The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

“its famous sons and daughters for achieving greatness under trying circumstances”. In
2002, its large, televised banquet held at the Sandton Convention Centre marked a
meeting of black empowerment, celebrity chic and events management, putting a new
elite face on the biographic narrative of triumph over adversity. The award of mini‐Hector
Pieterson statuettes to the recipients signalled the appropriation of resistance history into
this elite narrative. 178
Biographies of greatness, leadership, service and exemplary lives were also unleashed
through the medium of the heroes’ competition. At the end of the 20 th Century, readers of
the Sunday Times were invited to nominate persons as their “Hero of the Century” in a
competition sponsored by Castle Lager and managed by advertising and marketing
agency, Ogilvy and Mather. Over a few months, readers were invited to nominate their
heroes in a range of categories that included the prestigious competition for the “Hero of
the Struggle”. To help readers choose “the individual who best personifie[d] the struggle
for democracy in South Africa”, the Sunday Times offered readers an alphabetised list of
biographic suggestions. In selecting the winner, Nelson Mandela, one reader picked up a
prize of R1 999, and another lucky reader stood to win R20 000, for correctly selecting the
overall Hero of the Century from the different category winners. 179 In the tracks of all
manner of millennial competitions to find the “man of the millennium”, “person of the
century” and “history’s greatest maker”, South African newspapers, radio and television
stations, provincial governments and corporate sponsors held their own campaigns to
identify the ‘greatest South Africans’, the ‘woman of the year’ and even exemplary citizens
of a “City of Angels”. 180
178 ‘How times have changed’ (editor’s comment), Pretoria News, 5 June 2002; ‘The Soweto Awards’,
SABC 3, 8 June 2002.
179 See hybrid article‐advertisements in the Sunday Times, 2 May, 9 May and 30 May 1999.
180 Bonny Schoonakker, ‘Madiba: The millennium man’, Sunday Times Insight, 19 December 1999; Time,
31 December 1999 (Special Issue: Person of the Century); ‘Calling all Angels: City of Angels
Nominations’ (Advertisement of campaign sponsored by the Cape Argus, South African Airways and
ABSA), Tatler, 27 May 2004. In the latter campaign, persons sending in nominations were asked to
“give a short synopsis of the nominee’s contribution to society” and why they thought the person
“deserv[ed] to be honoured”. In 2001, the Eastern Cape Province held an award ceremony sponsored
by insurance group Metopolitan to honour “23 sons and daughters of the Eastern Cape” who had
“achieved in the fields of politics, the anti‐apartheid struggle, academics and business”. Nelson
Mandela “took home the coveted ʺIcon of the Century” award, while the late Govan Mbeki was
255