Remembering a global icon
“WHAT are you doing to our mother?”
I am puzzled by this question from a participant at the women’s conference at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, in July 1992. I look at her in confusion, as I have never seen her before. I ask her to clarify what she means. “Yes,” she says, “You are not respecting our mother, Winnie Mandela!”
I realise she must have seen my nametag with “South Africa” on it – hence the question. I babble some answer about the complexity of issues in South Africa and no, not all criticise the Mother of the Nation. At this stage we are joined by other women from Enugu state.
All of them are disgusted that we as South Africans do not give Mama Mandela the honour she deserves. Some of the women are royalty; “they would like maWinnie to come to their state and she can be their princess”. As a “gender diva” (Pat McFadden’s coinage) i (stet) often represent women’s structures at international conferences.
The next year I gave testimony of my solitary confinement prison experiences at the historic UN Human Rights Conference in Vienna (1993), where it was first acknowledged that “Women’s Rights are Human Rights”. Here too I was bombarded by similar questions and accusations from women from diverse countries: “We South Africans do not treat Mama Winnie with the dignity she deserves and we do not deserve her!”
I get similar questions and comments at subsequent conferences. It was then i realised that Winnie Mandela was not just the “Mother of the Nation in South Africa” but was indeed a global icon: that “Mother of the Nation” is limiting.
I agree with Khaya Koko (Cape Times, April 3 2018) “that the immense contributions made by(maWinnie)… far outweigh any controversies... in her struggles against repressive regimes”.
This is echoed by human rights lawyer George Bizos and Rivonia trialist Andrew Mlangeni. However, i think particularly of a few incidents regarding other male Struggle leaders and the double standards with which we in the progressive movements treat males and females.
I do not want to delve into issues of “morality”(?) here but rather on the different degree of criticisms males and females get. During some of these periods of controversy it was shocking for me to witness how male leaders were quickly “forgiven” and immediately elevated to regional leadership (as in the Western Cape) – their “transgressions” forgotten.
Not so with ComWinnie. Just like the media promoted her at one stage, they shunned her later. I recall reading an article in which a private air company propagated that they were suing ComWinnie for not paying for a plane that she had hired. Later it turned out that she had not hired the plane, but rather that she had connected friends in the US with this company as they wanted to hire a plane for prospecting in Angola.
In video footage aired yesterday, Comrade Winnie emphasised that whatever she had done was not as an individual but as part of a collective. In the 1980s, we had many women’s anti-apartheid structures like the Federation of Transvaal Women (Fedraw), Natal Organisation of Women (Now), Port Elizabeth Women’s Organisation (Pewo) and many others nationally.
In the Western Cape we had the United Women’s Organisation (UWO), which became the United Women’s Congress (UWCO). We were a front for the ANC and later became part of the UDF.
Comrade Winnie was never part of these structures as far as i know. But on reflection, we were a front for the ANC whereas she was just ANC? Maybe she was not interested in being part of a front for the ANC: through her actions she had personally unbanned the ANC.
Later our structures became more inclusive, initiating the Women’s Alliance and Women’s National Coalition (WNC). The WNC created national consultations on what women wanted in the constitution; demands were encapsulated in the Women’s Charter for Effective Equality, used for lobbying, during the constitutional talks, for gender-sensitivity.
I was also with Comrade Winnie in Parliament until 1999. I do not recall how but in some way an attendance register was kept. One day ComWinnie was absent. I learnt that that day she had attended a court case in some poor, remote area, that dealt with the rape of a young woman. ComWinnie’s actions were in support of this woman.
Other anecdotes shared at Parliament by comrades who lived near her were about Comrade Winnie’s compassion. Apparently it was well known that she assisted anyone in need, irrespective of their political affiliation. It was common for desperate people to come to her house, even in the middle of the night.
In the post-1994 South Africa, it was always ComWinnie who raised issues of poverty and violence against women, often castigating the ANC for not doing enough. One International Women’s Day her message was in solidarity with women in Palestine and war-torn countries.
My personal experience of this warmth and care was at the relaunch of the ANC Women’s League in Kimberley with the return of the exiles.
It was about 3am and i was co-chairing a very difficult session. At a particularly difficult moment, ComWinnie put her arms around the two of us who were chairing the session and said: “Do not worry. You both are doing a great job!” This warmth, care and kind-hearted action was what we needed, and it encouraged us in the wee hours to steer the discussions constructively.
But what does ComWinnie’s transition mean and illustrate about the broader, contemporary South Africa? In assessing the environment, poverty is ubiquitous and we are number 1 in terms of the Gini coefficient! This must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
We are still confronted by major racism. People phoning into the radio still refer to ComWinnie as a “terrorist” – which means that they still do not understand our struggle as a just and fair one. We should educate our fellow South Africans who still talk about “terrorists” and agitate for a once-off wealth tax in memory of ComWinnie.
She was larger than life, a brave and courageous woman but also fallible. There were references in the media of her making homophobic utterances during the saga leading up to the “Stompie Affair”. I am not sure whether the media distorted her actions. Maybe others can elaborate on this.
I agree with Comrade Thabo Mbeki, who stated that she alone should not be celebrated but all the invisible, unknown grassroots women. But she was one who inspired millions. So as much as we celebrate and commemorate Comrade Winnie’s courage, defiance despite the odds, energy and total commitment to justice and peace, we celebrate these unknown “sheroes”. And the best way we can honour Comrade Winnie is to take forward the struggle for justice... through the once-off wealth tax?