He was hands-on in the projection of his public persona, and became, in time – given the avalanche of invitations to speaking engagements – the victim of his own popularity. Finding himself deluged by a full schedule, he would complain to his nattily dressed, quick-witted and energetic spokesperson, Parks Mankahlana, that his schedule left too little time to read state documents and the newspapers, and to reflect on issues. He joked that he missed his days on Robben Island where he had time to think, and suggested free time in the afternoon whenever possible.11
Mandela managed communications in performance by making statements through the way he dressed. When he donned the Springbok rugby jersey at Ellis Park, he was saying something of grave importance to all South Africans, and to the world. He was also making a statement when he eschewed the top hat and tails at the inauguration in favour of a simple suit, and he always wore formal attire for appearances in Parliament. In time, he started wearing the loose, colourful ‘Madiba shirts’ that came to be associated with him in engagements with the public.
Mainly planned by his advisers, the engagements with the media were also at his own initiative. He met with Afrikaans editors in 1995 to thrash out the burning issue of the future of the Afrikaans language; and when the tension in KwaZulu-Natal was at fever pitch over the drafting of the Constitution, he invited the newspaper editors of the province to a meeting to brief them on the direction contemplated by the government on the issue.12
Through Mankahlana, Mandela maintained direct relations with individual journalists and editors. Press conferences were an arena where Mandela showed his prodigious memory for names, calling the journalists by their first names, even those he had met many years ago. He showed old-world courtliness; he would be simultaneously friendly and firm with all those he encountered. Serving Mandela, Mankahlana would go as far as venturing into newsrooms to offer stories, spending – it seemed – very little time at his desk in the office.13
If Mandela had an issue to raise with editors or senior journalists, he would pick up the phone and, as often as not, invite them over for a meal – and put his point across. Recalling this, Mazwai says that Mandela ‘tried to walk the tightrope and react in such a way that there was no invasion in the right of the media to write and tell it like it is. What he tended to do would be to invite specific journalists to breakfast. Then he would say, “Look, this is what you said, but this is in reality what the situation is.” That was how he tried to manage the situation.’14
For instance, Mandela had an off-the-record meeting with the editor of Die Burger when he felt that the paper had given an insufficient explanation of the context of the shooting at the ANC’s headquarters at Shell House in March 1994.15 In the same vein, he invited the editor of City Press to a meeting when he felt he had overlooked an important idea in an editorial arguing that the cricket and rugby bosses were using Mandela to make reconciliation a one-sided process at the expense of black people. Both agreed, with neither side conceding anything, that it was a useful discussion.16
Sometimes Mandela’s contact with the media was attended by farce, which he shrugged off. Jakes Gerwel remembered an incident that made him appreciate a different side of his principal. The men’s porn magazine Hustler had named Mandela its ‘Arsehole of the Month’, leading to indignant voices calling for a distribution ban on the issue. In contrast, a highly amused Mandela quipped, ‘We should not be banning things.’17
Although he received a daily analysis of the news media soon after the working day began, Mandela would by then have read several newspapers, mostly while having his breakfast at home. By the time he reached his office, he would have, as often as not, telephoned ministers and members of his communications team to get their responses to issues featuring in the media.
He was happy to delegate the drafting of his speeches when confident, as was the usual case, that his views and priorities would be reflected. There were times that he would indicate what needed stressing, but, since he was astute enough to know that the journalists unfailingly latched on to comments not covered in a prepared speech, he would ask that important points should not be included in a prepared speech. Often journalists covering his events would only prick up their ears and start using their pens when he started speaking extempore. He would often preface his remarks by saying that what he had just read was what his bosses had told him to say – and now he would speak from the heart.
Contrary to popular belief that Mandela was prone to speak off the cuff or shoot from the hip, the truth is that most of those comments were deliberate on his part; he had thought them through but knew he’d face opposition if he consulted with his colleagues. Moreover, the frequent repetitions that characterised his speeches were not from forgetfulness. In self-deprecatory prefaces to his speeches he made the point that his staff told him he was wont to repeat himself. But this was a strategy to not only put an issue on record but also to ensure that it became a focus of public discourse. For example, the scorecard of expanding access to basic services became a mantra of communication in every kind of setting, formal or informal, prepared or unscripted, in speeches or notes.
Famously known as a nightmare for VIP protection units – at home and abroad – Mandela preferred unmediated social interaction with the public. He got a charge out of the constant affirmation by ordinary people from all walks of life. The end of a day of interaction with the public would be more satisfying than sitting in his office or through cabinet meetings. ‘You have made me feel like a young man again, with my batteries recharged,’ he would remark.18
While he recognised that he had become a world icon, likely to attract interest in just about every aspect of his life, Mandela was also quite firm in drawing a line when the interest became overly intrusive. He was as reticent about sharing what had caused him pain – for instance, his divorce from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela – as he was of putting his relationship with Graça Machel, which was unquestionably a source of joy for him, in the media spotlight. When he and Graça Machel married, even his spokesperson was not let in on the secret, leading him in all good faith to assure the media that there was no wedding at exactly the moment it was taking place.
Even though transparency was the watchword for the democratic government, it had to operate within boundaries that couldn’t just be confined to personal matters. There was also the line between transparency and the need for the government to be able to work quietly in areas where public knowledge would either undermine that work or make it even more difficult. Knowing that any measure that approximated abrogation of freedom of speech or access to information would ignite outrage with proponents of an open society, Mandela would call upon journalists to understand the processes under way. Journalists grew used to hearing him saying: ‘We are dealing with very sensitive matters and so I hope you will not press me for details.’ This was done in such a firm yet gracious manner that it was accepted.
There was often less rapport, however, between government and the media when it came to how the two institutions saw transformation. The government, which perceived itself as receiving a raw deal when a target of inaccurate reporting, construed these inaccuracies as ideological. The journalists, piqued at the undermining of their professionalism, simply regarded these charges as impossibility. Mandela was convinced that that negativity about the ANC-led government was no different from rearguard action, witting or unwitting, in defence of past privilege.
‘South African media,’ he had said in February 1994, ‘are still largely dominated by persons drawn almost exclusively from one racial group. With the exception of The Sowetan, the senior editorial staffs of all South Africa’s daily newspapers are cast from the same racial mould. They are white; they are male; they are from a middle-class background; they tend to share a very similar life experience. The same holds true for the upper echelons of the electronic media, again, with a very few recent exceptions.
‘While no one can object in principle to editors with such a profile, what is distu
rbing is the threat of one-dimensionality this poses for the media of our country. It is clearly inequitable that in a country whose population is overwhelmingly black (85 per cent), the principal players in the media have no knowledge of the life experience of that majority.’19
The implicit expectation that black editors and journalists would necessarily be more empathetic in their reportage soon proved false. Mandela then increasingly shifted towards media ownership. This reflected an ANC stance, which, much earlier, had resulted in tensions between the ANC and black journalists. The journalists felt that the ANC was impugning their integrity and professionalism in portraying them as powerless to report on terms other than those approved by the white owners and editors; this disregarded the role they had played under very difficult circumstances. The nascent Black Editors Forum initiated meetings with the ANC in August and September 1994 to try to resolve the issues. At one of the meetings, Mandela supported the call for affirmative action in the media and the appointment of more black editors. The journalists regarded the meeting as very positive. Mazwai said, ‘We were eating out of his hand.’20
But the relationship with the media continued to be fraught. Media criticism against the government – and, by extension, the ANC and Mandela – centred on the expulsion of Bantu Holomisa from the ANC and his dismissal from government, as well as allegations of corruption against Minister of Health Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma with regard to the musical Sarafina II as previously discussed in chapter seven. Mandela interpreted this as a media crusade against the transformation of the country and against the ANC. He made two charges against black journalists, souring relations with the media for a year or more.
Some, he said in a television interview, failed to understand the country’s problems. Black journalists who accused him of putting white fears before black needs, he said, failed to understand the strategy of neutralising those who wanted to stop the 1994 election by violence.21 Professor Guy Berger, then head of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, commented on the ambivalence of black journalists towards the pace of change: ‘[They] often seem to feel the need to remind whites in general and their white colleagues in particular, of past and present prejudices and white power. Having been victims much more than white journalists, many are reluctant to accept reconciliation without redress. The result has been a critical stance of official reconciliation policy, which has incurred the wrath of Nelson Mandela himself who feels they fail to appreciate why he made the compromises that left redress only a small part of the picture.’22
Mandela put his thoughts down on paper and stressed that he was singling out ‘some senior black journalists’. ‘What you have today is a type of senior journalist – and there are a few – who regret that we have destroyed white supremacy in this country, and who are taking out their venom on the one organisation that has brought about radical changes in this country. They have no conception of the problems facing the country. As I said before, they think – they assume – that we defeated whites on the battlefield and that the whites are now lying on the floor helpless and begging us for mercy.
‘We had to adopt a strategy to sideline, to marginalise, those elements which wanted to stop the elections by force. Some senior journalists are not even aware of that. And it’s only a few senior black journalists who have got a secret agenda.’23
The other charge was that some black journalists had been co-opted by backward-looking interests. Mandela wrote what he had been saying repeatedly on public platforms: ‘Both black and white journalists are waging a biased and venomous campaign against the ANC.’
He went on to rail against the media for raising issues of both Holomisa and Dlamini-Zuma, decrying the role of ‘some senior black journalists’ who had ‘been co-opted into this sordid affair … Traditionally white parties and their surrogates are bitter against the democratic movement for having destroyed white supremacy and the privileges monopolised by the former ruling minority.’
Of the co-opted journalists, one of them ‘was disarmingly honest and frank’ when asked by a senior ANC leader. He said the ANC neither paid nor promoted him as a journalist – his newspaper did. The unprecedented bias in commenting on public affairs has never been more clearly illustrated than in the case of maverick Bantu Holomisa whose situation, Mandela believed, was being taken advantage of by these journalists by using him ‘as an instrument to destroy the ANC; and totally ignored the basic facts which ought to inform objective comment’.24
The political report Mandela presented to the ANC’s 1997 national conference contained elements of his concern with media ownership and governance. He said: ‘Even a cursory study of the positions adopted by the mainly white parties in the national legislature during the last three years, the National Party, the Democratic Party and the Freedom Front will show that they and the media which represents the same social base have been most vigorous in their opposition whenever legislative and executive measures have been introduced, seeking to end the racial disparities which continue to characterise our society.’25
Along with warnings that some of apartheid’s networks continued to pose a security threat – together with concerns about the oppositional role of some NGOs – this comment elicited a storm of criticism from much of the media and opposition parties. Thinking about how he would respond to this when he closed the conference, Mandela came back to the question of media ownership, and instead of retreating, he decided to sally forth. In the notes he prepared before giving his closing address, he writes: ‘The panic among opposition parties and in some editorials in response to my political report was not unexpected.
‘The striking feature of the NP and DP towards criticism has always been that of a bunch of individuals who have delicate skins and frail nerves; they cannot take criticism. Enlightened members of both these parties deserted them and left behind an arrogant group of unscrupulous racists whose sole aim is to demonise the democratic movement and unashamedly to conduct a virulent campaign of disinformation.’26
He continues to write about how the departure of luminaries from the Democratic Party, people who were ‘now serving our country with distinction’, has ‘put the DP firmly on the right of the NP’.27
Similarly, people of distinction, who ‘could no longer feel at home with a membership that was determined to defend apartheid and its privileges for the white minority’, deserted the National Party.28
The same media that ‘tried to cover up the fact that a Third Force existed in this country … now argue that there are no counter-revolutionary elements in this country.
‘The hostility of the white media in this country has induced principled commentators to say that South African journalists write as if they are foreigners in their own country.
‘Thami Mazwai, a senior black journalist, who was jailed for his principled stand and who later was elevated to the position of chairman of the National Editors Forum, tried to encourage a spirit of patriotism among his colleagues, in vain. He was forced to resign.’29
However, upon closing the conference, Mandela decided to refrain from reading out what he had penned, and instead summarised his opinions on the matter in one sentence: ‘The response of some political parties and sectors of society, including the media to my Political Report, was not unexpected; and if anything, it confirms everything that we said.’30
One of the first resolutions of the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF), an industry association born in October 1996, was critical of Mandela’s remarks about black journalists. Twenty-two black journalists later asked to meet him, angered by Mandela’s remarks, which the journalists felt were denigrating them. A robust exchange was followed by a joint press conference at which Mandela said that he favoured a free press that acted as a watchdog on government, but that as long as conservative whites controlled the media, black journalists would not be free. Having hotly contested that proposition, the journalists agreed to disagree.31
In the end, disappointed
as he was at the pace of transformation of the media – and critical of the quality of much of the content – Mandela combined acceptance of differences between media and government as a feature of democracy, delivering somewhat qualified praise that held the near uniformly euphoric coverage of his inauguration as ideal:
‘We have had robust exchanges with the press,’ he writes, ‘in some, the words used were carefully selected merely to convey no more than what both parties believed to be true. Others were more than robust, leaving the contestants bruised and without balance. Such heated exchanges cannot be avoided or suppressed in a democracy.
‘It is good for us, the media and the country as a whole, to know that our journalists can rise to expectations and acquit themselves excellently as on the day of inauguration and on numerous other occasions.’32
Ultimately, Mandela showed consummate skill in managing public relations. He had emerged from prison at a time when media communication had changed into a system in a perpetual state of flux, a voracious beast that had a depthless appetite for the sound bite. Somehow – and it could be said, with a little help from his unsleeping communications staff – he seemed to have studied and embraced this new reality; using his stature, he exploited the media’s own needs to communicate important messages that were in line with his mission in a difficult transition.
He accepted with grace the media’s intrusiveness, understanding that it was also driven by its own fascination with Mandela the man. Using his status of celebrity, which grew in correspondence to his age, he mastered the discipline of self-control to impart important messages about the collective interests of humanity and the place and role of South Africa in a globalising world.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On the African and World Stages
Africa for Nelson Mandela was as complex a place as South Africa had been when he came out of prison. He had gone to jail exactly at the time when more and more African states were gaining independence or, in given instances, wresting it from the grip of colonial administrations. Even his language, or choice of words, reflected this connection with a frozen period in the past; for instance, he still used the ancient word ‘emancipation’ for liberation, conjuring up the parlance favoured by scholars and political activists of yore, whether W. E. B. du Bois or Marcus Garvey, or that could be found in books such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery.1
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