Nelson Mandela University and the Nelson Mandela Foundation are collaborating to realise Madiba’s dream of building a new society.
Thirty years ago today, Nelson Mandela had experienced just over two weeks as a free man after 27 years of imprisonment. From the moment he walked out of the gates of Victor Verster prison on February 11 1990 and made his first public appearance and speech that summer evening, it was clear that the political landscape had irrevocably changed. “We have waited too long for our freedom.”
It is clear to all that we have not achieved the transformation of which Madiba dreamed. We have experienced terrible years of neglect, of state capture, poor leadership at many levels of society, and the ravages of corruption. We have added multiple intractable problems to those our country’s leadership faced immediately after 1994.
The collaboration between the university and foundation has so far given rise to several programmes, all geared at having a meaningful effect on society. One of the programmes is the Transdisciplinary Institute for Mandela Studies, a joint project between the university, the foundation and the Human Sciences Research Council, launched in 2019.
Another programme is the Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity, also launched in 2019. It’s a partnership between the foundation and Columbia University, New York City. Mandela University will assist with developing curriculum content for the fellowship programme. A further example of this is the work we are doing with Xolela Mangcu, professor of sociology and history, and interim director of Africana Studies, George Washington University, and adjunct professor at Nelson Mandela University, who is authoring the forthcoming Nelson Mandela biography. This is going to be an important book. Mangcu is positioning Madiba within a lineage reaching back before colonisation and through generations of encounters with British imperial forces and with white settlers.
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