Making us smile: Mandela the mensch

Nelson Mandela made an indelible mark on everyone he met. Among them were many community members.

Affectionately referring to Solly Krok as “twinnie”, Nelson Mandela established a friendship with the renowned businessman and philanthropist following Mandela’s release from jail in 1990. “We hosted him at a function at Gold Reef City,” Krok recalls. “Then I got to know him because he was intrigued about me and my brother, Abe, the twins.” At the time, Mandela was also working to raise funds for the African National Congress (ANC).

“Mandela was a straight, honest person,” says Krok. “He asked me for money for people that needed funding, but he never touched a cent himself, it went to an attorney. He was a mensch.”

Mandela and Krok became close, and saw each other often in spite of the unrelenting queues of people always waiting to see Mandela at his office in Houghton. “He said to me one day, ‘Let me sort out the Israeli-Palestinian problem. You’ve got to give land for peace’. So, I said, ‘Well Mandela, you want to try?’”

Krok also recalls Mandela’s connection to successful Johannesburg lawyer Lazer Sidelsky, for whom as a young man, Mandela worked as an article clerk. ANC stalwart Walter Sisulu, who had business dealings with Sidelsky, introduced the two men and Mandela’s path was set. In a letter to Sidelsky, Sisulu wrote about the day he introduced the two men in 1941 and they forged an enduring bond.

“You can now look back on that day as a truly historical one for it was from there that Nelson Mandela went on to become an attorney, a leading politician, and subsequently the state president of South Africa,” he wrote. “It’s amazing how history is fashioned.”

A function where Mandela was told Sidelsky was in attendance stands in Krok’s memory. “Mandela stopped and said, ‘Oh my G-d, my boss is here!’ He made Sidelsky come up to the stage, where he hugged him.” On another occasion, Krok called Mandela to let him know that Sidelsky was in hospital. Mandela dropped everything and went to visit him.

Marc Lubner, the group chief executive of non-profit organisation Afrika Tikkun, recalls how a call that was mistakenly transferred to him instead of his father also changed the course of history. On the line was Mandela asking that Lubner help him to secure surgery for a young child suffering from a disfigurement due to a facial-paralysis condition.

The skills to perform the complex surgery didn’t exist in the country at the time, but through his Young Presidents’ Organization connections, Lubner was able to source surgeons from abroad. He recognised the opportunity to equip local surgeons with these skills so they could help children with similar conditions. It was the start of the Smile Foundation in 2000, which today operates in 12 state hospitals across the country performing more than 1 000 surgeries a year.

“Mandela and I, and often my daughter, Takara, who joined me, sat and planned how we could launch an organisation that would address the needs of children from disadvantaged backgrounds who faced various forms of facial disfigurement: cleft palate, burns, and various other forms of facial and hand disfigurement,” Lubner recalls.

Mandela’s focus was solely on the children the Smile Foundation supported, and he visited many in hospital. “He was less interested in how we were funding the organisation and more concerned about the children and how they were advancing post-surgery.” So deep was his fascination, that throughout his life, he kept the Smile Foundation file on his desk.

“The most important lesson I learned from Mandela was that when he wanted to get something done, nothing would stand in his way,” says Lubner. “This was particularly true if he knew that what he wanted done was for the good of the people. He was truly a leader that cared about national interests, probably the greatest thing that we should remember him for at this moment of Government of National Unity [GNU].”

Lubner also recalls how Mandela taught Takara always to take notes at their meetings even though she was only about 12 at the time. “He told her that no South African should be sitting around doing nothing, everyone had something to contribute. He wrote Takara a note saying that he recognised her as one of our future leaders, which both of us still treasure. Today, Takara conducts her life in pursuit of service of others.”

“One story is worth retelling since it has a current echo,” says Tony Leon, who led the Democratic Party and Democratic Alliance from 1994 to 2007, and was a negotiator in the creation of the new GNU. “In January 1997, the president’s office invited me to breakfast with Mandela at his Houghton home. This was his preferred form of political toenadering [approachment]. However, the hour – 06:00 – was a little alarming for me but not for the early rising president. I presented myself, and we chatted about trivialities over Jungle Oats. Then he dropped a political bombshell on the table. ‘Tony’, he intoned, ‘I would very much like you to join the Cabinet as one of my ministers.’ I was taken aback. At the time, I led the seven seat Democratic Party. Mandela’s party commanded 62% of the seats in Parliament, he bestrode the world stage.”

Yet, following discussions, Leon realised that what Mandela was proposing was co-option not power sharing. “Thus, with respect and affection, I declined, and my party went on to build opposition outside government,” says Leon.

“Last month, I was part of the negotiations which led, 27 years later, to the Democratic Alliance entering an ANC-led government not as a guest, but as a partner in power sharing with a humbled ANC which has shed the support it enjoyed under Mandela. That’s the theory anyway.”

This Mandela Day, we hope that the promise Mandela brought to the country in 1994 will be realised.