By Sudarsan Raghavan and Steven Mufson
Sunday, December 15, 2013
QUNU, South Africa – Nelson Mandela’s body arrived in his childhood village Saturday, greeted by thousands of mourners who lined the streets, singing and chanting his name. On Sunday morning, hundreds of relatives, close friends and dignitaries will gather in this tranquil, hillside hamlet in the Eastern Cape Province for a state funeral and burial.
Mandela, who died last Thursday at 95, spent his early years playing in the brown-hued hills of Qunu, memories he described in his autobiography “Long Walk to Freedom” as the happiest moments of his childhood. It was to Qunu that he retired, when he left public life after serving as South Africa’s first black president. And now, he has returned for a final time.
He meant a lot to us,” said Nomfezeko Billie, 26, who owns a small boutique shop. “He freed us from the bondages of the white people.”
Mandela’s last journey began Saturday morning at military air base in the capital, Pretoria, where his body had lain in state for three days as tens of thousands of South Africans paid their respects. In a vibrant ceremony filled with song and music, the military handed over his body to the ruling African National Congress Party, that Mandela led to victory in the first-ever all-race elections in 1994 that ended white rule.
“We will miss him. He was our leader in a special time,” said South African President Jacob Zuma in his eulogy.
Mandela’s coffin, draped in the South African flag, was flown to Mthatha Airport in the Eastern Cape, escorted by fighter jets. Mandela’s widow, Graca Machel, and his former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, embraced, tears in their eyes, when the coffin arrived. It was placed in a hearse and escorted in a convoy of police and military vehicles. Crowds thronged the road to Qunu, a 20 mile journey, carrying banners and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with his image, as they sang liberation songs and danced.
At about 4 a.m., the coffin arrived at his sprawling family homestead, along a major highway that runs through Qunu. Family members were on hand to greet the coffin. The national flag, according to news agencies, was replaced by a lion or a leopard skin, which is a traditional symbol of the Xhosa people.
Around 6:30 a.m., family members and dignitaries began arriving at the front entrance of Mandela’s pink-colored homestead, where he is to be buried on a hillside overlooking Qunu. Many of the guests were part of the country’s black elite, dressed in blank and arriving in BMWs, Range Rovers and other luxury vehicles.
Security was tight outside. South African armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles were parked outside the house. Scores of policemen kept watch along the highway that passes in front of the house.
About a half dozen marching bands paraded outside the house before entering the compound.
Close to 7:45 a.m., a gun salute began near the grave site.
Mandela liked going to Qunu to get away from it all, said his lawyer George Bizos on SABC2, a South African television network, on Saturday. For years, Mandela visited Qunu during holidays, staying at his homestead, before moving there permanently last year. Mandela often greeted residents at his home and took walks in the fields surrounding Qunu.
Qunu "was a place that he liked very much, where the people around would come and see him without making an appointment and talk about the young days … and stick fighting," Bizos recalled. "He enjoyed it very much because it was away from the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg and Pretoria.”
Britain’s Prince Charles is expected to attend Sunday’s state funeral, as is former president Bill Clinton and talkshow host Oprah Winfrey. On Saturday, there was some controversy when retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the icons of the fight against apartheid and a close friend of Mandela, announced that he would not attend the funeral because his name was not on the list of accredited guests.
“Much as I would have loved to attend the service to say a final farewell to someone I loved and treasured, it would have been disrespectful to Tata to gatecrash what was billed as a private family funeral. Had I or my office been informed that I would be welcome there is no way on Earth that I would have missed it,” Tutu said.
But later, the government said that Tutu was on the list, and his office announced late Saturday that he would be attending the funeral.
Amid the celebrations of Mandela’s life, there was also a sense of collective disappointment across Qunu: Most of its residents will not be attending the state funeral or the private burial ceremony that will follow, and will be forced to watch it on television or on a giant television screen that is expected to be set up at the nearby Mandela museum on a hilltop overlooking the village.
“We are Mandela’s people. We are from his village. Why can’t we go to his funeral?” said Siphokazi Gqubantshi, an 18-year-old student, who lives with her family across the road from Mandela’s homestead. “It is a disappointment.”
She remembered going as a child to Mandela’s home, during Christmas or to celebrate his birthday. She said she still has a doll and a tea-cup set that Mandela had given her as a Christmas present. “He would hug all the children,” she recalled. “We were all inspired by him.”
One of the main features of Mandela’s funeral is expected be the recitation of a traditional praise poet, an art form that was first used to hail tribal chiefs and which has been adapted to recount the deeds of activists against apartheid.
Mandela qualifies as both royalty and activist, since he descended from a long line of tribal chiefs of the Thembu clan. So poets who have sung his praises in the past have listed the clan names of distinguished forefathers. They praise his physical characteristics, comparing his height to a tree, or a long stick, a long-legged bird or a type of large snake found in fairy tales.
And praise poets note his political impact. One in 2005 called him “a hero of heroes” and said “you are still standing and not shaking.”
Other residents said that tradition dictates that the family place special objects inside the grave with Mandela for him to carry with him to the next world. Tribal elders are also expected to speak to Mandela and give him messages to God, because he will be representing them in the next world.
Some political veterans worry about whether the lavish praise of Mandela will warp history and belittle the role of other activists and the strength of the country’s democratic institutions.
“We tend to focus in on Nelson, that he fought for freedom, that it was Nelson who liberated South Africa, and we are creating a false reality,” said Nic Wolpe, son of Howard, one of the anti-apartheid activists arrested at the Lilliesleaf farm the ANC military wing used as its headquarters in the early 1960s. Instead, Wolpe, who has turned the farm into a historical museum, said Mandela “was a giant among giants.”
Other analysts say that the public comments at commemorative events have oversimplified Mandela, and that some of the nation’s leaders like to stress some of his traits over others.
“I think the big challenge of Madiba is that his legacy is much more complex than people make it out to be,” said Adam Habib, vice chancellor of the University of the Witswatersrand, one of country’s premier universities. “Everybody talks about his legacy as being conciliation or pragmatism. Those are important elements of who he was but not all of it. He believed in non-racialism, he believed in democracy, in economic inclusion. You have to aspire to entire legacy.”
In Qunu, some residents said they would remember Mandela for the day-to-day improvement in their lives. Under apartheid, Qunu was particularly ignored by the government because of its links to Mandela. Today, most houses have electricity and running water through outdoor water taps. “This is the big gift he gave us,” said Ondela Ngcebetshana, 33, who also lives across the road from the Mandela homestead.
Wuisizwi Billie, 36, a teacher, said Mandela’s struggle made it easier for him and other South Africans to express themselves without fear. “We can criticize our leaders freely,” he said. That’s why on Sunday he and his wife Nomfezeko are planning to wake up early to get a good spot in front of the giant television screen at the museum to bid farewell to Mandela.
The couple hopes that Mandela’s grave will become an economic blessing for Qunu, which like other areas of the country is suffering from high poverty, crime, corruption and unemployment. They hoped Mandela’s grave will attract thousands of tourists each year. “This will be a changed place,” predicted Wuisizwi Billie. “Generations to come, there will be Nelson Mandela.”
Mufson contributed from Johannesburg.