Monday, September 30, 2013

Mandela's Money

I was led to believe he was on death's door, but I guess he is still hanging on. 

"After weeks battling critical illness, authorities said his condition was “steadily improving.” The upbeat assessment contrasted with the concern among South Africans and those around the world."

So who is getting the dough when he dies?

"Family feuds tarnishing Mandela’s legacy; Relatives fight over his brand" by Mike Cohen and Franz Wild |  Bloomberg News,  July 17, 2013

JOHANNESBURG — As Nelson Mandela lies in critical condition in a Pretoria hospital, his family is cashing in on his legacy and fighting over custodianship of his brand and assets worth millions of dollars.

No offense, but this is not something I am particularly interested.

One of his daughters and three of his grandchildren are using the former South African president’s name in such pursuits as wine marketing and a reality television show. His relatives also were embroiled in two lawsuits to secure control over his trust funds....

Reality and television are two terms that appear to be incompatible these days.

Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says the feud is almost like spitting in Mandela’s face. Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the country’s largest labor union grouping, says there couldn’t be a worse insult to his legacy. South African media mock the fuss....

‘‘It’s all about money,’’ Keith Gottschalk, a politics lecturer at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, said. ‘‘Some of Mandela’s relatives have tarnished their reputations and shown themselves as being greedy.’’

It will be the mantra of the early 21st-century as recorded by historians, and it $hows how the power of the $y$tem overwhelms most anyone who comes in contact with it.

Mandela, 94, has been revered as a global icon since he emerged from 27 years in jail to shepherd South Africa from white-minority rule to democracy and served a single term as president following multiracial elections in 1994. 

Interesting back story to that, but I digress.... 

After retiring in 1999, he raised tens of millions of dollars for charity....

He has been hospitalized since June 8....

Mandela’s condition improved significantly over the weekend, making it possible he will be discharged from the hospital this week, the Johannesburg-based New Age newspaper reported Tuesday, citing his grandson Mbuso Mandela.

Word was he wanted to die at home and be away from the media spectacle.

Mandela’s state pension has been supplemented by revenue from his best-selling 1994 autobiography, ‘‘Long Walk to Freedom,’’ and charcoal sketches and watercolors he made of Robben Island, where he was imprisoned for 18 years.

‘‘There are very few people who have not heard of Mandela and almost without exception he is revered,’’ Roger Sinclair, a former marketing professor and consultant to Prophet Brand Strategy, said....

That is a very interesting point, and not saying he is not worthy of it; however, consider all those who toiled in unknown anonymity throughout history? Who decides who is to be recognized and who is not? What interests advance a certain narrative of history? What unknown forces never seem to make it into my history books? Do the names Kaganovich and Yagoda appear in the ejewkhazion $y$tem literature or ma$$ media jewspapers? 

And how many know the story of Chief Luthuli?

Mandela’s granddaughters, Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway and Swati Dlamini, have a clothing line called ‘‘Long Walk to Freedom.’’ Its website says it brings ‘‘a touch of Madiba Magic’’ to clothing, using Mandela’s clan name. They also star in ‘‘Being Mandela’’ reality show.

Mandela’s daughter, Makaziwe, and her daughter, Tukwini, sell wine under the ‘‘House of Mandela’’ label, which displays the family tree on its website.

Mandela’s relatives deny tarnishing the family name.

‘‘Our grandparents have always said you know this is our name too and we can do what we think is best for the name as long as we treat it with respect and integrity,’’ Swati Dlamini said in a YouTube video clip to promote the reality show.

In April, Makaziwe and her half-sister, Zenani Dlamini, filed a lawsuit seeking to remove their father’s lawyers, George Bizos and Bally Chuene, and former Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale as directors of two companies he set up. The daughters argued they were not properly appointed.

The three denied the allegation, saying that Makaziwe and Zenani were acting in bad faith and seeking to access Mandela’s money, contrary to his instructions. The former president made it clear to his daughters in 2005 that he didn’t want them to control his affairs, Chuene wrote in court papers.

Mandla Mandela, the former president’s grandson, declined to join the lawsuit, saying he wasn’t prepared to become involved in a squabble over family money.

You can see my interest in it all, right?

Mandla found himself on the receiving end of family litigation this month when Makaziwe and several relatives won the exhumation and return of the remains of three of Mandela’s children....

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Once he went home from the hospital the Globe stopped looking in on him. 

I wonder what kind of drugs he is on.

"James Bond-style attack rattles South Africa" by Christopher Torchia |  Associated Press,  July 26, 2013

JOHANNESBURG — It was a lethal gadget right out of a James Bond movie: Remote-controlled gun barrels rigged behind the rear license plate of a car that spray bullets at an unsuspecting target.

South African police surmise it was an effort to kill Radovan Krejcir, a Czech fugitive sentenced in his country last year to 11 years in jail for tax fraud and who was linked to mob figures in Johannesburg.

Krejcir emerged unscathed from Wednesday’s attack, which peppered his bullet-proof Mercedes Benz with impact marks and shocked veteran observers of South Africa’s organized crime who thought they had seen it all. The empty, parked vehicle where the weapon was hidden burst into flames after the shooting, possibly destroying evidence.

‘‘All my life is like James Bond stuff,’’ Krejcir told Eyewitness News, a South African media outlet. ‘‘That’s how I live my life.’’

And one day die?

At first, Krejcir reportedly said he did not know who would want him dead. Then he said that if he had any theories, he was not saying.

The episode was one of the most outlandish chapters in the long saga of the underworld in Johannesburg, where turf battles over drugs, fraud schemes, and other spoils sometimes turn deadly.

How interesting that I rarely read about such things in my Globe. Must be residual Jewish connection of organized crime in South Africa's underworld.

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