Anniversary

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As the world celebrates the 95^th birthday of former President Nelson Mandela on Thursday, July 18, the world iconic elder statesman lies critically ill in hospital fighting to live

|  By Olu Ojewale  |  Jul 22, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT

FOR more than one month, family members, admirers, supporters and government officials have been keeping vigil in and around the hospital where he is receiving treatment for lungs infections. But as he turns 95 on July 18, the world would go into celebration of the birthday of a man who led the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. But unlike previous celebrations, Nelson Mandela will not be physically present to share in the cuisine and wine for the occasion. He is critically ill in the hospital, fighting for his dear life.

Mandela was admitted into the hospital on June 8, the second of such admission this year. Perhaps, for the umpteenth time President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, issued a statement to alert the world that Mandela was still critically ill, but in a stable condition, on Thursday, July11. The South African president has routinely visited Mandela to monitor his condition. More so, reports said Mandela was being kept alive by a breathing machine and faced “impending death.” Some of the reports similarly indicated that the former president’s health was “perilous,” and could lead to death. “The anticipation of his impending death is based on real and substantial grounds,” a court file said. This, probably led to rumours making the rounds that the former freedom fighter was in ‘vegetative state.’ However, Zuma has denied the rumours, saying his doctors assured him that he was not vegetative.

Nevertheless, keeping Mandela on life support is dangerous. According to medical experts, a younger person can be kept on mechanical ventilation – life support – and later be weaned off the machine to recover. But it can be difficult or impossible for an older person. According to Adri Kok, chief executive of the Faculty of Consulting Physicians of South Africa, who has no connection to Mandela’s care, the longer a person is on ventilation, the less the chance of recovery. “It indicates a very poor prognosis for recovery because it means that he’s either too weak or too sick to breathe on his own,” Kok said, adding: “Usually if a person does need that, any person, not keeping in mind his age at all, for any person, it would be indicative of a grave illness. When they say ‘perilous’ I think that would be a fair description.”

However, the lie about his purported vegetative state was disclosed recently when David Smith, a lawyer, acting for the family, was taken before a disciplinary committee of the South African Bar Association for allegedly exaggerating the severity of the ailing statesman’s ill-health. Smith was said to have used the statesman’s health condition to obtain a speedy hearing, while acting for Makaziwe, Mandela’s oldest daughter, Graca Machel, his wife and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife. He was quoted as telling the court that the 94-year-old was in a “permanent vegetative condition” and doctors had advised that his family think about switching off his life-support machine.

The claim that Mandela was close to death prompted the judge in the case to order an immediate hearing into Makaziwe Mandela’s case to have the bodies of three of the former president’s children exhumed and moved to a grave he is expected to share with them in Qunu, his rural home in the Eastern Cape. Makaziwe won the case and the bodies were exhumed and reburied within days.

The family members had brought the court case against Mandla Mandela, a grandchild of the elder statesman, who moved the bodies to the nearby village of Mvezo two years ago. Smith may also lose his license if it is discovered that he had lied to court about Mandela’s health.

The claim was made in a closed court hearing on June 26, but later leaked to the media. The family has since refused to comment on the veracity of the claim, but Denis Goldberg, a family friend and fellow anti-apartheid activist, who claimed to have visited Mandela, said that he opened his eyes and tried to speak to him. He also said that Machel told him the doctors had advised “not even to think about” turning off the life-support machine because, “they think he has a very good chance of recovery,” Goldberg said.

It has, no doubt, been a tough going for the family of the first black South African president, who spent most of his productive years in prison because of his struggle for the abolition of apartheid in his country. Since his admission into the hospital on June 8, his condition has remained critical, which has also raised speculation that the family has been trying to keep him alive to give him the privilege to attain 95 years on earth.

There has been international outpouring of emotions, with calls for prayer for him while some people have also been keeping vigil in front of his hospital, singing, dancing and praying for him. So deep has been the show of affection in South Africa for Mandela that the thought of his death seems incomprehensible. Although death is inevitable for the old man, a good number of South Africans appear to be unwilling to let him go yet. Somadoda Fikeni, head of the South African Heritage Resources Agency, SAHRA, captured the situation in an interview with the BBC: “We no longer have an icon on his level, not only here in South Africa but in the world. People see him as the antidote to the current social ills we are faced with. That is why people are still holding on to him.”

Despite his importance to his people and the world at large, Andrew Mlangeni, a fellow prisoner at Robben Island, upon hearing that Mandela had again been admitted to hospital, was quoted as saying: “The family must release him so that God may have his own way with him… once the family releases him, the people of South Africa will follow,”

According to Isintu, a traditional culture in South African, no sick person dies unless the family “releases” him or her spiritually – only then will they be at peace in surrendering to death. Fikeni also reasoned that perhaps, Mandela, also known as Madiba, in his clan name, is fighting death because he has some unfinished business to do. “It may be that squabbling within his family is troubling him and that needs to be addressed while he is still here. He may not be well received on the other side until these issues have been resolved,” Fikeni said.

This, was perhaps, in reference to a recent court case in which Makaziwe and Zenani, Mandela’s daughters attempted to expel three of his aides from companies linked to the former ailing president. Even at the reburial of his three children decided by the court case, Desmond Tutu, a retired archbishop and family friend, had to appeal to the family to give peace a chance. “Please, please, please may we think not only of ourselves; it’s almost like spitting in Madiba’s face. Your anguish, now, is the nation’s anguish — and the world’s. We want to embrace you, to support you, to shine our love for Madiba through you. Please may we not besmirch his name,” Tutu said in a statement.

The statement added: “It’s not a case of wishing him to die. It’s a case of making sure that by the time he dies, his dying wish has been fulfilled. We have a belief that should you ignore a dying wish, all the bad will befall you.”

Speaking at fundraising function that will be named after him recently, Machel said Mandela was in a stable condition but sometimes feeling uncomfortable. “Whatever is the outcome of his stay in hospital, that will remain the second time where he offered his nation an opportunity to be united under the banner of our flag, under the banner of our constitution,” she said.

But what everyone awaits and dreads is when the family would say the phrase that could change it all: “Siyakukhulula tata,” which means in Xhosa, the Madiba’s clan language: “We release you, father.”

Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years during white racist rule and was freed in 1990. He was elected first black president in multiracial election in 1994. He spent only one term before handing over to former President Thabo Mbeki who was his deputy. He won the Nobel Peace Prize along with former President Fredrik .W. de Klerk in 1993. For his role in peace-making and reconciliation within and outside South Africa, the United Nations declared July 18, his birthday, as Mandela day to celebrate the iconic figure.

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