CELEBRATING WINNIE MADIKIZELA-MANDELA
Many, including this writer, are of the opinion that, if there ever was arguably one mistake Nelson Mandela, the Madiba and former husband of Winnie did, was separating from this woman, the sole person who kept the Mandela name alive and the torch of the struggle alight, for the nearly three decades Nelson was incarcerated […]
Many, including this writer, are of the opinion that, if there ever was arguably one mistake Nelson Mandela, the Madiba and former husband of Winnie did, was separating from this woman, the sole person who kept the Mandela name alive and the torch of the struggle alight, for the nearly three decades Nelson was incarcerated by the white-minority apartheid regime of South Africa. Once Nelson Mandela was in prison, Winnie felt that she must take up the fight to try to end apartheid in South Africa. At the age of 26 she was left alone with her two daughters aged only 4 and 5. The security forces recognised the possible significance of her role and placed her under constant observation.
Many argue, and this writer among them, that for Mandela the man to have been so forgiving of the Whites after the real Independence of 1994, he should have given the other cheek to all the real and perceived mistakes of Winnie, today popularly known as the Mother of the Nation of South Africa. Winnie, despite the White-owned South African media’s propaganda (about murder, fraud et al), never did nearly as bad as those White usurpers did. Nelson, (with hindsight, our hindsight perhaps) should have eschewed, should have persevered and should have been more patient with this great woman, Winnie.
Perhaps one of the greatest tributes to Winnie comes from Haleh Afshar, Professor of Politics and Women’s Studies at York University (reported on www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/wiwp/dyncon/mandela)
“Winnie Mandela is [an] example of woman in resistance [in] impossible situations because she represented her husband when he was unable to speak…and she stood for him, and she always spoke as if she were his voice. What is interesting, and what we saw once he came out, is that very often she was her own voice but she represented him because it was easier to represent a male voice in a male world. She too always stayed in touch with the grassroots, she was always and she remains her people’s person…Winnie Mandela has suffered from her own vision of herself. She fought hard for many years, in impossible positions, and defended a cause that she believed in…”
Despite, and in spite, of the onslaught against Winnie, and her subsequent fall (actually ‘push’ from grace, but never so low as to reach the grass), Winnie has bounced back again and again. As the phoenix, the latest rise of Winnie was the 2009 nominations for the South African general elections where Winnie was listed fifth in the ruling African National Congress (ANC)’s List; after the present President Jacob Zuma, immediate past President Kgalema Motlanthe, ANC chair Baleka Mbete and long time Finance Minister Trevor Manuel.
The UK Guardian newspaper (at www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009), reporting that nomination in March 2009, titled its story “Winnie Set for Shock Comeback to ANC Politics,” continuing “That Madikezela-Mandela comes next [after these Big Four], ahead of many cabinet members, suggests that she is seen as a crucial electoral asset…” (This writer believes that it was only the White media, plus the White establishment in South Africa and elsewhere, that was “shocked” by Winnie’s return. All along, Africans knew that Winnie may have been down, but was never out.)
In the entry on Winnie Mandela on the official ANC website (www.anc.org.za/people/mandela_nw.html), it is narrated that “Winnie Mandela’s extraordinary life has been marked by a process of harassment from the [apartheid] regime and by constant separations from those she has loved. “Throughout most of her adult life, Winnie Mandela has had to endure a forced separation from her husband, ANC President Nelson Mandela, who spent 26 years of his life on Robben Island. Her father was a minister of the Forestry and Agriculture Department of the Transkei government during Kaizer Matanzima’s rule.
“Born on September 26 1936 in Bizana, Transkei, Winnie was the fourth of eight children, of whom only three others are still living…Winnie Mandela’s involvement in the South African liberation struggle dates to the ‘50s. Her first detention was in 1958, and coincided with the mass arrests of women involved in the anti-pass campaign. At the time, she was the chairperson of the Orlando West branch of both the ANC and the ANC Women’s League. Winnie Mandela’s courage and leadership abilities have triumphed over years of political harassment, severe personal pain and a wave of media controversy to enable her to become the ANCWL’s president.
Interestingly also, Wikipedia’s entry on Winnie Mandela states that her traditional Xhosa first name, Nomzamo, aptly means “trial” (or ‘having a hard time in life’).
The South African Parliament, where Winnie is now a ranking Member, is a study of how an African democracy should work. Winnie’s entry in the Members’ Register on the website (www.parliament.gov.za) states that she has an MNET subscription sponsored by MNET; has a gift of a Vodacom Phone donated by Vodacom (with a value of Rand 8,000, or about $1,000); has a house on a double plot in Orlando West, Soweto; and enjoys a special pension from the public pension system. Winnie’s entry continues to state that, of the eight business and social concerns she has been director of, she tendered resignation from five, and only remains on the boards of those institutions where there is no remuneration.”
In a 1986 interview, four years before Nelson was released from prison, Winnie narrated her pain, frustration and anguish: “All I know is I am terribly brutalised inside. I know my soul is scarred, I know I am bleeding inside all the time. I know the pain of my people’s suffering, the pain of having a husband behind bars for 25 years, the pain of bringing up children under the atmosphere I brought them up, [it] is so great inside…But what has happened is that [it] hasn’t brutalised me to an extent of being consumed in hate.”
For this writer, perhaps the lowest Winnie would ever reach was when she wasn’t invited to share the podium with her then-estranged husband Nelson Mandela on his Inauguration in 1994 as the first democratically-elected president of South Africa (according to www.essortment.com). In her place, one of her daughters was by the Madiba’s side. But again, Winnie was to rise in 1999 when Thabo Mbeki (Nelson’s successor) personally invited her to sit with him and his wife at his own Inauguration as President. Winnie had found a way to survive again.
And, as an aside, at 73, Winnie is still turning heads, as she sat to the right of our colourful former president! Kai!