As the chorus of posthumous praise swells for Winnie, her death shows our bitter past is anything but buried

Only two months ago, South Africa underwent a dramatic political change when the ANC recalled the president of the country before his term was up, forcing him to resign. The country breathed a sigh of relief as Jacob Zuma made his exit and Cyril Ramaphosa strode up and slickly took his place.

We patted ourselves on the back for being such a mature democracy that we could pull off the removal of not one but two serving presidents, nine years apart, without commotion or political instability.

We have basked in the “new dawn” since then, seen Zuma finally appear in the dock for corruption, and now wait for the state capture inquiry to break open the Gupta network in full public view.

Adding to the catharsis was the weeding out of some of the state capture enablers from the cabinet, and the process of rehabilitating Gupta-infested state-owned entities.

But over the past two weeks the new dawn has been suspended and we have been jerked back into reality.

Amid the grief at the death of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, we were forced on a journey into our past and made to take a hard look at ourselves in the present.

We have had to have uncomfortable conversations we were illprepared for, and confront ugly truths about the foundations our society was built on.

Our nation is usually really bad at dealing with emotive issues such as racism, xenophobia and sexism, and we tend to lurch into irrationality and often violence.

In recent years, South Africa had become fixated with the Zuma phenomenon and political debates have been rather superficial.

The discourse over radical economic transformation, for example, was first an instrument of the Gupta machinery and then transformed into a proxy debate in the ANC leadership battle.

The issue of free education brought the higher education sector to its knees and resulted in the burning of university buildings and excrement being flung about.

A funding plan was eventually force-fed to the country without the economics having been properly worked out.

We have only started to grapple with the politically charged land issue and there is a danger of it being driven off course by extremists on the right and the left.

Our past is a minefield, and so we have reduced it to big historical moments that we observe on public holidays and at special events.

But suddenly there is agitated debate about Madikizela-Mandela’s role in the liberation struggle, her methods of resistance, the power dynamics in the ANC, whether there was justice in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, and the deception involved in the handover of power from the apartheid regime.

In this period of mourning, we have been digging up long-buried secrets and peeling away the layers of our past to rediscover what brought us here.

For the first time, the patriarchy, even within the ANC, is being unpacked, and the unfair treatment of Madikizela-Mandela by many in her organisation, the media and society confronted.

Although there is raw emotion and acrimony, South Africans are finding their voice to say how they feel, both about Madikizela-- Mandela’s death and the state of our nation.

The airing of Pascale Lamche’s documentary Winnie gave South Africans the opportunity to hear and see Madikizela-Mandela in various stages of her life and understand how she evolved into a complex and powerful political figure.

The film gives shocking insight into how the apartheid government used dirty tricks, including paying journalists, to manipulate public sentiment and even turn her own movement against her.

For the first time, we also have insight into Madikizela-Mandela’s own feelings at being isolated by her organisation and shamed at the TRC.

In one recent interview captured in the film, her face is etched with anger and disbelief as she says: “The one person who kept the fires burning when everybody was petrified . . . and I didn’t blame them when sometimes I would shoot that fist alone . . . put me on trial before the TRC. And a Desmond Tutu sits there judging me.

“I was seething with rage. To this day, I ask God to forgive me for not forgiving him,” she says.

The grief, anger and empathy for Madikizela-Mandela have now altered perspectives such that the scales have tipped the other way, resulting in rage against anyone with alternative views and sympathies.

There is a refusal to accept the complexities and fallibilities of the characters, including Mama Winnie, and the experiences they lived through.

But what happens now that our mother has been laid to rest and the demons of our past are among us?

Her death showed that our history still haunts us and that national healing was artificial. I do not know if it is possible for us to ever contend with our past, but it is evident that our nation’s turmoil is underscored by unfinished business.