Call to dance for freedom
IN MEMORY of maWinnie Madikizela-Mandela.
We are called to recognise the poignancy of this moment in Africa. The forest shakes as it feels the shudder of a daughter of the soil that has been called to rest. When Africa considers her magnanimous role, the hills and valleys of this great continent cannot remain silent.
The African diaspora rests under the shadow of her unbreakable spirit. The world stands still in celebration of a fearless feminist icon who stood tall in the face of adversity. Throughout the darkest moments of this beautiful land, her steps were entrenched in an indomitable dream. Her life became the life of the Struggle. Her fight for freedom, the tears of her lonely heart, her soul untainted by the gruesome victimisation of an evil regime, became the very life source of a movement (destined to topple)the apartheid government.
The 491 days of crippling injustices intended to destroy and break her spirit in the contrary produced a launchpad of dreams, a freedom attainable, a life worth remembering.
Rising like an eagle from the Pondoland village in the Eastern Cape to the Egoli streets of Joburg ,to traversing the Atlantic ocean in visiting Nelson, to being banished to Brandfort in the Free State, to being isolated from her children, to still being faithful to the cry of the poor in a democratic, free South Africa, to in death remaining a defiant voice of the voiceless. Her life was inextricably linked to the cry of the poor. She taught that the road of the revolution never slumbers nor sleeps.
The road of the revolution calls us to continue to dance under the African sun, knowing that as our light shines, as our flame of eternal hope burns bright, others receive inspiration, others receive courage, others become the torch-bearers for justice, equality and freedom.
She will be remembered for being a lover of freedom, for being resolute in her fortitude, for being a torch-bearer of activism. She will be remembered as a mother of the working class.
maWinnie’s vision runs parallel to the words of the prophet in Amos 5:24, in praying and working for the reality for when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. This remains our vision, our call to dance! Hamba kahle soul of Africa.