Weekend Post — 04/16/2007
MANDELA EMBRACES MEER AFTER ATTACK ON ANC
Mike Loewe
Nelson Mandela showed why he is admired as one of the world‘s great leaders yesterday at Rhodes University, writes Mike Loewe in Weekend Post (Port Elizabeth). He rose gingerly to publicly embrace his friend, Fatima Meer, after she delivered a devastating public attack on the party he had dedicated his life to building. Mandela and his wife Graca Machel, dressed in matching black and white outfits, were in Grahamstown for the graduation ceremony of his grandson, Mandla. Meer is the author of Mandela's first "authorised" biography.

Mandla is poised to take over his grandfather‘s seat as head of the abaThembu House of the Ngubengcuka, as head of the Mvezo Traditional Council in the Eastern Cape, and chief of the Madiba clan on Monday.
Guest of honour Meer, who is confined to a wheelchair after a stroke, sat stoically before the central lectern as her granddaughter Nadia Meer-Krige read her address.

The speech was so startling in its ferocity and simplicity, that the audience, including hundreds of arts, law, music and journalism graduates, gave her a standing ovation. In it she tongue-lashed Finance Minister Trevor Manuel for choreographing the “myth” that South Africa, with its “stupendous budget surplus of R5-billion” was one of the richest countries in the world. In fact, 55 per cent of South Africans lived below the minimum living level, had little or no sanitation, endured inadequate school buildings and electricity supply, deplorable housing, millions of children remained malnourished and many were without the dignity of a job.

Municipal maladministration
“Practically every municipality presents a picture of maladministration, of people‘s needs ignored and their protests disregarded.” The struggle for a vote had ended up with a democracy that had left people as powerless as before, that did not work for them, that was not owned by them and that evaded them. The ruling party, “bloated with manipulated power”, considered itself invincible liberators, but had in fact “usurped the people‘s role in liberation” while attempting to “legitimate their dictatorial role”. The people‘s will for a socialist state, equality and democracy – as enshrined in the Freedom Charter – was crushed by the apartheid state, and was being “ignored by the ANC government”.

When the speech was over, Mandela stood up from his front row seat. Abandoning his stick – and in defiance of his surprised helpers – he shuffled forwards and reached out his arm to Meer. Photographers scrambled to capture the moment and the audience of more than 1 200 of South Africa‘s leading young intellectuals and their parents burst into applause.

Afterwards, towards the end of the lengthy ceremony, Mandela‘s spirits must have been raised when a young graduate received his degree, turned on his heel and gave the youthful cry of “Amandla” with his fist raised proudly in salute. But Mandela chose to take a discreet exit, shuffling down the side of the auditorium and up the stage stairs, to a slit behind the black curtain wings. And then the audience, realising what was happening, gave him one last round of applause.