Reimagining Mandela: Indaba on Legacy and Future

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This question and the responsibility it carries were the focus of the recent two-day dialogue that invited fresh perspectives on the legacy of the man – and social figure – that Nelson Mandela University is named after; and the enduring questions his life raises for the present and future.

The indaba, titled “From Dalisi Tower: Making Trouble With Mandela” – a collaboration between the Transdisciplinary Institute for Mandela Studies (TIMS), and the Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET) – challenged who Mandela really was, and what his legacy means today.

The indaba gathered leading scholars and thinkers who engaged critically with Mandela’s symbolic and political legacies, exploring how he has been remembered, contested, and mobilised across generations reimagining mandela: indaba legacy future and geographies.

Far from a celebration of myth, the conversations sought to “trouble” established narratives, therefore opening space for deeper reflections on race, blackness, reconciliation, and the unfinished business of liberation.

Speaking at the event, Vice‑Chancellor Prof Sibongile Muthwa linked the indaba to the University’s efforts to translate Mandela’s legacy into tangible community impact, including the rollout of eight community “hubs” targeting issues such as gender-based violence, poverty and substance abuse.

The framing of the indaba – “Making Trouble with Mandela” – echoed the Mandela Foundation’s call to engage in necessary, constructive disruption, challenging norms in pursuit of justice and equality.

One of the central provocations came from legal scholar Joel Modiri, who situated Mandela within what he called the “Fanonian century”. However, Contrasting Mandela’s liberal anti-colonialism with Frantz Fanon’s reimagining mandela: indaba legacy future radical vision. Modiri argued that the two figures represent divergent political projects.

Drawing on his upbringing in Atteridgeville – a community more aligned with Pan-Africanist traditions – Modiri recalled early critiques of the Freedom Charter, particularly its perceived compromises. For him. Mandela’s emphasis on constitutionalism and reconciliation risked enabling what he termed the “transmutation of white supremacy into constitutional democracy”.

“Mandela and Fanon are not only figures or modes of memory, but also projects – political idioms for remembering the colonial past and the neo-colonial present,” he said.

He said reimagining Mandela means acknowledging the limitations of reconciliation and envisioning a politics that moves beyond the post-apartheid consensus – a “post-Mandela” politics.

Victoria Collis-Buthelezi extended this critique into the realm of higher education. She noted reimagining mandela: indaba legacy future that the globally dominant image of Mandela as a smiling reconciler often obstructs critical intellectual work. particularly the development of Black Studies in South Africa.

Reflecting on her personal journey, Collis-Buthelezi recalled encountering Mandela as a liberation icon in the Anglophone Caribbean, only to later grapple with his more contested legacy in post-apartheid South African classrooms. This disconnect. she argued, underscores the need for a more nuanced understanding of Mandela—one that embraces complexity rather than myth.

Bringing a global lens, cultural theorist David Scott praised Mandela University for fostering open and principled dialogue, which he noted was increasingly rare in global academia. Contrasting it with the atmosphere at Columbia University. which he described as “in a state of siege”, Scott commended the courage to critically engage with Mandela’s legacy.

Scott’s remarks focused on biography and symbolism. Drawing on his reimagining mandela: indaba legacy future current work on Stuart Hall. he emphasised the tension between Mandela’s lived experiences and the symbolic figure he has become.

“That single bio-Mandela is never completely empty,” Scott said, noting how even symbolic abstractions inevitably draw from Mandela’s actual life – from radical youth activism to political compromises in the 1990s.

Positioning Mandela and Fanon as members of the same insurgent generation, Scott observed that while Fanon’s memory is preserved within the heroic phase of national liberation, Mandela’s legacy encompasses both liberation and the complex task of building a democratic state.

Scott argued that this duality demands that Mandela remain a subject of ongoing inquiry, and not as myth, but as a deeply human and politically fraught figure.

The indaba reaffirmed the importance of reimagining mandela: indaba legacy future critically engaging with Mandela’s legacy, not merely to critique, but to renew its relevance for contemporary struggles.

Through Modiri’s call for “post-Mandela” thinking, Collis-Buthelezi’s reimagining of Mandela within academic transformation, and Scott’s insistence on complexity, the second day of the indaba underscored Nelson Mandela University’s commitment to making Mandela a figure to think with – and, at times, to challenge – in pursuit of justice.