She's a mother who never got to raise her own two daughters, but went on to raise the whole nation. She's a freedom fighter who was vilified by the very freedom she fought for. She's the one who raised her right fist against apartheid lethal machinery and shouted Amandla!! She's the fearless woman who spoke truth to power, both to her foes and peers with the same oomph. She's Nomzamo Winnifred Zanyiwe Madikizela-Mandela.This is an opinion piece that seeks to tell the untold story of MaNgutshana as she was affectionately known to her clan. This is a conscious decision to immortalise this larger than life icon. It is my assertion that Winnie Mandela continues to live amongst us in differents facets. She hasn't died - she has multiplied.
Born in 1936 in Bizana (Pondoland) to Madikizela family, Nomzamo qualified as the first black social worker in 1955 and worked at Africa's largest Baragwanath hospital. Her first shot at romance was with Barney Sampson. She was offered scholarship to advance her studies in USA, but declined the offer choosing to remain in Soweto with her people. To MaNgutshana, solidarity with down-trodden black masses took priority over self-aggrandisement.
Soon after her marriage with anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, she was incarcerated in solitary confinement while pregnant and was subjected to most inhumane treatment. When her husband was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island in 1964, she was not broken - she remained resolute and took her resistance against apartheid regime to a higher voltage. She endured persistent imprisonment, torture and character assassination. While Nelson was moaning for long trousers at Robben Island, Winnie was eating insect infected food at Johanesburg No.4 prison.
This is a woman for whom privacy was a rare privilege. Security branch members constantly barged into her bedroom in the middle of the night, dragging her to a van in her pyjamas leaving her two young daughters unattended. In 1973 Winnie met a banned comrade and photographer Peter Magubane and was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment at Kroonstad female prison (Free State) where she served six months only.
After the epoch-making Soweto uprising in 1976 of which she was a catalyst, she established Soweto Parents Association with Dr Nthato Motlana for parents whose children were imprisoned, injured and exiled. In 1977 Zenani and Zinziswa's mother was banished to a dusty Free State town of Brandfort 50km north of apartheid government's Judicial capital Bloemfontein. Just before her arrival at house No. 802, the police spread the word that the house was going to be occupied by a dangerous terrorist woman and advised locals not to make contact with her.
Winnie arrived in Brandfort and became the first black woman who drove a Volkswagen Beetle. She confronted white store owner of the only clothing store to allow black patrons to use same fitting rooms as their white counterparts. She took cognisance of the graphic poverty the locals were living under and helped them establish a clinic, orphan and juvenile care-centre and a creche. These are things government couldn't provide to black township dwellers.
While under house arrest, Winnie continued to command Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) underground operatives and smuggle new recruits into exile. Despite being under the radar of security surveillance, she continued to receive armaments from international fraternal organisations and waged war against white racists regime. She and her daughter Zinziswa continued to participate in the activities of Operation Hunger established by Drs Selma Browde and Nthato Motlana to advance the welfare of poor black masses. Needless to say, Operation Hunger was a precursor to the current SASSA that provides for 17million vulnerable members of society.
Thomas Sankara must have had Winnie in mind when he said "The revolution and women's liberation go together. We do not talk of women's emancipation as an act of charity or out of surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph. Women hold up the other half of the sky."
She dissuaded her husband Nelson against conceding to an early release in 1982 with the proviso that he would be banished to rural Transkei. Upon lifting of Brandfort banishment order in 1986, Winnie returned to Orlando West (Soweto) and established Mandela Football Club which was to operate as MK's clandestine unit reinforcing the underground network. PW Botha's administration infiltrated the football club and rendered it a spy network working against her.
Chief spy Jerry Richardson masquerading as soccer coach slaughtered 14 year-old activist from Parys Stompie Seipei and pinned his murder on Winnie. Consequently, the mass democratic movement under the banner of UDF led by Murphy Morobe, Vali Moosa, Popo Molefe and Terror Lekota distanced itself from the liberation icon. These were her own comrades who had bought into the toxic narrative that Winnie was a murderer.
In mid 80s apartheid regime recognised her unparalleled radicalism and orchestrated a vilification campaign against Winnie to paint a portrait of her as immoral and barbaric. When men and women had run away to New York, London and Moscow the unrelenting Winnie stayed put and literally went face-to-face with apartheid regime. When it was illegal to declare support for a banned ANC, she was the only living soul who defied the regime and did the opposite.
In February 1990 when Nelson was released from prison, she immediately implored Transkei military ruler General Bantu Holomisa to arrange security personnel for the anti-apartheid activist. "Bantu we can't leave uTata's protection into the hands of security agents paid by the enemy" she said. When Codesa negotiations began Winnie advised Nelson to exercise caution as Boers had a tendency to negotiate mala fide and pleaded with him not to trust them.
The world must be told that as comrades made exodus to suburbs and her estranged husband relocated to a leafy suburb of Houghton, Winnie remained grounded in Orlando West amongst her people. "I can't bear the thought of waking up next to the enemy, " she retorted. In March 1995 Winnie was fired from her position as Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture hardly ten months into office. Yes, she was fired by the same President she helped put into power. She was fired by the same man who woke up to beacon and egg breakfast at Victor Verster prison while she was carrying liberation struggle on her shoulders.
Let the world be told that at the height of the revolution and while Winnie was comforting families of 47 people massacred in Boipatong, her husband accompanied the enemy FW De Klerk to Norway to receive Noble Peace Prize. This is the same woman whose house was bombed in Brandfort in 1985 and another one bombed in Soweto in 1988, yet some she called comrades expected her to be romantic with a vicious regime.
Winnie was summoned to appear before Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997 a few weeks before she was to contest ANC Deputy Presidency at Mafikeng conference in December. She was vilified in full view of the world and political careerists didn't want to associate with her. Her own comrade Sydney Mufamadi who was police minister, had asked former apartheid Police Commissioner George Fivaz to re-open murder case against Winnie and dig any possible dirt on her. Winnie's own comrades were using state apparatus to annihilate her and ultimately erase her legacy from the face of history.
Winnie was conferred Honorary Life-time Presidency of Cosas by then President Lebogang Maile. She stood in loco parentis for former ANCYL President when the latter was harassed by Disciplinary Committee led by Derek Hanekom acting on instruction from Gwede Mantashe and Jacob Zuma. She offered Malema a shoulder to cry on, but today the same people who persecuted Malema are the ones extending olive branch to him.
Despite South Africa having 26 universities, Winnie only received Honorary PhD from Nigerian university and Makerere university in Uganda. While women like Helen Joseph, Rachel Simons and Ruth Mompati were bestowed the highest ANC honour of Isithwalandwe, Winnie was deliberately left out. She was a victim of apartheid persecution and ANC conservative patriarchy.
When Nelson was in prison, she took care of his ailing mother until she passed away. Sadly, when her former husband passed away she was denied inheritance of the Qunu family home built on her own land. Winnie was an ardent Methodist church worshiper who only married once - ironically to a man who got married three times. Yes she was no Angel, neither was she a villain. She was a freedom fighter who got a raw deal.
The world must know that Winnie Mandela was a microcosm of black liberation struggle. Our tribulations are indelibly etched on her back. She was a metaphorical expression of an injured lioness that got up to defend her own cubs and continued the fight nonetheless. She was the first black female President we were robbed of. She was the greatest female revolutionary Africa had ever seen. She was the biblical Moses who never enjoyed the milk and honey she had ushered. In her belly resided fire, her eyes sparkled with love and her voice inspired hope for land expropriation
Aaah!! Nobandla.
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