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On Monday, former South African president Nelson Mandela was laid to rest after a week-long goodbye, and thus concluded an event that the world has not seen perhaps in its history. Few human beings have possessed a life history and resume that could inspire an event like the funeral of Mandela — a weeklong celebration replete with controversial diplomatic selfies, symbolically powerful handshakes between long-time enemies, and Lacobian boo-fests for unpopular current South African presidents— and in that regard, we may not see another moment like this again. Indeed, the Mandela finally interned in his family plot in Qunu after 95 years on earth was as much myth as memory; a complicated but almost universally celebrated legacy of resistance, militance, imprisonment and nation-building in South Africa. And, unsurprisingly, given the almost agreed-upon stature of the deceased, there has been a large focus to link people, polities and institutions to Madiba, in an effort to gain a number of benefits from his still-radiant aura. Of course, a set narrative that can be easily repackaged and redistributed, and applied to multiple situations seems to be the main boon of this process. Uncynically, this narrative can be used to help make memories permanent and lasting. But of course, the additional purpose of this focused narrative-generation is to profit; to turn the memory of the man into money.
Due to circumstance — whether it was tragic or not really is in the eye of the beholder — the NBA was one of the first to begin to incorporate the name and memory of Mandela into their larger product line. The NBA’s weekly national double-header was on TNT the night of Mandela’s death, and being that it was the only major sport on immediately after news of Mandela’s death broke (save for Thursday Night Football), the wildly irreverent Inside the NBA crew was tasked with handling the first round of “largely disconnected professional athlete eulogizes transcendent global figure on the behest of the league.” And, to their credit, the crew did quite well with a difficult task. In their collective remembrances, a few common themes emerged. Hill, O’Neal, Barkley and Smith all focused on Mandela’s “compassion” towards his jailers after spending 27 years in captivity (including huge stretches in solitary confinement), as well as the “sacrifices” he made for the creation of the modern South African state. As larger-than-life men themselves, they easily lined up Mandela alongside men like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Muhammad Ali; global figures worthy of an eternity of admiration and praise. Shortly thereafter, David Stern offered condolences from the NBA, and made mention of his importance in the world of sport. “Nelson Mandela was one of the most powerful and inspirational leaders in the world and a great friend of the NBA,” he wrote in an official statement, adding that “he led his nation to democracy at incredible personal sacrifice, and in rebuilding it, he understood how to harness the power of sport to inspire and unite people of all backgrounds.” But that very same night, with the eulogies out of the way, and almost as an afterthought, hip-hop-heavy commercials for Long Walk to Freedom, the forthcoming film adaptation of Mandela’s autobiography starting Idris Elba, started appearing in commercial breaks between in-game action, and have been on during every national television game ever since.
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In many ways, it’s not strange that the NBA would attempt to create a connection between itself and Nelson Mandela, given that there is something of a relationship between Mandela and the NBA, and more generally, the political deployment of sport in order to create diplomatic and financial bonds. Indeed, as David Stern points out (and, more recently, as portrayed in the movie Invictus), Mandela did use rugby as a way to foster civic unity in the restive early days of the post-Apartheid South Africa, so it is reasonable to associate him with sport, and statesmanship in general. And additionally, Mandela did maintain a relationship with the NBA that could be described as friendly, if not terribly meaningful. Sekou Smith detailed the NBA’s first foray into South Africa in 1993, where Mandela served as an early ally in the establishment of the Basketball Without Borders program, which has served as the NBA’s most purposeful (and profitable) forays into the global south. Additionally, Bejamin Hochman of The Denver Post recounted the role Mandela played for Dikembe Mutombo, the long-time NBA center who had the good fortune of meeting Mandela twice; once in 1993 with the official NBA-sent delegation, and again over 10 years later, when Mandela was in the hospital, slowly declining. Like everyone else, Mutombo’s focus was on the imprisonment and subsequent rise to power, and his attempt to unify a deeply fractured population through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. ”This man spent 27 years in jail, was about to run for presidency of the new South Africa and he decided to meet with us,” Hochman quotes Mutombo as saying. “He believed that sport was the way to bring white and black South Africans together. Mandela unified the nation through the sports — sports can change the community, sports can change the world. It can change a human being with how they think, how they look at each other.” Like his peers, Mutombo’s analysis of Mandela starts in prison, and ends in Johannesburg, laid in state, and fondly remembered as a statesman and a gentleman.
However, we cannot ignore the fact that the NBA seems to be equally concerned about portraying a version of Mandela that is acceptable to the largest, most moderate audience; a watered-down version of a deeply complicated modern historical figure. In both the secondary media exhumed for the purpose of linking an institution to a individual of great magnitude, and the primary media created specially for the occasion of his passing, we see with troubling certainty that the NBA is purposefully working to develop a particular version of Mandela that can be easily consumed and regurgitated among a vast purchasing group. There has been no mention of Mandela’s militant past as a fighter for the African National Congress, the ruling party of the South African government who only came out from underground at the end of the twentieth century, were listed on almost every terrorist watch group in the world. There has been no mention yet of Mandela’s longstanding relationships with men like Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro; men who are generally regarded as enemies to West, but whom Mandela considered to be friends and allies; former third-world liberators who stood by the South African president when the vast majority of the world would not (divestment was not yet a popular trend on college campuses). Instead, what we have gotten is a cookie-cutter image of Nelson Mandela; one that is part Gandhi, part Dr. King, and part Barack Obama If we disagree, Joakim Noah and Brook Lopez both recommend that we go see Long Walk to Freedom. “I feel this film is really important,” says Brook Lopez, Nets center and noted Mandela scholar, “it tells the whole story.”
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In the memory of Mandela — as well as the other leaders the NBA chooses to glorify — we are not just struck by who they talk about, but also who they choose to ignore; who they smooth over to make the edges less rough. Had he not been killed by the South African state in 1977, one wonders how NBA players — and the NBA — would remember Steve Biko, the developer of Black Consciousness, a more militant form of black liberation which rose after Mandela and the ANC was banned, killed and imprisioned. How would the NBA have dealt with his memory; one that roots itself in liberation of specifically blacks, and not a rosy, rainbow-tized vision of racial harmony and peace after a century of violent repression? Additionally, one also wonders why the NBA hasn’t maintained a focus on still-living freedom fighters, such as Mamphela Ramphele of South Africa, whose efforts are championed to this day, all over the world. Why does the NBA only ask its players and coaches to remember a person when they are dead, and when they can profit from attention? Why does it seem that the NBA only chooses to remember the great ones when they are gone, and cannot speak up for themselves?
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About a year ago, as the NBA participated in its annual rite of evoking the name and a very particular memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to sell a daytime slate of games, I wrote that making memory was tricky; and not always a noble task if it involved making a profit. At the time, I argued that if the NBA wanted to invoke the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to push their product, they needed to be historically accurate in their portrayal of him, and properly contextualize both the person he was becoming when he arrived in Memphis in 1968, and the places that he was going before a bullet ended his life on a hotel. And while much of this sentiment remains for the memory of Mandela, it almost seems doubly pertinent, given that the NBA actually has a history with the man. Indeed, there are pictures of Mandela holding NBA jerseys; smiling with David Stern and other members of the NBA’s monolithic brass. But his importance goes much deeper than that; far beyond an iconic prison on Robben Island and a life as a formal statesman. His is a history of Pan-African liberation; of a revolutionary moment that, at this point, has been corporatized, put onto t-shirts, coffee mugs, and big movie screens all over the world.
Undoubtedly, a great man was laid to rest this week. My only hope is that the NBA chooses to honor his legacy fully and completely, and not just in the way that will make them the most money.
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