Winnie Madikizela-Mandela [1936-2018]
The death of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela at Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on April 2, 2018 at the age of 81 brought to an end the mothersymbol of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa. Winnie, as she was popularly called, had suffered from diabetes and was said to have undergone several major surgeries before her death last week Monday. The twin faces of Nelson and Winnie Mandela were the parent images of the African National Congress [ANC’s] struggle against racial discrimination, injustice and oppression by the white minority government for decades. Mandela died in 2013 at the age of 95 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Following the announcement of her passing away last week, thousands of people across Johannesburg trooped to the family house and the hospital where Winnie was treated before her death. Others trekked to Soweto where Winnie had lived for decades. She was regarded as the queen of Soweto because the town was the setting of the political activism of the family for decades. The mass movement from various parts of South Africa to the residences where Winnie was known showed how the people loved her and how they appreciated the roles she played in the struggle for the liberty that South Africans enjoy in this age.
Though many romanticize her activities and admire her beauty, Winnie lived a life punctuated by constant imprisonment, being banished from her home and people, solitary confinement and all manner of harassments. The authorities in the Apartheid regime took pleasure in dealing devastating blows on her in those years of her lifethreatening trials. She gave a graphic account of her bitter experience in Pretoria Central Prison where she was kept in solitary confinement for 18 months in her autobiography entitled: 491 Days: Prison Number 1323/69. Her account of what transpired in that prison would leave every reader spellbound about the cruelty she endured for years.
Winnie alluded to the suffering in an interview with Daily Trust in 2010. She recalled the tough days thus: “Zindzi (one of her daughters) was side by side with me in the underground days. That brought a lot of pain and she knows a great deal about what happened during those painful years. We carried the struggle on our shoulders and I used Zindzi to carry out most of the dangerous struggles in the underground. She will live to tell that story herself one day, because I cannot speak on her behalf. Zindzi was mostly with me… She was with me because I was banished along with her. She was about 11 or 12 years when I was banished to Bradford.”
No doubt, she paid the price for her activism and earned the fame of the Mother of the Nation of South Africa. She ferociously fought to protect the dignity of Black South Africans, endured all the pains, and at a point declared that “there is nothing the apartheid government has not done to me. There isn’t any pain I haven’t known.” There may never be another Winnie in this generation because she played her dangerous roles with total conviction that they were the right things to do in order to liberate Black South Africans.
In the post-Apartheid political dispensation she played some roles. First, she was appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994. She had been a member of the South African Parliament and at a time president of the ANC Women’s League. Though the postapartheid Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC) in 1998 found “Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club,” her significance in the anti-apartheid struggle was not diminished. Her life was an example to the African woman. It is a testament to the fact that in spite of difficulties, it is possible to live a purposeful life and make positive impacts in social, political and economic spheres of the African continent. Adieu, Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe MadikizelaMandela. Your legacy will shine through the ages.