Brand Mandela/Brand Jesus

By Ken Russell in All Sorts

what do these two men stand for?

BRAND MANDELA / BRAND JESUS
We're hearing much, already, about "Brand Mandela." Indeed, even before the great man was buried in his native village of Qunu, tens of thousands of opportunistic South Africans had given thought, and action, as to how to cash-in on what currently is the most famous brand in the world.
Stories are legion on the internet as to how those opportunities are being grasped, from the inspired to the tacky. At a junction in one of Johannesburg's affluent leafy suburbs two young men were seen to weave among cars waiting at a traffic light, hawking shiny, hologram- style portraits of Mandela that change colour as they move. The asking price is 100 rand, ( $10.50 NZ) "After Mandela passed away we bought these so people can have a memory of him," says Tshepo Mabaso, 21,
one of the street vendors. What he didn't say was he was making a profit of almost 90 rand on each sale. In South Africa today, the face and name of Nelson Mandela is used to sell toiletries, kitchen aprons, campaign buttons, stationery and all manner of electronic gadgetry.
In the upmarket shopping malls of Johannesburg, the Nelson Mandela Foundation's official clothing brand, 46664 ( his Robben Is prisoner number ) sells the colourful batik shirts favoured by the late president for R449.95. In Pretoria, as a 90,000-strong crowd queued to view Mandela as he lay in state, vendors were selling unofficial rugby shirts with his image, fist raised in his famous pose, for R150.
It's well known that during his presidency Mandela himself took steps to protect and preserve the integrity of what was clear, to him and his advisers, was going to be a powerful and wealthy legacy. The Nelson Mandela Foundation was to benefit the nation, especially its children. It was to combat and raise awareness of and combat HIV Aids. It was to fund the reform programmes of ANC in perpetuity. It was to provide for the great man's family, and the education of grandchildren. It may have appeared at that time to be wise and reasonable provision, but how does one provide for the staggering growth of a living legend, and how does one guard against a family lusting and squabbling after what it perceived to be its rights to natural inheritance, and a once robust political party suffering loss of vision, failure to deliver on key social policies, and leadership dogged by scandal and corruption. Inevitably, the genie got out of the bottle, and took on a life of its own.
Official Mandela brands, copyrights and trademarks have been eluded by those seeking numerous loopholes to exploit the great man's magic name for commercial gain, and as the ODT reported last Monday there are at least 40 companies officially registered with the government, shamelessly using the Mandela name. The list includes the Gandhi-Mandela Nursing Academy, Mandela Truck Shuttle Services, the Mama Mandela Marketing Company, and Mandela's Shed, a restaurant chain. The "Madiba" name has been used by more than 140 registered companies, including Madiba Truck Stop, Madiba's
Driving School, Madiba Chickens, Madiba Cash and Madiba Bottle Store.
The Foundation may own the website "nelsonmandela.org", but "mandela.org" belongs to a Brazilian, who uses it to sell computers. And the family have been no less enterprising. Mandela's daughter Makaziwe and one of her daughters have launched a "House of Mandela" range of wines, despite that Mandela himself is on record saying he did not want to be associated with alcohol or tobacco.
Much of which, in an ideal world, could be seen as the tawdry cheapening of the name of one who for 27 long years embraced principle above worldly pleasures and profits, and emerged from his prison ordeal intent on reconciliation and unity. His friend and fellow reformer Desmond Tutu said as much earlier this year when he and the nation were reckoning with the eventual death of Madiba. " The best memorial to Nelson Mandela would be a democracy that was really up and running; a democracy in which every single person in South Africa knew that they mattered, and where other people knew that each person mattered. "
But it is not an ideal world, and Mandela was pragmatic enough to know that his wider legacy to the rainbow nation would not be pure reform or perfect change, and if some of his countrymen bettered themselves by deploying his image in ways that gave others the impression of belittling his legacy - so be it. For him, it was the big picture that mattered.
And for some of us, tempted to wring our hands at the evidence of the degradation of brand Mandela in so short a time, think what 20 centuries of wear and tear have done to brand Jesus. This thought was powerfully brought home to Judy and me as we skipped our way through a recording from last Sunday's TV3 condensation of the annual 'Christmas in the Park' from Auckland's Domain the previous night. An extravaganza of song, dance, beat, glamour, noise, celebrity, colour and exploding colour in the night sky. The Jesus story was somewhere
in there if you listened hard enough, but so romanticised, sentimentalised, and sanitized as to be beyond the recognition of those who still happen to believe that a refugee baby born in the Judean village of Bethlehem in the reign of Caesar Augustus, noticed only by a handful of scungy shepherds and mysterious travelling astrologers - and almost missed in the census, - is a source of life and light that has permeated humankind ever since, with the most profound of consequences.
Yet that is what happens to even the best of brands, and brand Jesus is no exception. Even worse, by comparison, is what the Church itself has done to the Jesus brand. Turned a simple story of a self-effacing man of peace into a messianic lord demanding homage, and Galilean teacher of love and inclusion into the subject of creeds and dogmas that have defined, judged and excluded succeeding generations.
Tis Christmas again. What better Christmas commission for today's Church than to join the world-wide community using heart and mind, intelligence, intuition and imagination to recover the integrity of brand Jesus. It's a daunting task, but no beyond us.
Ken Russell
The light has always shone; the faith we lodge our hope in will seek a door to open, a star to light us on, and draw a shining thread through all the year ahead.
Shirley Erena Murray