MaWinnie: a rebel with a cause
CHINUA Achebe tells us: if you don’t like someone else’s story, write your own. There has never been a more appropriate time to write our own story of Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
Let there be no illusions about the true legacy of our mother Winfred Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela. Let those who derided her during her life not be allowed to sanitise, ridicule or even reduce her mammoth role in the painful annals of our resistance politics.
She was not a favourite of liberals, nor was she in the good books of despots, turncoats and apologists of the racists system. She stood firm, in stark contradiction of everything that racism, apartheid and oppression represented. She refused to dine with collaborators, she refused to compromise and to relent even when under immense pressure from within her own movement.
Madikizela-Mandela was no ordinary leader, nor was she made of the cloth of compliance to acquiesce to those in power regardless of the shape of their nose or even of their racial hue.
One day she intimated to me in one of our conversations that she grew up herding her father’s livestock, and occasionally boys would push her aside so that their animals should be first to drink water in a river. One day she put up such a brave fight with sticks, to their utter amazement, and since then earned their respect. “I don’t relent and retreat from a fight. That’s me.”
Madikizela-Mandela was a nightmare to those who stood in support of oppression, and she was even more lethal in her denunciation of their conduct. She visited havoc on all oppressors, their institutions and their sympathisers with equal doses of vitriol.
Today, they must not seek to have a final say in how best she must be remembered. Madikizela-Mandela has shaped her own life through adversity, courage and sheer stubbornness to survive and overcome a corrupt and an unjust system.
She was not a perfect portrait of a compliant mother happy to preoccupy herself with mundane household chores alone.
Much as they were part of her life, she had opted for a much more bigger cause: the liberation of her people. She built a house for her children and for the children of her nation.
Her house became a refuge from hell, it became a place of asylum where security was assured and where comfort was provided. A colossal figure in world politics and a stern hand in the pursuit of the ideals of the Freedom Charter.
She developed close relations with most progressive leaders, not least of them Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Traditional leaders, kings and their counsellors basked in her company as she observed tradition, honouring their leadership role in rural society.
King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo of the AbaThembu was another of her favourites and she would host him at her home and spare nothing in treating him like true African royalty.
Madikizela-Mandela was an insurgent leader who brokered no peace or compromise with an unjust system. She resented injustice, but reserved more resentment for those who defended such injustice.
She fought them tirelessly and fearlessly at great peril to herself. The racists’ running dogs could at most times be more vicious than their handlers, as they sought to please and appease. She beat them at their own game and held her head high as they inevitably hurled unprintable insults after their defeat.
The strength of biblical Samson ran in her veins and the courage of David steeled her heart and made her to never tire from a fight.
Madikizela-Mandela’s activism knows no end so long as there was a cause to take up and an injustice to mend.
She did not take leave from the Struggle, nor did she pause in furtherance of new ventures.
Her life was a constant reinvention and remaking in pursuit of the struggle for her people. She would not dare stand in the margins and was content with being in the vortex of the fire of resistance.
Madikizela-Mandela was a caring and a compassionate social worker whose deep and enduring love for her people knew no bounds.
Her disgust at injustice was occasioned by her deep love for those upon whom such acts of injustice were visited.
It was this feature of her life that brought to her ambit many generations of activists who have found common cause with her.
She was a devout Methodist who dutifully attended church services throughout her troubled life.
She found great solace in Methodist teachings, and the invigorating hymns lifted her spirits when she was weighed down by the weight of relentless apartheid harassment.
She held no position of responsibility at her Meadowlands Methodist church and became an abiding audience to many preachers sermons.
In her church, she ceased to be a leader and accepted the leadership and counsel of Mrs Florence Melamane, her worship class leader.
Such is a true mark of a leader who succumbs to others and defers to other forms of authority.
But she was also a defiant rebel to the hilt.
She had defined herself outside of the power structures and sided with the masses of her people.
Her view of power was jaundiced and she saw a need to constantly fight and struggle in order to change the power structure and the dynamic in order to abide by the will of the people.
She trusted the people more than power and its trappings and its all pervasive might.
Madikizela-Mandela was the beacon of hope to all radical leftists who found in her hope, refuge, fellowship and reinvigoration.
She was a devout mother whose love for her children was deeply profound. maWinnie was a humorous person who would tell jokes and crack up with laughter.
She was a reservoir of knowledge who possessed deep memories about our struggle for freedom and
Let not those who stand opposed to her radical thought seek to silence her beyond the grave. To us she was perfect. To us she was a true mother, a reliable leader and a truthful revolutionary
could recount in great detail many distant historical events.
She knew most activists by name and would recount when they left and returned from exile.
Those who sold out fell into a special not-to-forget list in her mental archive. One day, she recounted to me a story of the time she chased a baboon in her youth as she was herding cattle.
That baboon would give her a stern look each time it saw her.
“I am like that baboon, I don’t forget.” She was a storyteller and narrator of many stories and insightful anecdotes.
She would take pot shots at some of her comrades, to great laughter. At times she would even joke about encounters she had with police, chastising them as if they were her children.
Madikizela-Mandela was a pleasant host and a caring friend who ensured that all her visitors were fed and at peace..
In that kitchen, she was a cook. One day I went with her to one of her favourite butcheries in Randburg and marvelled at the painstaking effort she took to choose the right and best meat portions.
She did not forgive sell-outs. She held deep scars regarding those now in high public office who once sold out their comrades and testified in prison as “Mr” or “Mrs X”.
With the arrest of several of her husband’s “older” generation, Madikizela-Mandela found new allies in the youth of Soweto.
She cultivated revolutionary relations with the 1976 generation which she stirred up into flames of resistance.
When that generation went into exile and were also arrested, she forged a new alliance with the Cosas generation of 1979 in order to wreak havoc with the system.
When that generation was harassed, she found common cause with the new UDF membership and rendered the apartheid system unworkable. Soon she worked very closely with the trade union movement and community organisations in response to the ANC call to make apartheid South Africa ungovernable.Let not those who stand opposed to her radical thought seek to silence her beyond the grave.
Let them not be allowed to cite and recite her legacy with long pauses and forked tongues.
Let them not be allowed to occasionally tell us that she was not perfect, that she was human and made mistakes.
To us she was perfect, she was more than a human being. To us she was a true mother, a reliable leader and a truthful revolutionary.
Madikizela-Mandela was comfortable among kings, socialites and world leaders, but above all, she relished the company of the ordinary folk. The material from where she is made is no more in supply and we will mourn eternally.
Those who disposed of her did so out of envy and those who love her did so out of deep appreciation of her sacrifices. We will sleep on our very open wounds to facilitate healing.
We knew you would one day leave us. If we had our wish, you would outlive an elephant. Farewell, great fighter. Farewell, compassionate mother and comrade.