Still transcendent
As former South African President Nelson Mandela, 94, lies in a Pretoria hospital, the world considers the legacy of a man who symbolized the struggle for freedom, equality, and justice. South Africa’s triumph over apartheid, its peaceful transition to democracy in 1994, and the growing pains the nation has felt in the years since are all part of the onetime revolutionary’s narrative. South Africa experts Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, both professors of African and African American studies and of anthropology at Harvard, are in Cape Town leading a Harvard Summer School program. The Gazette spoke to them last week about Mandela’s legacy, the modern South Africa he helped create, and the future of the nation where they both grew up. GAZETTE: Can you describe the mood there? JEAN COMAROFF: While we were in Johannesburg, the media were camped out everywhere and [people here] were talking about the “the informal settlement” — which...