(Re)imagining Mandela's Leadership esiXhoseni

Pedro Mzileni

doi:10.13169/intecritdivestud.2.2.0072

Abstract

Much public discourse positions Nelson Mandela as a global figure who embraced Western English ideals characterised by liberal human rights and heroic individual leadership. This paper challenges that decontextualised presentation of Mandela by locating him esiXhoseni, which is his ancestral, linguistic, geographic and epistemic locality. Pulling Mandela's leadership traits into his indigenous traditions and origins provides an opportunity to (re)imagine the philosophical and moral tools he utilised to form his personal and social sensibilities in the execution of his political responsibilities as an African freedom fighter and statesman. This study also contextualises how Mandela utilised isiXhosa as an African leadership philosophy in the struggle for social justice across his personal and political life. If we are to properly comprehend the primary influences that shaped the ontological canons of Southern African liberation struggle figures, then we must labour to understand how their local and indigenous African languages constructed their political consciousness, principles, ethics, ideals, moral codes and leadership qualities.

Highlights

Much quantitative attention has been granted to the studying of Mandela
Mangcu (2019) shares the same observation when he reveals that, first, none of Mandela’s existing biographies have been written by an African and, secondly, the overarching theme of these Western-generated biographies of his life, as far as his village background is concerned, is tribalised presentations of his upbringing, International Journal of CRITICAL DIVERSITY STUDIES 2.2 December 2019 (Re)imagining Mandela’s Leadership esiXhoseni wherein his family community in the rural Eastern Cape, South Africa, is viewed as a backward society that he eventually outgrew when he became urbanised and civilised by the European education he obtained from Fort Hare University, and later the employment he acquired in urban Johannesburg
The song was sung in isiXhosa, and part of the lyrics refer to iSizwe and umhlaba as the same factor – which was Zuma’s emphasis on how central the canons of African languages were in the conceptualisation of the struggle for social justice amongst African leaders like Mandela

Summary

Introduction

Much quantitative attention has been granted to the studying of Mandela. little has been accorded to qualitative studies about his indigenous traditions and other sources of his leadership philosophies from an African perspective. Mangcu (2019) shares the same observation when he reveals that, first, none of Mandela’s existing biographies have been written by an African and, secondly, the overarching theme of these Western-generated biographies of his life, as far as his village background is concerned, is tribalised presentations of his upbringing, International Journal of CRITICAL DIVERSITY STUDIES 2.2 December 2019(Re)imagining Mandela’s Leadership esiXhoseni wherein his family community in the rural Eastern Cape, South Africa, is viewed as a backward society that he eventually outgrew when he became urbanised and civilised by the European education he obtained from Fort Hare University, and later the employment he acquired in urban Johannesburg.Mangcu’s work (2019) mainly focuses on the Untold Heritage of Mandela’s life which traces the figure’s life in two aspects: (1) the historicisation of his ancestral heritage, clan histories and family tree; and (2) the convergence of his indigenous intellectual traditions with Western education and ANC urban political education that he imbibed in industrialising Johannesburg at the height of apartheid in the 1940s. This section of the paper will look at: (1) how the market economy and popular media present Mandela; (2) how scholarly research examines Mandela’s political life; and (3) the contemporary efforts to locate Mandela esiXhoseni, mainly through artistic songs, poems, and movies.

Results

Conclusion