(MENAFN- The Post)
There are very few documentaries and books that try to capture the lives of African heroes and bring them out as life-like figures. Often we write about them as stony and dry characters found in history books. They are always men making history and not men in history.
However, I have come across two exceptional items; one documentary and the other, a biography that portray liberation war heroes of Africa as real people. The two are rare works of art and history.
The first one is a documentary called Mandela Son of Africa, Father of a Nation. The second one is a biography of Herbert Chitepo, founding nationalist of Zimbabwe. Directed by Jo Menells and Angus Gibson, the Mandela documentary was released in October 1996 when Mandela was still President of South Africa.
Mandela Son of Africa, Father of a Nation, follows the beloved South African leader Nelson Mandela from his early days to his presidency, depicting South Africa and its turbulent years during apartheid control, which was brought to an end in 1994 with the nation's democratic election of Mandela as president.
The focus placed on Mandela's early education, his personal relationships, and his political activism for the African National Congress, which led to his 27-year imprisonment for sabotage though based on historical facts make Mandela life-like. The documentary runs for 108 minutes.
The villages in the hilly Eastern Cape look serene under the morning fog. The huts of the villages flip past and you feel like you have come home to any typical village in Africa South of the Sahara.
Mandela says when he first went to school, his teacher, a Mrs Mudhingane, asked,“What is your name?” and little Mandela said,“Rolihlahla.” Then it is said the teacher was not amused by the African name and said,“No, I don't like that one! You must have a Christian name. From today, you are called Nelson!” And that is how Mandela got the name Nelson!
Not being educated, Mandela's mother struggled with the name Nelson. It did not mean anything to her. When she took the boy to a clinic one day, she was asked what her son was called and she said he was“Nelisile.” Mandela laughs as he narrates.
I am touched when the documentary brings Mandela to the family cemetery in his village in Transkei. It is a solemn moment. Mandela looks at the mounds that are the graves of his parents and grandparents.
Not so far away, you see sheep grazing lazily or resting in the green grass, unperturbed. They seem to represent the unchanging times which death stands for.
Mandela's voice roars deeply from within his chest, like something from the underworld:“These graves mean a great deal to me because my beloved parents lay here. It raises a great deal of emotion for me to be here because it will be fair to say that part of me lay buried here.”
Mandela who was in his 70s at the time of the making of the documentary, walks away or limps from the hallowed space gradually, with a lot of pain written on his wrinkled face.
It is as if his parents have just died once more. A Xhosa traditional funeral song plays in the background and through close up, Mandela is deep in thought. It is also humbling to note that years later, Mandela is also laid to rest in the same cemetery.
Later in the documentary, Mandela talks about his polygamous father and the stick fights of his boyhood while herding cattle.
He even raises his trousers so that the camera could“see” the old scar that he received from his rival in a stick fight. You see that once upon a time he had been a vulnerable boy who did not win all his fights.
Mandela says he did not go to school as a plan of his parents but his mother was approached by neighbours who advised her to send Nelson to school because he looked like a clever boy.
When he went to school for the first time, it was a hurried thing. His father gave him his own clothes which were oversized. He also gave Nelson a twine with which to tie the oversized trousers.
Nelson's sister, Mabel, who has strikingly similar features to those of Nelson says, choosing her words carefully the way an African girl talks about her brother,“When my father became sick, he sent for Chief Jongintaba.
My father said to Jonginthaba,“Sir, I give you this child. He is your servant. I am entrusting him to you so that you will educate him because this child I can see that he is progressing well. Teach him and he will always respect you. I was there when my father said this.”
That is how Mandela came to the chief's court at Mqhekezweni and grew up there running errands for the elders and listening to matters being tried traditionally. He was being groomed to become adviser to Justice, the heir apparent to the Chief.
During this time Mandela had heard about the many battles between the Xhosas and Europeans that went on for over 100 years. Later, an over excited Mandela takes us to the hut where he used to sleep side by side with the Chief's son called Justice.
He had become very close to Justice. Now the President of South Africa, Mandela walks with the common people along the path overgrown with summer grass to the homestead where he grew up, amidst ululation and singing.
Mandela narrates that he went to Ciskei for his Matric where he meets a very boastful Dr Wellington, whose grandparent defeated Napoleon Bonaparte. Mandela talks about his circumcision at the age of 16. He speaks highly of the culture of circumcision.
He speaks as an insider. They used a sharp spear to cut a boy's foreskin and as it was being cut, Mandela says, the boy should shout out,“I am a man!” because the elders would be watching.
Mandela says that the pain of circumcision paralysed him down to the roots that, unlike the boys before him, he actually failed to shout, 'I am a man!”
Mandela comes to Johannesburg in April of 1941. He says he was running away from a forced marriage in the village. What made it worse was that the same girl had been in love with Justice. It was therefore untenable. Both guys decided to run away. When they got to Johannesburg they went to seek employment in the mines. Justice would be a clerk and Mandela would be a watchman.
But before long, the Chief sends a letter demanding that the two boys return to the village. However, Mandela defies the order and escapes to Alexandra where he appears to enjoy the township life and particularly the attention of girls.
He says about one particular girl:“I wanted to take her out but I was conscious that she was in a class far above me. Her boyfriend was a chap with a beautiful modern suit and a hat, you know… He would stand outside the yard, you know, with hands in his pockets….”
From there Mandela meets Walter Sisulu who, in this documentary, talks about his early days with Mandela and how law and politics fast became their main meal. In 1942 Mandela moved into the tiny Sisulu house in Soweto.
He studied law while working as a clerk in a law firm. Sisulu was already in the ANC. Mandela admits that when he came to the ANC, he started to appreciate that people of different tongues and backgrounds could work together and have a common goal. He learnt that the Xhosas were only a part of the African people.
In 1954, Mandela got married to Evelyn. Evelyn, a calm elderly woman with a secret smile, an oval face and side glances, must have been a terrible beauty during her days. She says their young family had no house because houses were scarce at the time.
She talks about staying with her sister and working jobs that did not give them much and that in 1953 Mandela started practicing law.
Then the blow comes as Mandela said to her:“Evelyn I feel that I have no love for you anymore. I give you the children and the house.”
In 1957 Mandela divorced Evelyn, leaving her with three children. This is one of the low points in this exciting documentary. Winnie Mandela talks of her courtship days with Mandela and how irresistible he was.
An Indian woman, Fatima Meer, says about Mandela:“He was strikingly handsome. And in those days he didn't have this lean thing. He was a big man.
The first thing that attracted you to him was his physical presence which was very attractive. Then of course he had a sense of humour… he cracked jokes. He teased. So you fell into a very easy relationship with him.”
From there on, the documentary goes into things that the public already knows about; the politics of the times and the long fight against apartheid and the Rivonia Trial and the subsequent imprisonment at Robben Island. But you already feel that you have had rare insights into Mandela the private man.
The second item is a biography by young writer, Elias Machemedze. It is a book of 2018. It is called The Life and Legacy of Herbert Chitepo. Machemedze has put together a book that attempts to recreate the ordinary side of the life of the extraordinary founding Zanu chairman, Herbert Chitepo, of Zimbabwe.
It is the story of a larger-than-life man retold by an unassuming Shona novelist who has penned novels: Moyo Inzenza, Sarawoga and Nherera Zvirange.
Having immensely succeeded as a novelist, Machemedze moves to researching on a man who was instrumental in the founding of modern Zimbabwe.
Many scholarly writings on Herbert Chitepo tend to have a clichéd side to them as they concentrate on the archetypal question: How did Herbert Chitepo die?
While that question is crucial, it usually takes us away from snooping into the road taken by Herbert, the boy from Nyanga in eastern Zimbabwe. We rarely go back to the source. Now the Chitepo story has been pushed beyond the divisive topic of how he died and why?
This book is not aggressive. It has a pastoral touch and it reads like a regional novel which is a story set in a recognisable culture and geography.
It places Chitepo back in the context of the Soko Mukanya totem where he belongs. It links Chitepo with his warrior magician great grandfather amongst the Jindwi people of Zimbabwe, centuries ago.
Grandfather Chitepo is lured to join Chief Mutasa's army to bolster the Mutasa people during their wars against Chief Makoni.
Grandfather Chitepo returns home in Nyanga and dies, leaving behind his son, Guwerere who begets Mufori, who beget Tiyane, who begets Herbert Pfumandini Chitepo. Tiyane dies and leaves behind Herbert to find his path amongst all kinds of vultures and saints in his community.
You begin to see the forces that created the formidable Chitepo from his boyhood. The story is folkloric, of course, as it traces Herbert Chitepo through Bonda Mission to St Augustine's Mission, a poverty-stricken boy who is very good with his school work.
He is not your hero yet as you get to see the rivers he swam in and the mountains that he climbed and the songs that he sang.
Chitepo later goes to Adams College and Fort Hare in South Africa and comes back to St Augustine's in Rhodesia as a degreed teacher. Sweet fate sees him being sent by the Anglican Church to the
United Kingdom, to teach the Shona language to missionaries who intended to come to Southern Rhodesia. But the Shona teacher is ambidextrous as he ends up studying law at the University of London.
This story follows Chitepo back to Rhodesia and opens up on exciting issues around his work as Rhodesia's first black lawyer. This is an area of Chitepo's life that many may want to peruse very closely for it is full of surprises.
For instance, Chitepo defended Michael Mawema, the first and interim leader of the National Democratic Party in the Mawema vs the Queen case in 1961 in the High Court of Southern Rhodesia against both conviction on all four counts levelled against Mawema.
With the help of Chitepo, Mawema's conviction and sentence on the first, second and third counts were set aside, but both conviction and sentence were upheld on the fourth count.
The other sensational and more widely talked about case is when Chitepo appears in the Queen vs Simon Muzenda case, 1961, where the accused was charged under a section of the southern Rhodesian law and order (Maintenance) Act, in that he uttered a subversive statement by reciting a passage of a now famous Shona poem“Nehanda Nyakasikana” which appeared in a book called Feso by Solomon Mutsvairo.
The case went through a lengthy trial, during which Muzenda's lawyer, Chitepo, argued that his client could not be accused of breaking the law for reciting a poem which was published and was widely used in schools. At the end of the trial, the accused was only cautioned and discharged.
As a result, Chitepo became popular for the cases in which he defended the nationalist movement in Rhodesia. He becomes a cult hero. For that, Julius Nyerere appoints Chitepo as Tanganyika's
Director of Public Prosecutions. Chitepo becomes an internationally renowned lawyer and an asset to the liberation movements beyond Southern Rhodesia.
However, Chitepo remains central back home in the political parties that are formed such as the ANC, Zapu and later, Zanu. You learn that the first Zanu Congress in Gwelo in 1964, elects Chitepo Chairman of the party.
With the emerging of UDI, the Zanu nationalists in detention at Sikombela becomes infuriated. They declare war on UDI and decide to take real action on the ground.
Therefore they issue a statement asking Chitepo to establish a war council outside Rhodesia and to immediately launch the war of liberation!
The Sikombela declaration asks Chitepo not to renew his prosecutor contract in Tanganyika so that he works full time on the formation and establishing of ZANLA and start an armed struggle.
That section of the book is very revealing on the selfless character of Chitepo as a key builder and architect of ZANLA and Dare ReChimurenga. Thanks to that, by 28 April 1966, the Chinhoyi Battle, considered to be one of the earliest armed battles of the war of liberation, occurs.
As to be expected, this book makes its critical contribution to the debate on the death of Chitepo and how it remains a black spot in the liberation for Zimbabwe up to this day. However the life of Chitepo thankfully overshadows his death in this book.
This book also has rare family pictures from the Chitepo family album, showing the six Chitepo children whom we have only known as adults. The sweet Chitepo boys and girls look calmly into the camera and you feel like hugging them. You also see the images of a barefooted Chitepo as school boy.
This book remains a shining example of how young writers could retrieve concrete history and turn it into stories that ordinary people today can easily relate it away from hard politics and history.
Memory Chirere