I personally will not give 67 minutes
during Nelson Mandela Day because the hype and the money that are
created by Mandela Day are outrageous.
If we have a closer inspection we will see that the biggest beneficiaries of Mandela Day are the big corporates. These companies use the face of Mandela as a marketing tool to attract more customers or clients, and the saddest part is that most of these companies do not care of the well-being of people. They have only one objective and that is to make money.
But it will be bias of me to only pick on the big corporates. The Nelson Mandela Foundation also uses this as a way of branding Mandela to generate money. In all of these cases the people that benefit the most from these 'Foundations' are usually the people at the top of the organisation.
This left us with a question which is whether Mandela Day serves the interests of the vast poor majority across the globe. I am in agreement that Mandela Day is good initiative but I do not see how it in its current form is going to change the lives of the poor majority across the globe, because it take more than 67 minutes a year to change the socio-economic realities of the poor.
To change the lives of the majority is through embracing a humanity that Mandela, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Nyerere, and others advocated, and that is not to be driven by self-interest. We have the ideas but we do not have the strategies to implement these ideas. We have the policies but we do not have the capacity to implement these policies.
UWC is also celebrating Mandela Day. In the Rector's address to the UWC community on Wednessday 13 July 2011 he said that it is time to 'think, act and initiate change' to carry out the legacy of Nelson Mandela. The thinking part is the easiest part but the acting and initiating parts are the most difficult parts of carrying his legacy forward.
Birgit Schreiber said, the director for the Centre for Student Support Services at UWC, the only way to make a difference is by sharing that what you good at with the rest of the people that need it. She is proposing to start small to make a difference.
I have to agree with her because Mandela himself said that 'it is what we make of what we have and not what we are given that separates the one person from another'. I would, therefore, propose that instead of celebrating Mandela Day we celebrate 'Humanity Day' and to use what we currently have (skills, resources, etc) on an on-going basis to make a difference in the lives of the people that need it.
Written by Jacob Cloete
15 July 2011
If we have a closer inspection we will see that the biggest beneficiaries of Mandela Day are the big corporates. These companies use the face of Mandela as a marketing tool to attract more customers or clients, and the saddest part is that most of these companies do not care of the well-being of people. They have only one objective and that is to make money.
But it will be bias of me to only pick on the big corporates. The Nelson Mandela Foundation also uses this as a way of branding Mandela to generate money. In all of these cases the people that benefit the most from these 'Foundations' are usually the people at the top of the organisation.
This left us with a question which is whether Mandela Day serves the interests of the vast poor majority across the globe. I am in agreement that Mandela Day is good initiative but I do not see how it in its current form is going to change the lives of the poor majority across the globe, because it take more than 67 minutes a year to change the socio-economic realities of the poor.
To change the lives of the majority is through embracing a humanity that Mandela, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Nyerere, and others advocated, and that is not to be driven by self-interest. We have the ideas but we do not have the strategies to implement these ideas. We have the policies but we do not have the capacity to implement these policies.
UWC is also celebrating Mandela Day. In the Rector's address to the UWC community on Wednessday 13 July 2011 he said that it is time to 'think, act and initiate change' to carry out the legacy of Nelson Mandela. The thinking part is the easiest part but the acting and initiating parts are the most difficult parts of carrying his legacy forward.
Birgit Schreiber said, the director for the Centre for Student Support Services at UWC, the only way to make a difference is by sharing that what you good at with the rest of the people that need it. She is proposing to start small to make a difference.
I have to agree with her because Mandela himself said that 'it is what we make of what we have and not what we are given that separates the one person from another'. I would, therefore, propose that instead of celebrating Mandela Day we celebrate 'Humanity Day' and to use what we currently have (skills, resources, etc) on an on-going basis to make a difference in the lives of the people that need it.
Written by Jacob Cloete
15 July 2011
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