Happy birthday, Mama Winnie!
Now 80, the inimitable icon is a woman of great courage
AKE this string my child. With it you shall tie together the nation and free it…” So Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as a little girl was directed by her dying mother as she took her last breath.
At first I did not know and understand, but on March 21, 1960 my nursing sister mother, stationed at Sharpeville Clinic, as usual left me in the hands of a caregiver who carried me and joined the rest of the residents marching to the local police station to hand over their “passes” in protest. And when the shooting began, she dropped me in flight.
Miraculously, I narrowly escaped the stampede when some man on a bicycle plucked me to the safety of a nearby house and into the arms of some woman. Through the rain streaming down the window, I watched the water flowing down the street turn red with blood and fell into a deep sleep.
Surviving the “Sharpeville Massacre” at barely 2 years old, together with my siblings… Our parents, because of harassment due to their political involvement, went into exile in Lesotho where, from as early as I could remember till my teens, I had recurring nightmares of the massacre, regularly waking up drenched in sweat and having wet the blankets.
Having returned from exile, I arrived back in Soweto on the morning of June 16, 1976 –right into the youth uprisings and massacre thick of things.
It was not until later in January 1980, after arriving at Winnie Mandela’s exile home in Brandfort, Free State, and reading from Mary Benson’s book The Struggle is My Life and the chapter on the Sharpeville Massacre, that, to my shock, I realised the nightmares of so many of my nights of so many years…
It wasn’t just a personal experience born of perhaps a figment of my imagination, but an actual reliving of the trauma I experienced as a victim and survivor at one year and 11 months old of the Sharpeville massacre.
After this baptism of real fire at Sharpeville, I for the first time received counselling and became confirmed in the Winnie Mandela Church of Struggle in Brandfort.
For the next five years, after earning the rank of second-incommand and having defied the system and its banning orders and my several detentions, there was the victory at court of being declared an official member of the Mandela household.
With all the restrictions on Winnie’s movements and person, right under the watchful eyes and ears of the security police, it was in Brandfort, that exile home, that an icon in her own right (because of the “world icon” Nelson Mandela) was born and nurtured.
To the world, Winnie became the face and voice of her husband in jail on Robben Island and of the masses suffering under the heavy yoke of apartheid.
Many a world leader and the media made their pilgrimage to Brandfort for her counsel, but what is little known is that it was during her exile in Brandfort that the wheels of the liberation struggle continued to be oiled and moved under her leadership.
Across the ideological div- ide, from (ANC) charterists to (Azapo) Black Consciousness, many political, trade union, religious, traditional, civil society, woman and youth leaders, doctors, lawyers, teachers and many professionals, or undercover, made their way to Brandfort for consultations.
Between the ANC leader- ship in exile and on Robben Island and the underground movement, Winnie continued in the role of chief commander.
The social worker in her saw many members of the Brandfort black community and families from the surrounding far ms descend on 802 Phathakahle Street for assistance, from food parcels to medicines and treatment, from legal aid to school bursaries and scholarships for university, from sanitary towels for young girls to simply counselling and advice.
We established a crèche and a clinic in the yard built with funds from overseas friends (it was later burnt down by agents of the system) and on weekends, close family friends and Struggle doctors, especially Nthato Motlana and Abubakar Asvat, would bring medical supplies and conduct clinics free of charge for the township and rural communities.
Ever the committed wife, with her husband’s cousin King Sabata Dalindyebo also forced into exile, she took care of the king’s family as with most of the extended Mandela family.
She also received in Brandfort delegations from rural homelands needing assistance for their projects, which we duly raised funds for from the then South African Council of Churches under then Bishop Desmond Tutu and foreign donors.
Today, the nation and the world celebrate the 80th birthday of the icon and Mother of the Nation.
Happy 80th birthday, comrade uMama Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela- Mandela.
Malefane is a lobbyist, investment and development consultant.