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I loved him. I truly loved him. He was a fighter and it is hard to imagine him succumbing to anything – not even death. Mvuzo Mbebe is dead, madoda.
No, there is something wrong with that line. It can’t be right. The very idea of it is wrong, because Mvuzo was larger than life; a big thinker in a world of diminutive men who are maddened by money and whose minds are smaller than a rat’s gonads.
Rest, you beauteous soul, because for a long time you were the only tree of hope in a place parched by greed. Leave this land of lazy liars who want birth without pangs and glory without pain, whose tongues are so deceptive they even lie about the taste of the food in their mouths. I hope that when your family washes your body, My President, they’ll wash off the hugs and the handshakes of the sty masters you met along your very short but wonderful journey.
I met Mvuzo Mbebe at Rhodes University, where he was president of the Black Student Movement. He was fighting for African students who were swamped in a lake of whiteness on the continent. We first met on the sports field and he was throwing a soccer ball around with freshmen.
I stood there quietly with my hands in my pockets, and watched.
“Long one,” he said to me, scornfully, “you must come and play basketball because you are long; you’re not just tall.”
I understood the reason for his jibe. I was an unrehabilitatable Africanist and he was, like my father and many of my friends, an incorrigible “Charterist”. I had learnt how to deal with people like him.
I knew we were never going to agree. According to my world view, white people were the problem and Grahamstown provided the supporting evidence. The city was named after Colonel Graham, who subjugated the Africans. In the town, the sun rose behind Makanaskop, where Makana was captured, and set behind the 1820 Settlers National Monument, which celebrates those who took our land.
Mbebe was a devout Catholic, which literally means all-embracing. He never violated his beliefs.
He was steeped in the leadership of the SA Tertiary Institutions Sports Congress and fought apartheid and all its structures without hatred – a rare quality that Sun Tzu, the Chinese war philosopher, expected of generals – because those who fight with hatred or anger are likely to strike themselves.
He asked me several times to join the basketball team. I never did, but we did begin a lasting friendship based on mutual respect. Our views were never going to meet, I thought, just like two rivers flowing to the same sea.
Mvuzo graduated as a pharmacist from Rhodes, and later went on to lecture in pharmacology at the University of the Western Cape. He loved sports and the business of sports, and taught me a lot about the distribution of sports properties. He would know – after all, he was the first CEO of the National Sports Council after liberation.
He joined the SABC and played various roles within the organisation and worked his way up to become the MD of SABC Sport. He later became the group executive responsible for acquiring content both locally and internationally.
History happens. It takes turns for the bitter and the sweet. It pushes through highs and lows as it edges endlessly to the infinite future. The Arab Spring came. It combusted Libya, and South Africa agreed to host the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon). Mvuzo Mbebe was appointed the CEO of the local organising committee. Horrific xenophobic violence then exploded in this country.
I got a call from him one day, ordering me to meet him at the SA Football Association’s offices, where he shared with me his vision for Afcon 2013. It was unashamedly Pan-African.
Gotcha, My President!
One late afternoon, I called him as I was about to leave work. It was a catch-up call, as protégés must do from time to time. He told me he was in hospital. I was shocked and went to see him. There he was, lying in his bed, and he spoke quietly about the series of events that had led to this hour. He was in pain, but he was also upbeat. We talked about Afcon, which had just passed. I was happy with what he had achieved.
I noticed that he had a file on his bed. He had been trying to write a report for the Confederation of African Football.
I was upset, and said to him: “My President, your health comes first.”
“I want to make sure that the report is accurate and clean,” he replied.
Mvuzo Martin Mbebe was born in Umzimkulu, on the border of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. This is where the story began, and this is where it will end on Tuesday as his body is laid to rest to join the realm of his forefathers, the Madibas and the Dlomos.
“Sleep on the side that hurts,” as we say, Nomalungelo. The nation lost an excellent sports administrator, but you have lost a husband and the father of your children. That pain is immeasurable.
Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive,an advertising agency
