Walk in the footsteps of Mandela

Early last year on a trip to Dubai, we were at dinner with Emirates Airlines Regional PR Boss Andre Martin across the canal from Burj Khalifa. As the famous dancing fountains moved against the hauntingly beautiful light displays of the, equally famous, building in the background, our conversation moved to travel. Favourite travel places to be exact. I had just told him about a trip I had had in South Africa, and he asked me my best location. Cape Town, I said. He looked for me on Facebook and right there on the cover photo was yours truly at Hout Bay along the coast of Cape Town. South Africa is a country that has one of the best developed tourism products, and a trip here is usually breathtaking. Not to mention the rich history. Here is a piece by South Africa’s Minister of Tourism, Tokozile Xasa, as sent through by the good folks at South Africa Tourism. Ms Xasa walks you through the sites touched by the imposing figure of Nelson Mandela. Here goes:

Join me on a journey to some very special places in our country, places that tell a remarkable story for the whole world. Many international tourists, and some South Africans, would have experienced parts of the trip when they visited the tourist sites that relate the story of our first democratic President on Mandela Day. I hope that many more will have an opportunity to do so before Mandela Month draws to a close.

For those of us who cannot travel right now, let’s start our tour among the rolling hills around Qunu in the Eastern Cape. Scattered homesteads are sometimes clustered into little villages reached only by dusty, bumpy roads.

The cattle that you can see dotted around the landscape would have been tended by a young Rolihlala Mandela as they grazed all day long, nearly a century ago. There would have been a small school in this area, where a teacher bestowed the name “Nelson” upon a young man, little knowing that he was to become a universal symbol of the spirit of humanity and reconciliation among people.  

Places like this are not just about picturesque hills and sparse dwellings. They reveal layer upon layer of our history and heritage. They reflect the thoughts and values of leaders like Nelson Mandela, and convey the collective consciousness of our people.

Tokozile Xasa, South Africa’s Minister for Tourism.

You can have an authentic interaction by living in private homes and local lodges in many rural communities like these. Here, you can gain first hand insight into how traditional beliefs and cultural practices intermingle with modern life. You can understand how the history and hardships of our people guide our aspirations to transform our economy and bring marginalised communities into the tourism mainstream.          

This place was so important to former President Mandela that he chose to return here to retire, after leading a divided nation striving to reconcile itself, and serving our country as the world’s most revered statesman.

Let’s leave the quiet rural countryside of Qunu for now, we will return later.

Let’s head north to Gauteng, to Soweto in Johannesburg. It was here, in Vilakazi Street, that Nelson Mandela lived in a small red brick house typical of apartheid’s townships. Further down the road lived Desmond Tutu. Together with church colleagues and comrades in arms, Tutu and Mandela led the long struggle to tear down the policies that confined their people to live within their tiny boxes. Vilakazi Street became the heart of the struggle against apartheid. 

Today, the precinct is bustling with restaurants and street vendors who depend on the busloads of visiting tourists for trade. It is the only street in the world that was once home to two Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Most visitors are international tourists, but more and more of our people are starting to experience the benefits of exploring their own country as our domestic marketing and promotional campaigns take root. 

More tourist traffic through Vilakazi Street means better prospects for the economy of the precinct. Here, the layer of our historic social struggle is interweaved with many economic dimensions: the precinct supports jobs, small businesses and many entrepreneurs. Tourist guides, transport operators and vendors of memorabilia all benefit from tourism.

The former home of Nelson Mandela, and the Vilakazi Street precinct that developed around it, demonstrates the power of tourism to convert cultural heritage assets into tangible benefits for communities today. 

We leave the city of Johannesburg and head for the quiet town of Howick in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands. It was here, along a winding back road, that Mandela was captured by security police, leading to the Treason Trial, his imprisonment on Robben Island, and the remarkable transformation in our country following his release.

The capture site is marked by an iconic sculpture which gives visitors a sense of the important historic event which changed the course of our history so dramatically. The tourism economy around the site is not as well developed as that of Vilakazi Street, but it has become a must-see site for passing tourists.     

That single moment in time, when a policeman stopped a car driven by a man disguised as a chauffeur, was to become a defining moment in our history.

Standing here at the capture site, you feel the full significance of that momentous event along this very ordinary road.

From here, our journey follows Nelson Mandela to the prison cell he occupied for over two decades on Robben Island. A short ferry ride from Cape Town takes you to the island’s small harbour. A tour of the prison conveys the hardship its occupants were subjected to.

Standing in the cell that held Mandela captive is an extraordinary, life-changing experience.  You cannot stop thinking about how someone who was confined to the brutality of this place can emerge with such humanity, even towards his captors.

This experience forces all of us to look deep within ourselves, and to question our own sense of humanity towards others. It forces us to discover the Mandela within each of us, and to express the values he espoused in whatever ways we can.

The penultimate leg of our trip once again follows the footsteps of Nelson Mandela, this time from Robben Island to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where the prisoner became the President.

On the front lawns, an imposing statue of a smiling Nelson Mandela stretches out his arms, protecting his people with the warmth it exudes. It is a fitting tribute to Mandela the man, the statesman, the father of our democratic nation.

From here, we will make one more stop before our journey ends. We return to a traditional family gravesite at Qunu, to Nelson Mandela’s final resting place. As his family and comrades gathered here to return his body to the very soil that sustained his early life, the nation resumed life without one of the greatest sons of Africa.

But the story is far from over: Nelson Mandela will be with us forever, through the political legacy that brought freedom and democracy for all in our country, and through the many sites that continue to reflect on momentous events in his life. From Qunu to Vilakazi Street, from Howick to Robben Island and Pretoria, and, finally back to Qunu, a journey through these sites brings our history and heritage to life.

I hope that many more South Africans will be able to make this remarkable journey, during Mandela Month and afterwards. And I wish that corporate South Africa, philanthropic foundations and others join hands and work together to make the trip possible for those who cannot afford to travel, especially our youth. 

They will also return home with a renewed sense of what these sites mean for all of us in South Africa, and for humanity all around the world.

Experiencing the story of Nelson Mandela, and understanding the values and principles it reveals, makes each one of us a better person, and this is what makes the world a better place for all of us.

We end our journey as changed people, with a deeper understanding of ourselves and each other, fulfilling the ultimate purpose of tourism. 

Bei ya jioni play, a masterpiece commentary on corruption, politics and the church

It has been a while since I was in the theatre to watch a play. Blame the rat race. Friday, March 31, however, found me at the Kenya National Theatre for 'Bei ya Jioni', a play that ended its run in the main auditorium over that weekend.
From the moment the curtains parted open to when they closed again, it was fast paced, gripping, graphic representation of a society on the throes of change, yet held back by the very same things it seeks to change. The socio-economic and political themes running through the play laying bare our most shameful practices: Corruption, violence, electoral malpractices and a host of other subplots that had me for a moment doubtful that the cast could pull off such a script that seemed to pack too much into one play.
Back to the beginning. Kizzy (played by Ana-Mwende Wambua) and her fiance are planning a wedding. The major stumbling block is the question of selecting a committee for the event. the battle turns hot between Spokesman (Vince Matinde) and Ms McKenzie (Fiona Kaitesi) who both want to chair the committee. Unable to agree, it is put to a vote with the candidates campaigning vigorously.
It is in the campaign for chairperson that the play packs its messages. Spokesman hires a gang to terrorise Ms. Mckenzie's camp, while Ms. McKenzie bribes Inspekta (Munga Maseru), to intimidate the other side. The police (or government) represented by Inspekta is already irredeemably corrupt, having changed their slogan from 'utumishi kwa wote' to 'utumishi kwa wanaoweza kulipa'. On the other hand is Pastor (played by Morris Mucheru), who is more concerned with 'mbegu'.

With the man of the cloth, the referee in this contest, bought by Ms. McKenzie, it is all downhill after that. Both contestants also bribe the bride and groom.
When it all comes down to a vote, Pastor declares Ms. McKenzie the winner at a moment when lights go out (obvious reference to the 2007 elections and the announcement of results away from the public glare and the  subsequent hurried swearing in of President Mwai Kibaki). In 2007, this was a moment that set the nation alight, and so does it in this play. Everyone turns against one another and in the end everyone is dead or dying. In the mist of battle, the massacre is brutal. The police only arrive after the fact and the two contestants come together to offer condolences and start a kitty to help the victims, which they will again chair jointly, ring a bell? The Grand Coalition Government comes to mind.
In all this, it is impressive how the writer and director, John 'JJ' Jumbi, incorporates current affairs that are instantly relatable to the audience. Spokesman asking 'sasa mnataka nifanye aje?', the same Spokesman again facing off with Ms McKenzie and accusing her of catwalking while misleading the public. (Make a connection?).
When the play gets going, many would have expected the bride and groom to be the main players. However, the starring roles move to the politicians who are jostling for power and while many a playwright would have created a clear divide of character traits, this one does not. Both are corrupt and underhanded. At some point the audience is not sure who to sympathize with, Spokesman with his 'militia' or Ms. McKenzie who bribed everyone she could think of. This seems like an oversight, where many would expect a clear 'good guy' who assures us that there is good in the midst of all evil. It steers away from a clear demarcation of character traits between the antagonist and protagonist. Even the Pastor is knee deep in murk. But as the play concludes, the satirical approach and a final plea from Kizzy to love one another sets the overall message on an even keel.
The overriding them is that of electoral conduct - quite apt as the General Election draws near - and that of questionable conduct by politicians and other stakeholders that set the whole nation down the wrong path.

Back to the play, the transition between scenes is a stroke of genius with Jims and Dims dancers providing both breathing moments and a clear transition with their energetic dancing inspired by contemporary music. The use of a dance-off to signify the peaking of conflict is a stroke of genius.
At the end, as you walk out of the auditor, you can;'t help but feel that as the political temperatures heat up, tunauzwa kwa bei ya jioni.
An impressive piece of work

Ndingi: The man and the priest

It has been long, very long since I sat down to do a book review, and I have been thinking about it, with something niggling at the back of my head. That small voice that pokes your conscience when you go MIA. "I have not gone missing," I argue with the said small voice. I can feel eyes, that disappointed side-eye you get when you give a half-hearted fib. 

Anyway, I came across this piece I did a while back, 2011 to be precise, for some publication. Going through it reminded yours truly of the the thrill of breaking from the 5W and H yoke every now and then. The thrill you get when you weave words and sprinkle a few heavy words, with a chuckle. It reminded me of college when I could trace thematic concerns across a few dozen books over lunch.
This was a review of Ndingi Mwana 'a Nzeki's biography, A Voice Unstilled. Stay with me.

A Voice Unstilled, the title of this biography creates a large than life image even before you get down to the book itself.  For someone who knows the Kenya politics of the 1990s and Ndingi’s part in it, a bias is unavoidable given the image he cut back then.

The biography of Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’ Nzeki traces the life of one of Kenya’s most prominent and outspoken clergymen caught in almost every political and social storm over the last three decades. The book traces the development of young Ndingi from his humble beginnings to the voice of reason within the Catholic Church in Kenya and on governance issues of the day as it were.

When Kenyans speak of the struggle towards the opening of democratic space in the country and the fight for good governance and political accountability, the church features prominently in such narratives with the names of clergy who have stood up for the voiceless even when it was almost fool hardy to do so. ‘A Voice Unstilled’ tells of the struggles Ndingi went through from a struggling boy in Machakos through school and up to priesthood and his outspokenness that has seen him get under the collar of many a politician quite a few times.

From one standpoint, the biography is a fair description of the man, but from another it fails to live up to a certain image. As biographies go, the authors do justice to the man carefully constructing a larger than life figure (not unexpected in a biography or auto biography) but at the same time tempering this with glimpses of Ndingi the man. The book however focuses mostly on Ndingi as a priest with the rest of his life relegated to a mere footnote.

The book falls in the pitfalls that line the daunting path of writing biographies and autobiographies. From the word go, it is another story of the kid from an underprivileged family who beat all odds stacked against him. The David and Goliath story that peppers almost all such stories. Of parents telling their kids how they used to run barefoot to school over several kilometres, a glorification of the individual’s triumphs.

The larger than life image of the man supersedes his mortal failings and human weaknesses. While this is open to interpretation, the authors take time to look at he stormy periods that defined Ndingi, from ethnic clashes to the harsh political climate that brought out the firebrand in him. This is however done in three short chapters and we are quickly taken back to the church, so to speak.

Many of us, especially non-Catholics, knew Ndingi Mwana-a-Nzeki not on the pulpit but on the altar of advocacy for human rights and good governance. It is to the credit of the authors however, that the biography takes a look at some of the thorn issues plaguing today’s priesthood. One of this is celibacy, and given the debate it has always caused, the anecdotes in here certainly attract some attention.

Similarly, it makes an interesting read, avoiding a monologue-ish rendition and making good use of anecdotes to break the narrative. Overall, the text is a good reference point to the debate of the church versus the state. Even those leaning on different sides of this debate will agree that the church played its part in the stormy years of the 80s and 90s. This biography tries to give a different face to the fiery Archbishop and succeeds up to a certain point. That said, it is an interesting read in itself, and certainly a compelling read.

Title: A Voice Unstilled, Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’ Nzeki 
Authors: Waithaka Waihenya and Fr Ndikaru wa Teresia
Genre: Biography 
Publisher: Sasa Sema Publications

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