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(Re)imagining Mandela's Leadership esiXhoseni
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.
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The interaction took place on 15 July 2016 at the outskirts of the public meeting hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Anti-Racism Network of South Africa in Houghton Estate, Johannesburg.
An award winning South African poet and musician popularly known as Zahara.
In November 2009, the United Nations declared 18 July International Nelson Mandela Day and the first Mandela Day was observed across the globe on 18 July 2010.
This Xhosa phrase refers to intergenerational education rooted in oral traditions and histories.
The term “abantu abantsundu”, according to Professor Ncedile Saule (2017) who was citing from the works of King Hintsa, is the original reference that Xhosa people made to themselves as a people before the epistemic infiltration of apartheid linguistics driven by white colonisers. Saule (2017) explains that there is a difference between “abantu abamnyama” and “abantu abantsundu”. The term “abamnyama” is a Xhosa translation of “black”, a term that was coined by white people to identify us. In contrast, “abantsundu” is who we truly are, it defines where Xhosa people come from with their complexion, a people of the land who look like and who resonate with the land descriptively, conceptually, and spiritually. “Abantu abantsundu” is a term that cannot be translated in English. “Ubuntsundu” does not mean brown nor black, rather it is how Xhosa people conceptualise themselves as a people who are interconnected to the land. The King Hintsa Technical and Vocational Educational Training College together with The Xhosa Kingdom and the three surrounding Municipalities of Mnquma, Mbhashe and Amathole, organised the King Hintsa Memorial Lecture in 2017 which was presented by Professor Ncedile Saule on the 12 May 2017 at Butterworth Christian Centre, Extension 6, eGcuwa (Butterworth). This marked 182 years after the British brutally killed King Hintsa.
Sesotho is an official Southern African language spoken by 6 million people of the South African population. It is also an official indigenous language of two other Southern African countries, Zimbabwe and Lesotho.