This article first appeared in THE CAPE TIMES

3rd August 2007

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THE WORLD THAT MADE MANDELA by Luli Callinicos (STE Publishers)

In his foreword to The World that made Mandela (which first appeared in 2000 and was re-launched recently after the original print run sold out), the late Walter Sisulu declares boldly: “Every South African should read this book.” Many people, in response to such an injunction, might claim that they know all about the world that made Mandela – some of them, because they lived in it and through it; others, because they have read Long Walk to Freedom and similar accounts of the liberation struggle. Nevertheless, even the most well-versed citizen may gain new insight and knowledge from Luli Callinicos’ book.

The historical and biographical research she has performed is evident in the wealth of information offered in her prose account, which takes a balanced narrative tone. The book’s most obvious drawcard, however, is not the text itself but the wealth of photographs on display. Each page contains a photograph, sometimes two, setting images of contemporary South Africa against a visual record of the country and its turmoil during the course of the twentieth century.

This has an invigorating – and sometimes disturbing – effect. For example: the words “Mandela” and “Rivonia”, when placed in the same sentence, have an obvious historical resonance. While demonstrating the corruption and folly at the heart of the apartheid state, the Treason Trial provided the occasion for Madiba’s most inspiring anti-racist rhetoric. Yet few who drive through the conspicuous wealth of present-day Rivonia, with its restaurants and clubs, would make the connection.

The book offers a form of armchair cultural tourism: it is structured around “70 sites of significance”, aiming to “facilitate the Mandela Heritage Trail”. Obviously, locations like Robben Island are listed, but the trail includes a number of less high-profile places that give us some idea of Mandela’s private life prior to his arrest: Kholvad House, the multiracial apartment block where Ahmed Kathrada had a flat that served as Mandela’s makeshift ‘office’; Kapitan’s, where he often dined; or the Bantu Men’s Social Centre and D.O.C.C., forums for both leisure and protracted ideological debate. There are also unexpected insights into Mandela’s first marriage to Evelyn Mase, his political apprenticeship at Dr. Xuma’s house in Sophiatown, his daily commute via Johannesburg’s Park Station, and his years as a student at Fort Hare and Wits.

Callinicos also elucidates the roles of other struggle figures, and details important events that are often glossed over in liberation histories: one of the sites on the trail, for instance, is Orlando Hall in Soweto, where the ANC/PAC split took place in 1959.

The book invites tourists to visit the locations it describes; and, while much of the ‘contextualising’ material suggests that it is pitched chiefly at an international readership, it may nonetheless stimulate local interest in these sites – most of which would not otherwise be high on the ‘must-see’ lists of travellers. In fact, many no longer exist (such as Mandela’s birthplace at Mvezo and the church school he attended in Qunu), while others would seem to be valuable only as part of the trail rather than in and of themselves. Still, though they may lack grandeur or physical beauty, as Sisulu notes, “reclaiming” them as part of our collective heritage will go some way towards “redressing the imbalances in our cultural landscape”.

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