EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS
DR MAKI MANDELA
ON A POIGNANT TENTH ANNIVERSARY
REMEMBERS THE FATHER AND STATESMAN SHE SHARED WITH THE WORLD
A photo in Dr Maki’s book shows Nelson – the man she calls Tata – during a rally in Soweto in 1990.
But during her interview (right), she recalls a father who was “very much a family man”
DRESS: SAMANTHA SUNG AT FENWICK
‘He set a tone for what type of leader the world needs and deserves… He tried to leave people with a sense of hope’
As the eldest living child of the world’s most revered and beloved statesman, Dr Makaziew Mandela appreciates both the privilege and responsibility that her name carries.
“I tell people I’m not related to my father,” the 69-year-old says with an easy laugh that she’s clearly inherited from Nelson Mandela, regarded by many as the greatest political leader of the 20th century. “When people ask me, I say: ‘No, the Mandela name is very common in South Africa.’
“It becomes too much. I’m not him, I’m his progeny.”
She strives, however, to keep the legacy alive. “One of the things I’ve learnt with my father is he was true and authentic to who he was. He was a proud Tembu man and he tried his best to care for and nurture people.
“When he met you, you’d feel like the most important person in the world, whether you were a servant or royalty, because he treated people equally,” she adds proudly of the anti-apartheid activist who spent 27 years in prison before becoming South Africa’s first black president in 1994. “He was a leader people wanted and desired, who touched your heart and soul.”
He also loved to gossip and had an appreciation for beautiful women, she discloses during our interview at London’s exclusive The Stafford hotel, a stone’s throw from St James’s Palace.
PERSONAL MEMORIES
A public speaker who passionately tackles issues including female empowerment, social justice and diversity, Dr Maki has spent the past year preserving her father’s memory by writing her book Mandela: In Honor of an Extraordinary Life, published in the tenth anniversary year of his death and coinciding with Black History Month.