date approached, I got everything set with security. Everything nice and ready. I went and picked up my gown. Does it fit? Yes. Good. Everything’s cool.
On graduation day, I hopped out of the car first and went to where I was supposed to go, sitting with the rest of the graduating class. I had reserved seats for my granddad, Graça, and Mandla, but the Old Man had waived the suggestion of a whole reserved section because he didn’t want any other parents to be prevented from attending.
So finally people were all in their places. For security reasons, Madiba had to come in last, and when he came in, the place erupted in great joy. Everybody stood up, cheering, so happy to see him. “Mandela’s here! Madiba! Madiba!” People lost themselves in that moment.
The ceremony commenced. I waited for my name to be called. I had thought a lot about what I wanted to do when I went out on the stage. Everybody had their own thing. I had settled on a Black Power sign—the symbol for the ANC, Black Unity, Black Power. Back in the day, Madiba would hold his fist in the air and shout, “Amandla!” (“The power!”) And all the people would all shout back, “Ngawethu!” (“It is ours!”) So that was my plan.
I heard my name, and I choked. I don’t know what happened. It was like one minute, I was totally there, and the next minute, they called my name, and I froze. It was only a fraction of a second, but it felt like a lifetime. I looked out over the crowd and saw my grandfather. The look on his face was absolute pride, absolute happiness, this beautiful smile about five kilometers wide. It was as though every memory, every moment of my life uploaded to my spine—from the thok! thok! of the tear gas cannon to the ripe heat of the iboma. I smiled back at the Old Man and did a modest fist pump, just to say thank you. And then I walked across the stage, an educated man, and claimed this future for which my grandfather had fought and suffered.
Afterward, I made my way over to Madiba and Graça outside, taking my time, because I always tend to hang back from the cameras. There was no advance announcement that Madiba would be there, but a few industrious paparazzi had figured out that he probably would. The security detail held them at a reasonable distance, but a lot of students and family members wanted to get autographs and pictures with Madiba.
“Good to see you.” He’d offer his hand as they approached. “I’m Nelson Mandela.”
As we walked to the car, I teased him about that. “You really think you need to introduce yourself?”
“I don’t presume,” he said. “On one occasion in the Caribbean, a gentleman and his wife passed by me on the sidewalk. The gentleman says, ‘Darling, look, it’s Mr. Mandela! Mr. Mandela!’ She said to me, ‘Oh, what are you famous for?’ I did not know how to answer that question.”
I laughed, and he reached over to grasp my forearm.
“Well done, Ndaba.”
“Thanks, Granddad.”
“You should be very proud of yourself.”
I thought about it and decided I was. I had achieved this goal that meant so much to him, but at the end of the day, I had done it for myself—and of course, that is what he wanted for me all along.
“So now what are you going to do?” he asked.
“Go look for a job.”
“Good, good,” said the Old Man. “First, we’ll have lunch.”
ONCE UPON A TIME, a magic tree grew up so tall with branches so wide it cast a shadow over an entire village. The sun was obstructed, crops couldn’t grow, and people got cold and hungry, so the chief sends his tallest, strongest man out to cut the tree down. But a bird who lives at the very top of the tree starts singing, “This tree belongs to me! This tree belongs to me!” The guy hears this enchanted song, and he’s paralyzed—utterly unable to swing the axe. The chief sends the second tallest man, the third, fourth, and so on. Same thing. The enchanted song stops every big man in his tracks. Meanwhile, the people of the village are shivering and starving.
“Send your children to cut the tree down,” says a wise old lady.
The chief thinks she’s crazy. “How could my little children cut down a tree that can’t be felled by these tall men?”
But he’s desperate, so he sends out his little son and daughter, and very soon the tree comes crashing down. The children are not so tall, you see. They’re closer to the ground, so they can’t hear the bird, and the enchanted song has no power over them.
I hope when kids hear that story, they stop and think about the power that rests in their hands.
“It is up to the youth,” Madiba said, “to decisively and finally break our society out of the constricting and divisive definitions of our past.” The keyword in that statement, I think, is definitions. While the generation before us was defined by apartheid, defined by Bantu education, defined by poverty, my generation and our little brothers and sisters, the born frees, are living the new lexicon. We speak the streamlined language of technology, and we’re creating the culture we want to live in.
I graduated college with all these ideas rolling around in my head. For years, Kweku and I had been brainstorming ways to elevate Africa in the eyes of the world and, more important, in the eyes of Africans themselves. Now we started talking in concrete terms about this far-reaching dream, which was nothing less than a full-on African renaissance, a cultural revolution, harnessing the full powers of education, entrepreneurship, social media, music, film, television, fashion, podcasts—all the technology that brings millennials together—infused with Africa’s ancient creative soul. Inspired by the past and stoked about the future, we created a foundation called Africa Rising.
We got the ball rolling with an informal meetup. We just called a few friends and invited them to tell their friends. We hoped that maybe ten people would come. Twenty-five people showed up. It was like an arc of electricity. I don’t know why it surprised me. Of course, Kweku and I weren’t the only ones who’d been having these thoughts. Youth all over Africa, no matter what they were interested in—sports, music, business, fashion—were all coming to the same realization we had come to. They had dreams and ideas, and they wanted opportunities and access that would allow them to make all their dreams reality. We stood there in this room full of entrepreneurs, creative thinkers, change-makers, and artists, and we knew something significant was happening. A period of transformation had already begun.
Kweku and I went to our granddad and asked him to act as honorary trustee, knowing that we would face the same slow pitch that Branson and Gabriel had to work through. The Old Man wasn’t going to sign off on it just because he loved us. We had a memorized mission statement, answers to logistical questions, and a bulleted list of solid objectives.
I told my granddad, “Our goal is to break down the misconceptions the world has about Africa—change that image that automatically pops into their heads—in order to uplift the pride, dignity, and confidence of young Africans. It has to start here. And not like another NGO. We have to empower the youth through education, entrepreneurship, technology—all that—but we also have to lift their pride and confidence so they can say, ‘I’m an African. I know what it means to be an African, and I’m proud of it.’ We have to work together and do it for our own people. There is no Asia or Europe or America that will create a p
rosperous Africa.”
He listened, nodded. “Start how?”
“Practical first steps,” I said. “Education. HIV/AIDS screening. Social media campaigns. We cultivate a new generation of African leaders, aggressively develop programs for high schoolers and college students. We participate in festivals and conferences. We go everywhere we can go, talk to everybody we can talk to. We speak out when we see something messed up, and when we see something good, we lift it up to inspire people. Granddad, think about how differently all that 1960s stuff would have gone down if you’d had social media, podcasts—all the power of the people magnified times two hundred million. That’s what we have right here in our hands. We could literally achieve anything.”
All my life, my grandfather never pushed me to do one thing or another in specific. His reaction, positive or negative, was always measured. He never got super enthusiastic, like, “Oh, boy! Yes! And you could also do this or that or this other thing.” He’d nod and offer a circumspect, “Good. Very good.” This time was no different, but he did agree to become an honorary trustee.
“Write up a letter,” he said. “I’ll go over it.”
I wrote the letter, and we went back and forth a bit editing it. When he signed it, he said, “You must ask Thabo Mbeki what he thinks of these things. He knows young people much better than me.”
I doubted this was true, but I remembered what my granddad said about that fearless mirror your true friends will hold up for you, and I knew Kweku and I could trust President Mbeki to give an honest opinion.
I fell into a pattern that one might call “responsible rebellion.” I was determined to make a way for myself independent of Madiba’s footsteps, but I felt a deep sense of responsibility to him and to the name Mandela. I didn’t just go on impulse anymore; I thought about things before I made a statement or took action. While Kweku and I continued laying the foundation for Africa Rising, I worked at the Japanese embassy during the day and spent my evenings either doing research on my laptop or hanging out with my granddad, watching sports, talking about policy, or discussing the cattle. If my granddad wanted to go somewhere, he liked to have me arrange the security detail. He liked me to bring him his newspapers. Sometimes he needed help moving from the lounge to the dining table. Small things like that.
I had my own cottage at the back of his property, but I still came home on weekends and dropped in to hang out as often as I could. The Old Man was growing frail. Our relationship came full circle as I stepped in to care for him with the same protective instinct that led him to take me in when I was a kid. I helped arrange outings and visitors. People would call: “Hey, this person is in town and would like to meet your grandfather.” He was glad to meet with foreign leaders and dignitaries, and he was fine with most of the celebrities too. He loved Mama Obama and her family and always enjoyed seeing his old friend, Holyfield. In general, he was happy to see people, so when Aunt Zindzi asked if I would facilitate a brief visit she’d arranged for R. Kelly, I said okay.
She told the Old Man about Kelly’s philanthropy and efforts to help Africans and African Americans, military families, and children in need. “This is a brilliant musician and a really good guy,” she said. “He’s in Africa, and he wants to make a side trip over here to meet you and sing something for you.”
The Old Man was cool with that. I don’t know if he knew about the controversy surrounding the guy, and I didn’t want to sabotage my aunt by mentioning it. My granddad said to give the go-ahead to R. Kelly’s people, so I did.
On the appointed day, the entourage shows up, and we’re all, “Hey, how’s it going?” All good. We go to my granddad’s lounge, and R. Kelly very respectfully says, “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. Thank you for making time to see me, Madiba.” And this is where it gets weird. The Old Man just sits there. He does not utter one word. Somebody says something about R. Kelly doing a benefit concert for the Special Olympics in Angola. Nothing. He sits there like Stonehenge.
Meanwhile, R. Kelly wants to sing for Madiba. There’s a piano in the lounge area, and it has casters on the bottom, so a couple of security guys go to push it into the middle of the room. My granddad sees this happening and barks, “Hey! What are you doing with my piano?”
I set my hand on his arm. “Granddad, it’s okay. Granddad, they’re just bringing it a little closer so you can hear better.”
He’s like, “Hmph. Okay.”
So R. Kelly gets on the piano, and it is beautiful, but right in the middle of the song, my granddad reaches over to the side table and gets his newspaper and rattles it open in front of himself. I’m like, Oh! Damn. That’s cold.
“Granddad, please. Let the man finish.”
He noisily folds the paper in his lap. R. Kelly finishes, and everybody claps. He comes over and sits in the chair next to my granddad and thanks Madiba for the visit and for being such an inspiration. Someone takes a photo. Again, the Old Man is sitting there silent as a boulder, so R. Kelly shakes my hand and says, “Hey, man, thanks again. This was amazing.”
“Ndaba,” says my granddad. He holds up the newspaper and points to a photo of a famous South African rugby player. “Do you know who this is?”
“It’s, um… it’s Bryan Habana, Granddad.”
“Good.”
He opens the paper and continues his morning routine as I show everyone out.
I didn’t know what to say. This was so utterly unlike my grandfather, who was always respectful, humble, generous, and open and had brought me up to be the same way. I went back to the lounge and sat next to him again, thinking, What just happened?
I asked, “How are you today, Granddad? Feeling okay?”
“Good. I’m good,” he said. “How are you today, Ndaba?”
“I’m… wow. I’m okay, Granddad. I think I’ll head out though.”
I felt bad for R. Kelly. There are few things worse than meeting your hero who turns out to be someone else, but I seriously doubt that there are any heroes who are actually the person they’ve been built up to be. It’s like me idolizing my big brother. My granddad never wanted to be idolized that way. He was consistently humble all his life. He knew that the heroes who fall hardest are the ones who buy into their own PR.
I honestly didn’t know what to make of this incident, but I decided not to allow any more visitors to the house. I had already okayed a request from Kanye West, so I had to tell his people, “Kanye’s still welcome to come to the house and meet the family, but Madiba won’t be able to see him.” He didn’t flip out, as far as I know, but he had zero interest in meeting any of us if he wasn’t getting to meet The Mandela Who Matters. My granddad never made those sort of distinctions. I knew the R. Kelly thing was something else. I thought about it a lot. Why did he point out that photo of Habana?
My interpretation of it hit me a few weeks later. I think he was basically saying, “Look, man, I see all these American artists, and I don’t mind meeting them, but do you know who this is?” Kweku and I talked a good game about elevating the image of Africa, but I had to admit, the constant strobe light of American celebrity throughout the world is pretty hard to ignore. It’s like, “Hey, your beloved South African icon is standing over there, but—wait, what? Jay-Z! Get the oxygen masks!” So maybe this was not about R. Kelly at all. Maybe he was telling me to look away from that neon “America!” sign and see the greatness that surrounds me right here in my own country. My granddad was asking me, “Do you know your own African heroes?”
Because the children—the young—we’re the ones who don’t hear the enchanted song. We’re supposed to be close enough to the ground that we still think wealth and fame are illusions. Because they are. And whoever you may be, wherever you may live, if you don’t have a South African playlist on your Spotify, you are seriously missing out.
Maybe that’s what my granddad was trying to tell me.
Or maybe he was just constipated. Or his socks felt wrong. He had always been very particular. It was a survival mechan
ism for him when he needed it, and when he no longer needed it, that was what he was used to. Like building the replica of the warden’s house in Qunu. He was already an old man when he came out of prison. After Walter Sisulu died, Madiba said, “We watched each other as our backs bent lower and lower over the years.” Now he was in his nineties. So he was not likely to change, and having devoted his entire life to the good of others, he’d earned the right to be particular. We were all happy to accommodate him as he maintained his old routine: breakfast, newspapers, a little TV sometimes—boxing or NatGeo—followed by afternoon tea. Every once in a while, there would be a health scare, and the stress of that was magnified by the whole world speculating that he was going to die every time he went into the hospital. It didn’t matter if he was being treated for pneumonia or an ingrown toenail; we could count on the reporters storming us every time we walked out the door.
Auntie Maki got cross about it sometimes. “What other president had to put up with this prying into personal details? Nobody! There was never a white president who was so scrutinized.”
I could have pointed out to her that there was never a white president so well loved, but when Auntie Maki is cross, it’s better to give her a lot of elbow room.
To care for an elder is the greatest honor, and I tried to arrange my life around his needs as much as I could. He kept his outings to a minimum, but nothing could keep him from the hospital when my son Lewanika was born. All the nurses and the doctors were excited to see his great grandfather, but they maintained the calm, quiet atmosphere of the maternity ward. He sat in a chair, holding the baby in his arms, quietly singing an old Xhosa song. I wish I’d asked him to teach it to me. I don’t remember it. But it’s still there, somewhere in that deep part of Lewanika’s spirit, close to where his Legend is stored.
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