Mourning a true stalwart

ANC tripartite alliance partners Cosatu and the SACP yesterday heaped praise on the late Struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, saying she had not sold out the struggle for justice after the country’s democratic breakthrough in 1994.

Cosatu national spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said while many ANC leaders wanted to be praised for being incarcerated or going into exile during the fight against apartheid oppression, Madikizela-Mandela had led and sustained the battle for liberation in the country.

“We mourn the death of Mama Winnie. If there is one thing we all agree on in this country, is that we are all indebted to her.

“This is the person who, when everyone had been chased out of the country, when all our political parties were going into exile… kept the fires burning and kept the people of South Africa mobilised. She kept the international community aware of the atrocities of apartheid and she never wavered,” Pamla said.

He added that she had earned the respect of the working class by continuing to be loyal to the cause of their upliftment and through being the voice of reason for justice when many leaders were abandoning the Struggle after 1994.

“Long after the democratic breakthrough happened, she never ever sold out, while some of our leaders were co-opted by the system. She was a revolutionary to the end and defied the system of capitalism that continued to exploit the people of South Africa.

“She is the voice that spoke out against the massacre in Marikana and until her last days, she kept urging the ANC to remember what the Struggle was about. She was that voice of consciousness when everybody was starting to be sophisticated about how the post-apartheid South African economy looked… and how it was supposed to be managed.

“Madikizela-Mandela reminded us that the Struggle was not about democracy alone, but was also about changing the lives of the majority, to which she was loyal,” Pamla said.

He added that she did not leave her Soweto township home after 1994, when most leaders bought properties and moved to affluent suburban areas after attaining positions in the state.

SACP national spokesperson Alex Mashilo said Madikizela-Mandela’s death had dealt a huge blow to the institutional memory of the liberation movement, as she had been one of the few remaining senior stalwarts.

“This is a worrying departure as it leaves South Africa poorer… because we are now losing the institutional memory of our history, our Struggle and the story of how we arrived and where we are as a country,” Mashilo said.

He added that the alliance should start a programme of documenting its liberation struggle memory through the stalwarts who were still left.