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<p>The launch of Africa Month recently took place at Freedom Park under the theme, the Year of Nelson Mandela. One of the key issues that were addressed was correcting the African narrative.</p>


Changing the negative narrative about Africa

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<p>Xenophobia should be criminalised &#8211; these are the thoughts of the Director at the Institute of Afrikology, Ashantewaa Ngidi. She spoke to CNBC Africa on the side-lines of the official launch of Africa Month in Freedom Park, Pretoria.</p>


Tackling Xenophobia among Africans

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<p>At the launch of Africa Month a lot of attention was put on the role that the African Union can play in increasing African Unity and African prosperity. CNBC Africa  spoke to Vusumuzi Mkhize, Director General at the Department of Arts and Culture.</p>


The state African Union’s peace building initiatives

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<p>African designs are increasingly gaining global traction but players in the industry are still finding it difficult to protect their designs from replication.</p>


African designs attracting global interest

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<p>The theme for this Africa Month is the year of Nelson Mandela. It was a cultural celebration of Africa&#8217;s diversity and one of the key themes addressed at this year&#8217;s event was the promotion of Africa&#8217;s music industry.</p>


Promoting Africa’s music industry on Africa Month

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<p>One of the ways African Unity can be fully achieved is through sustainable and beneficial partnerships between African countries. Dr Prakarmajith Lutchmun, The Mauritius High Commissioner to SA spoke about the importance of intra-Africa relations.</p>


High Commissioner Prakarmajith Lutchmun on tackling poverty in Africa

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<p>This year&#8217;s theme for Africa Month is the year of Nelson Mandela. The event was hosted at Freedom Park, Pretoria.  CNBC Africa spoke to Jane Mufamadi, CEO, Freedom Park about the significance of the venue.</p>


Freedom Park’s Jane Mufamadi on the significance of Africa Month

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<p>Last night was the official launch of Africa Month. The theme for this year is the year of Nelson Mandela. It is a cultural celebration of Africa&#8217;s diversity and it was hosted at Freedom Park in Pretoria.</p>


Celebrating Nelson Mandela’s legacy during Africa Month

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<p>In the period leading up to Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, Lord Robin Renick was the British Ambassador to South Africa.</p>


Lord Renick positive about SA future

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<p>Zweli Mkhize, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs reflects on Mam Winnie&#8217;s legacy.</p>


Zweli Mkhize reflects on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

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<p>Winnie Madikizela-Mandela&#8217;s legacy as a member of the ANC is controversial and highly critical. CNBC Africa&#8217;s Karabo Lethlathla spoke to Political Analyst and author, Ralph Matekga about her political career.</p>


Minister Nomvula Mokonyane on #Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

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<p>Winnie Madikizela-Mandela&#8217;s legacy as a member of the ANC is controversial and highly critical. CNBC Africa&#8217;s Karabo Lethlathla spoke to Political Analyst and author, Ralph Matekga about her political career.</p>


How will #Winnie Madikizela-Mandela be remembered?

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<p>Winnie Mandela died at the Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg – the very hospital where her former husband fought for his life in 2011 – aged 81. She will be afforded a state funeral on April 14. CNBC Africa takes a look back at her life.</p>


Mother of the nation, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela dies

<p><em>Khaya Buthelezi</em> | <em>FleishmanHillard</em></p>
<p>There is something deep and profound about the month of February in South Africa. Former President FW De Klerk announced the release of our liberation struggle icon, Nelson Mandela on 2 February, and Mandela walked out of the Victor Venster Prison in Paarl after 27 years of incarceration on 11 February 1990.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-21712 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/mandela3_final.jpg" alt="He left me with a sense of wonder" width="522" height="350" /></p>
<p>Fast forward to the democratic SA, and February 2018 could easily be dubbed as the month of love, and daggers. The nation fell head over heels in love with Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa while at the same time, the ANC NEC had their daggers out for now former President Jacob Zuma, forcing him to resign on Valentine’s Day.</p>
<p>And true to JZ’s style, he announced his resignation just before midnight – messing up the Valentine night for millions of couples in the country.</p>
<p>With the new sheriff in town in President Cyril Ramaphosa, we’ve seen a cabinet reshuffle, and the Budget Speech sure sent a message to the country that action is being taken.</p>
<div id="attachment_299284" style="width: 860px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-299284" class="wp-image-299284 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Cyril-Ramaphosa_SONA2018_GettyImages.png" alt="" width="850" height="566" /><p id="caption-attachment-299284" class="wp-caption-text">South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, delivers his first State of The Nation Address. Image: Getty Images</p></div>
<p>In a speech littered with lines from US rapper Kedrick Lamar, Tanzanian liberation struggle icon Julius Nyerere and lots of love for the late Nelson Mandela, a balance was struck between protecting the integrity of public finances, maintaining fiscal discipline and increasing the social wage.</p>
<p>The “Fees Must Fall” movement must be celebrating with the fee-free education for first year students from households with a combined income of R350 000 receiving R57bn over the next three years, of which R12.4bn will go towards needy first year students in 2018.</p>
<p>Civil society organisations are not happy though with the one percentage increase of the VAT from 14% to 15% &#8211; a first since 1993. This is viewed as plunging a dagger in the hearts of the poor who are already struggling to make ends meet.</p>
<p>National Treasury says the poor have been cushioned with most basic food stuffs such as maize meal, brown bread, beans and rice, having been VAT zero-rated. But this was completely unexpected given the political implications of increasing VAT, especially with the 2019 general elections around the corner.</p>
<p>The 17 million grant recipients were showed some serious love in February – receiving a whopping 6.6% above inflation increase from R380 to R400 as from 01 April and another R10 on 01 October. Our grannies and grandpas will receive a R90 increase from R1600 to R1690 on 1 October and a further R10 on 1 October &#8211; a total of R259.4bn in social spending.</p>
<p>Back to the cabinet reshuffle, Nhlanhla Nene, Pravin Gordhan and Bheki Cele after being rejected by Zuma in an inexplicable love tiff, got their ‘love back’ a hundredfold over as Finance Minister, Public Enterprises Minister and Police Minister, respectively. This move has been cheered by the markets. On the other hand, the retention of Malusi Gigaba, Bathabile Dlamini and Nomvula Nonkonyane in the name of ANC unity has been bemoaned by many pundits.</p>
<p>February has been a rollercoaster ride, and there is no doubt that the rest of the year will be challenging as different parts of society react to what has happened. With the general elections on the 2019 horizon, turbulent times lie ahead but hope is in the air.</p>
<p>With SA scoring a paltry 55.1 points (weak and vulnerable) on the Reputation Institute 2017 Reputation Index, a window of opportunity has been opened for corporate SA to leverage off the current spirit of optimism and hope to build reputation capital for organisations and broader country.</p>


February in South Africa – A month of love, and daggers

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<p>This Friday there will be a memorial in Cape Town from one of the foot soldiers of South Africa’s struggle who partied with Nelson Mandela in her activist days and spent 27 years in exile for her pains.</p>


The life of SA’s heroine of the struggle, AnnMarie Wolpe

<p>AnnMarie Wolpe, the anti-apartheid activist who partied with Nelson Mandela and once tried to smuggle wire cutters to her incarcerated husband inside a roast chicken, died on February 14 aged 87.</p>
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<p>A memorial service will be held at Temple Israel, in Upper Portswood Road in Green Point, Cape Town on February 23 to the dignified activist who spent a lifetime working for liberation and education.</p>
<p>“AnnMarie had a very powerful presence. Warm, flamboyant and gregarious. She succumbed to a battle with cancer and emphysema,” her son Nic said.</p>
<p>Wolpe was one of a band of young turks in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, in the 1960s, that used to hold then illegal multi-racial gatherings. Here politics was mixed with a little drinking and dancing. It was at one of these parties that Wolpe met the young, sharp-suited, Mandela for the first time. She recounted the tale for the documentaries: Liliesleaf – the Untold Story and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPmey2oS4o4">Nelson Mandela and Beast Called Business</a> that I made for CNBC Africa.</p>
<p>“When I first met Nelson he was an absolutely stunning man; tall, imposing and just totally and utterly charming,” said Wolpe half a century later about the then young practicing lawyer.</p>
<p>“Nelson said when he used to go to court the white lawyers pretended they didn’t notice him. Now, it is almost impossible not notice a man of this stature and the way he walked proudly in immaculate dress.”</p>
<p>But these connections were to shatter her family following the raid on the underground safe house at Liliesleaf in Rivonia, Johannesburg in July 1963. Police arrested her husband, Harold, who was the activists’ advocate, and her lawyer brother James Kantor whom police picked up largely on the grounds that he was related to both of them.<br />
Police released Kantor but made sure they ruined his business and he went to an early grave bitter with the family and its political connections. More than half a century on you could tell that this hurt Wolpe.</p>
<p>“What do you say to someone whose life you have ruined…I’m sorry?” was her heartfelt response.</p>
<p>Her husband was thrown into cells at Marshall Square, in Johannesburg, ahead of an appearance in the so called Rivonia Trial where Mandela and his comrades were to evade the noose but be sentenced to life.</p>
<p>Wolpe was one of the activists who made several attempts to spring her husband and his comrades from police cells including the wire cutters in the chicken. In the process, Wolpe herself saw the inside of a cell and interrogation. In the end, a young police officer freed her husband by agreeing to  unlock and hit himself on the head in return for money to buy a car.</p>
<p>Harold Wolpe fled in the boot of a car to Swaziland and then, dressed as a priest, to Francistown in Botswana where he took refuge in a prison for fear of the South African special branch snatching him. It took three scheduled flights – one crashed and another was destroyed on the ground – before he made it to London where he was to spend 27 years in exile with his family. Harold Wolpe returned to South Africa as political times changed and died in 1996. </p>
<p>In London, AnneMarie Wolpe became a sociologist and a founder member of Feminist Journal Feminist Review. She returned to South Africa, with her husband, and worked at the Educational Policy Unit at the University of the Western Cape.</p>


Farewell to AnnMarie Wolpe: The heroine of the struggle who partied with Mandela

<p><strong><span class="fn author-name">Beth le Roux | </span>University of Pretoria</strong></p>
<p>“Mandela’s Last Years”, written by retired military doctor Vejay Ramlakan, has become a sought after commodity since the publisher, Penguin SA, withdrew it from the shelves in July. Ramlakan was the head of the medical team that looked after Nelson Mandela until his death in 2013.</p>
<p>The withdrawing and pulping of a book represents a huge expense for a publisher, as well as a source of some embarrassment. So why did the publisher do it?</p>
<p>Soon after the book was published, members of the Mandela family, led by his widow Graça Machel, threatened legal action. It must be admitted that the basis for any legal action wasn’t clear, although it was probably linked to defamation. The book, Machel argued, constituted “an assault on the trust and dignity” of her late husband.</p>
<p>Soon afterwards, the author’s employer, the South African National Defence Force, distanced itself from the book, suggesting that it may have contravened doctor-patient confidentiality.</p>
<p>The publisher bowed to this pressure and withdrew the book, stating that no further copies would be issued out of respect for the family. This is almost unprecedented, anywhere, and needs to be teased out more fully. After reading the book, I’ve considered how and why the publisher may have come to this decision.</p>
<h2>Reasons for pulping a book</h2>
<p>The decision making process for a publisher in a case like the Mandela book revolves around balancing the potential costs against reputational damage. The costs can be extensive – in publishing, all costs relating to editing, design, production, printing and distribution are made up front. It is relatively easy to make a decision to withdraw a book after publication when it may have contravened the law, mostly due to defamation of character.</p>
<p>Books may also be withdrawn after allegations of plagiarism, or because the accuracy of the content has been called into question. Publishers sometimes cancel contracts with their authors based on the standard waivers dealing with defamation and inaccuracies.</p>
<p>Publishers try to avoid these kinds of situations by performing due diligence to see if manuscripts contain anything defamatory or that breaches privacy. They employ fact checkers to avoid inaccuracy. And they require authors to warrant that their work is original and accurate.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean that errors don’t sometimes slip through. But it is very unusual for a book to be withdrawn simply because it’s controversial. In fact, publishers usually support controversial titles because they create publicity, and publicity generally leads to sales.</p>
<p>So what happened in this particular case?</p>
<p>The first set of questions would relate to the credibility of the author, and the publisher’s relationship with him. Ramlakan was the head of Mandela’s medical team and had unique access to the former president over a long period of time. This means that he certainly had the access and authority to write the book, and as far as I know nobody is questioning its accuracy.</p>
<p>This is important, because truthfulness is one of the main defences against defamation, as is the issue of public benefit or interest. It seems highly unlikely that a publisher would allow a nonfiction title to include material that is patently untrue or that would harm the reputation of a man like Mandela. Is there really still a need to protect the reputation of a man of such global stature?</p>
<h2>Family permission</h2>
<p>Linked to the question of authority is whether the work was authorised. The author has repeatedly claimed he wrote the memoir at the request of family members, and with their permission. In such a large family, it would be difficult to obtain permission from every family member, and it is quite common for family members to protest their treatment in a biography of a famous public figure.</p>
<p>Family members often argue that there has been a breach of privacy or that embarrassing private details have been made public. But the truth is that their authorisation is not actually necessary. Many authors write unauthorised biographies or memoirs, and while they may prove controversial, they certainly do not contravene the law. The broad variety of books already available on Mandela shows that there is ongoing public interest. It seems unlikely that each one of them was authorised by the family.</p>
<p>What complicates this scenario is that, as a medical doctor, Ramlakan is also expected to uphold ethical standards that an ordinary writer wouldn’t be subject to. I am not an expert in medical ethics, but there are very few medical details in the book that are not already in the public domain.</p>
<p>In fact, one of the purposes of the book was to counter the rumours and speculation around Mandela’s medical condition in the last years and months of his life. It does this by quietly countering inaccurate statements and setting out the bare facts. It appears that the author made a deliberate effort to avoid breaching confidentiality, and ended up writing a very respectful book.</p>
<p>Some have suggested that the publisher and author were simply attempting to cash in on the Mandela legacy. Whatever their motives, they shouldn’t be the basis for withdrawing a book from public circulation. Taste and motivation are not legal issues.</p>
<h2>Censorship</h2>
<p>Given that there is no apparent material basis for a legal attack on the book, its withdrawal reveals self-censorship on the part of the publisher. South Africa no longer has censorship laws in place, but an influential family can bring pressure to bear that amounts to the same thing. But also given that the book was already on the market, it should be asked what the effect of the withdrawal will be.</p>
<p>While fewer copies will be sold in bookshops, and fewer people will have access to it, it’s not possible to entirely withdraw a book from the online market. The book reviews already mention all of the most controversial parts of the book, and the action of withdrawal only serves to highlight them. The best course of action would be to allow the book to circulate freely and to stand – or fall – on its own merits. Anything else is censorship.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>This </em>article<em> was first published on The Conversation.</em></p>


Nelson Mandela

Changing the negative narrative about Africa

Tackling Xenophobia among Africans

The state African Union’s peace building initiatives

African designs attracting global interest

Promoting Africa’s music industry on Africa Month

High Commissioner Prakarmajith Lutchmun on tackling poverty in Africa

Freedom Park’s Jane Mufamadi on the significance of Africa Month

Celebrating Nelson Mandela’s legacy during Africa Month

Lord Renick positive about SA future

Zweli Mkhize reflects on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

Minister Nomvula Mokonyane on #Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

How will #Winnie Madikizela-Mandela be remembered?

Mother of the nation, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela dies

February in South Africa – A month of love, and daggers

The life of SA’s heroine of the struggle, AnnMarie Wolpe

Farewell to AnnMarie Wolpe: The heroine of the struggle who partied with Mandela

The withdrawal of the Mandela book was nothing short of censorship

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Nelson Mandela

Changing the negative narrative about Africa

Tackling Xenophobia among Africans

The state African Union’s peace building initiatives

African designs attracting global interest

Promoting Africa’s music industry on Africa Month

High Commissioner Prakarmajith Lutchmun on tackling poverty in Africa

Freedom Park’s Jane Mufamadi on the significance of Africa Month

Celebrating Nelson Mandela’s legacy during Africa Month

Lord Renick positive about SA future

Zweli Mkhize reflects on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

Minister Nomvula Mokonyane on #Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

How will #Winnie Madikizela-Mandela be remembered?

Mother of the nation, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela dies

February in South Africa – A month of love, and daggers

The life of SA’s heroine of the struggle, AnnMarie Wolpe

Farewell to AnnMarie Wolpe: The heroine of the struggle who partied with Mandela

The withdrawal of the Mandela book was nothing short of censorship

News Tips

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