Holy Cows. Gareth van Onselen
them left behind in the confusion, were the best Hollywood could afford.
Winfrey also makes no mention in the video that Mandela’s party had earlier origins. The implication is that the 2002 occasion was the consequence of a ‘partnership’ between her and the great man, an event that she was central to realising. On film it looked magical indeed.
Oprah escaped the chaos unscathed and with her local reputation stronger than ever. In an editorial headlined ‘Lessons from Qunu’, the Pretoria News wrote: ‘Oprah stands out as a caring being in a world of obscenely rich show business personalities, many of whom achieved their “fame” through vulgar exploits. She set an outstanding example, not only to her peers but also to the people of this country.’
Oprah never attended another Mandela Christmas party.
In light of the 2002 problems, organisers said the Christmas party would have to be reassessed if it was going to have a future. La Grange was adamant that the risks outweighed the advantages: ‘We would seriously advise Madiba not to do it again. The situation was very dangerous when 20 000 people, including adults, came, when we had expected 5 000 children only. We will definitely reassess the annual parties that began in 1990. We simply cannot have a repeat of having no control over irresponsible people who entered Mandela’s property.’ She was not immune to some exaggeration herself, then, as the mythology of the party had now been set three years further back in time.
It appeared the ghost of Christmas future did not have a promising vision to deliver. La Grange said that some people had lied about their age to qualify for a donation, while others, who were smartly dressed, suggesting no dire personal circumstances, had helped themselves to presents and food.
But the saddest story emerged a few days later when it became known that a small child with cerebral palsy had been abandoned at some point during the afternoon; deliberately so, it seems. Left sitting next to a pile of contraceptives, two nappies and blanket, he was later handed over to the Happy Home Disabled Children’s Centre for care and attention, as a search for his mother was undertaken. The child’s final fate was never reported.
Despite the problems, the party was not abandoned. Instead, it took on a new, regimented precision. Details of how the 2003 edition would be run were presented to the press at the beginning of December and it was made clear there would be none of the disorder that had sullied the previous occasion. Entrance was to be strictly controlled, children would have to be accompanied by an adult, and only children between the ages of six and 14 would be allowed entry, with a maximum of five children per adult. Despite these restrictions, 20 000 guests were expected again.
Logistics also took on more ominous proportions: a private security firm was hired and the army deployed to police the vicinity. A large, green metal fence was erected. A closed-circuit television camera system was set up to monitor events from a central command room and highly trained personnel were brought in to observe and maintain order.
All of this, together with an overcast day and a constant trickle of rain, led to a far more muted affair. Mandela, ever sensitive to the right occasion for the right message, took to the stage to suggest the event be extended to South Africa’s other provinces: ‘We are going to discuss now with leaders around the country, that they must also start something similar and I will assist them in talking to business to say this must happen in all nine provinces in this country.’
Christmas and politics had now finally merged completely.
The 2003 party had proved wildly popular again. A two-kilometre line of people had stretched away into the distance from Mandela’s front door as people queued from as early as 5 a.m., with some having slept out overnight next to the N2. As a reward, they were entertained by, among others, Kami, the world’s first HIV-positive Sesame Street muppet. The presents consisted of school uniforms and stationery. How The Herald must have nodded in quiet approval. Although 20 000 people had been expected, on the day, organisers said the final number was closer to 30 000.
One thing The Herald did not use its editorial space for was to bemoan the presence of real guns in Qunu that year – an irony lost on a paper so quick to prescribe political correctness.
Yet despite Mandela’s calls for the party to be broadened, the 2003 event turned out to be the last party unmarred by significant controversy and the second last ever, as the following year, despite all the precautions, things again descended into anarchy from which the annual occasion was unable to recover.
Its final manifestation, the 2004 Qunu Christmas party had reached its nadir. What had started with 60 people over a decade earlier now saw 50 000 people swarm into the village. Those in charge had planned for no more than 20 000 and, despite their best efforts, it was all too much. The ensuing chaos saw a stampede, as people pushed and shoved for a place in the queue and to get their hands on a present. At one stage, people stormed one of the trucks carrying the gifts.
As temperatures soared, the event organisers called the whole thing off midway through. Outraged by the conduct of the crowd, they cancelled the presents and told the guests that because of their behaviour they should now go home. Again, fences were taken down as the mass of people pulsed dangerously in the controlled environment. Several people were injured and, in the aftermath, it was again found that a number of infants had been abandoned.
But, for the first time, Mandela was not there to see any of this. If the spirit of Christmas had moved on from his party some years ago, ‘Santa Claus’ was no longer there in person either. Mandela was in Johannesburg, having cancelled all public engagements on account of his son, who had been taken seriously ill.
Just before the pandemonium had broken out, guests had been addressed by the Eastern Cape premier, Nosimo Balindlela, and she would assume the political responsibility that now flowed from the failed event. Mandela’s Christmas party was now the legislature’s business. A plan was made between the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and the provincial departments of education and social development to deliver the presents that could not be distributed on the day to local schools early the following year.
And that, as they say, was that. The 2005 party was cancelled. Mandla Mandela’s father had died and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund said that, instead of there being a party, gifts would be delivered to schools, in an attempt to ‘minimise exposing children to unnecessary difficulties’.
The spirit of Christmas was vanquished. The beautiful monster had eaten is own gift.
Reflecting on Christmas while imprisoned on Robben Island, Mandela wrote in his autobiography: ‘What Sundays were to the rest of the week, Christmas was to the rest of the year. It was the one day when the authorities showed any goodwill toward men. We did not have to go to the quarry on Christmas Day, and we were permitted to purchase a small quantity of sweets. We did not have a traditional Christmas meal, but we were given an extra mug of coffee for supper.’
Robben Island is one of the world’s more beautiful prisons, something of a beautiful monster itself, at least so far as its location goes. From its shores, a blue carpet stretches out towards the African continent and Table Mountain stares back at you. The mountain might well have felt like a prison wall of its own to those on the island, as if nature itself had erected some monumental fail-safe barrier should anyone attempt to cross the divide without permission.
For the children of the Eastern Cape and the prisoners alike, both Mandela’s Christmas party and Christmas Day would come to mirror each other in an eerie way: some small, precious gift, the enjoyment of which would be monitored by guards. All hemmed in by fences and gates. In both those worlds, come Christmas Day, freedom and control would let their mortal enemy take some small step into their domain.
No one better understood the value of that gesture than Mandela. The memory alone, of a fleeting respite from control’s relentless oppression, made an indelible impression upon him. How he must have wished to bestow upon Qunu some equally valuable relief from the tyranny of poverty, even if it was ephemeral. How it must have pained him to watch on as those crowds, desperate and deprived, swelled and crushed not just each other, but the gesture itself.
Few things break the heart more fundamentally than desperation. It can be as self-destructive