Ngugi: My rare encounters with Nelson Mandela

By NGUGI WA THIONG’O

I first met Mandela face to face in 1992 during my visit to South Africa, guest of The Congress of South African writers, to tell the Kamirithu story at various community centres in the country, by way of sharing ideas and experiences in the unfolding post-apartheid democratic process.

Mandela had just resumed the Presidency of ANC after 27 years in Prison.

I could never have imagined that my very first engagement in the country would be with the legend of the struggle. I was alerted about the meeting a few hours before it took place in Johannesburg at ANC offices.

I did not know what to expect. Mandela had been part of my literary and political imagination since his days as The Black Pimpernel who, time and gain, made a fool of the apartheid police.

A Makerere student at the time, I had just read Orcy’s novel The Scarlet Pimpernel set during the French Revolution and it was easy to equate the French reign of terror with that of apartheid and Mandela, with the Percy character, the master of disguise and elusive moves.

The real Mandela of the Rivonia trial, Roben Island, and worldwide celebrity, added to the legend.

He had been the subject of poetry, politics and popular performance. In London, I had worked with ANC in exile, even meeting with the hard working Oliver Tambo, his legal partner, the one that held together, a party then dubbed terrorist by the West. Mandela’s name was always in the horizon. And now I was going to meet him.

I expected him to talk about his prison days, or ask me about Kenya politics, or simply voice his dream for a South Africa whose leadership he would soon assume. He didn’t.

He talked mostly about books, what African writers had meant to him and his fellow political prisoners, and how books had played a role in buoying up their spirits.

BOOKS, AND MORE BOOKS

Books, yes, and more books.

When we finally met, there were no dramatics. We sat one on one eyelevel, but I didn’t realise that he grew on me by the second, a towering presence because he did not try to be towering. Before I knew it, one hour and-a-half had gone, he was ready to receive the next visitor.

What stayed with me, as I left for Kwazululand, was his soft introspective tone. An incident in my first workshop at a library would make me revisit the tone. After the library event we were to drive to the graveyard of Albert Luthuli, the former President of ANC, to pay respects to his memory.

I was in midst of telling the Kamirithu story, open air theatre, the involvement of workers, small farmers, the landless, the jobless and the power of an awakened consciousness, when suddenly I saw commotion in the audience.

The ANC chief of security who had accompanied me hurried out of the room, his jacket open. My workshop was cut short. They had arrested an Inkatha gunman about to enter the hall. They caught and disarmed him in the nick of time. Our visit to Luthuli’s grave was cancelled.

All those present including an American envoy, drove in a convoy back to Durban. It was then that I realised that my driver was an ANC security man and he told me that his own brother had been murdered by thugs alleged to be Buthelezi’s men, the week before.

This brought home to me the meaning of Mandela’s introspective tone. The country was literally on the verge of a bloodbath and he knew it, and that he held the key to its stability.

But he held it together, for the four years that he was president, guided by the realisation that there is no room for vengeance in good politics.

I would meet him again after my 2003 Steve Biko Memorial Lecture. The meeting was in Johannesburg again, this time in the offices of his foundation.

By then he had left office, becoming a one-term president, and Thabo Mbeki had taken over. He was different than the first meeting, a little more effusive. He talked about the contribution of Cuba and African states to the struggle.

He talked a little bit about his continuing contact with leaders of the world, Bush and Blair in particular. He reminisced over Biko, paying tribute to the role of black conscious movement and indeed that of the other political parties in the liberation.

The question of his giving a Steve Biko lecture came up and indeed, he gave one, the following year.

As we were leaving, he stood up and placed his hand on my shoulder. Thus we walked to the door where we left him. I told Xolela, my host, how touching that was: he and I walking to the door, his hand on my shoulder, a gesture almost reminiscent of the image of his long walk to freedom.

Xolela laughed. Sorry, nothing personal. He does that with people. For support. Yes, he was clearly frailer than the first time we met but his spirits were still up, once again his charisma, towering presence commanding awe and respect rather than demanding it.

The third time would have been in 2004 when he, Prof Mazrui and I were be accorded Honorary Doctorates to mark the renaming and re-launching of the former University of Transkei into Walter Sisulu University.

Walter Sisulu, one of ANC stalwarts, was also Mandela’s political and spiritual mentor.

Accompanying me were Njeeri and our two children Mumbi and Thiongo, who were less excited about my doctorate than the fact that they were going to meet Mandela.

It was an emotional moment for me because I was returning to Kenya for the first time after 22 years of forced exile. Alas! We never met him: he was down with something, he could not make it to the ceremony, and would be given his robes at his home. His passing on, though expected shocked me: at the back of my mind was always hope that the man who had cheated death so many times would once more rebound.