Mother of Nation never sold out

Another link with the past was severed yesterday with the death of Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Unlike her former husband, Nelson Mandela, she was more of a polarising than unifying figure in South Africa.

For many whites, she was swart gevaar personified, with her reported vow to liberate the country with matchboxes and matches – a reference to the awful practice of “necklacing”: placing a tyre around someone’s neck and then setting it alight.

And her detractors could never forgive her involvement in the torture and murder of teenage activist “Stompie” Seipei in the ’80s.

There were those in her own community, too, who turned away from her after she divorced Mandela in 1996.

While Winnie was definitely flawed, there are few who could challenge her status as Mother of the Nation.

She showed that a black woman could be independent and did not have to walk in the shadow of her man; she proved black women could be professionals in the workplace; she proved that black women were as much a part of the struggle as men.

She suffered for her unwavering opposition to apartheid, being harassed continually. But her defiance and her leadership within the country – at a time when Mandela was behind bars and when the ANC in exile was ineffective – were a powerful inspiration to the liberation movement.

Indeed, she and her comrades in the United Democratic Front and the Mass Democratic Movement were the real powerhouse forces which finally convinced the National Party government to capitulate.

Winnie fought all her life against injustice and inequality and, even to her death, she was a staunch critic of the huge gulf between rich and poor in this country. At times, she irritated and even embarrassed the ANC hierarchy. But she never sold out. And that is how she should be remembered.