ANC psalms in the memory of Winnie
MSHINA wami, Mshina wami! Does this line ring a bell? Indeed, everyone who was following Jacob Zuma’s run to presidency remembers that this was Zuma’s campaign song. Needless to give abundant details, this Zuma signature song inscribed the man’s deep-rooted normative and historical inclination to the roots of the African National Congress (ANC) to the anti-apartheid agenda. The song is loosely translated as: “Please bring my machine. You’re pulling me back. My machine, Please bring my machine”
The song made sense to Zuma’s audiences and to me it acutely fits into the reality of the unfinished business of post-colonialism. I am aware, the same song is problematised in some sectors for activating hate, instigating violence and washing away the tenets of reconciliation.
The same song still makes sense as we reflect on the life of the South-African nationalist mother-figure, Cde Winnie Mandela being mourned all over the world for her illustrious contribution to South-Africa’s liberation. This liberation hymn serenades a memory of the past to hard earned liberation and continued anticipation to erasing the “not yet uhuru” dictum in the discursive templates of the postcolonial dimensions to power and economic autonomy.
The machine gun referred to in this song emblemises the continuity of the liberation values at the same time celebrating those whose lives were exclusively dedicated to the freedom of the continent. Winnie Madikizela Mandela is one such character. She was the face of the struggle against apartheid as the African National Congress mobilised its support in the torrid period of the incarceration of its key proponents — one of whom was her husband.
Of course she was the wife of Nelson Mandela — the man who became the celebrated idol of South-Africa’s victory against Boer arbitrary rule. She must be celebrated in her own right notwithstanding her marriage to Nelson Mandela for 38 years; including the 27 years Mandela was taken prisoner. The couple were divorced in 1996, two years after Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black President. They had two daughters together. Nelson Mandela died in 2013. Mandela’s imprisonment strained their marriage — however, that is a subject for another day elsewhere, but what is important was how Winnie became a central and focal point to the ANC’s freedom mandate as an individual not as an appendage to Mandela. MadikizelaMandela is a giant of South African history, the theme of books, films and radicalism. Equally, like key figures in the ANC during the apartheid resistance she faced torture, arrest, victimisation and still she was not deterred. She owed all her suffering to the love of Nelson and Azania.
Youthful Nelson and Winnie were once an unbearably dazzling couple, a township equivalent of Burton and Taylor or the Beckhams. Winnie was just 22 and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when he first saw her and charmed her. Thereafter, secured a lunch date the following week. But Mandela was married already with three children. On the other hand, he had key responsibilities in the revolutionary movement.
“The next day I got a phone call,” MadikizelaMandela has recalled. “I would be picked up after work. Nelson, a fitness fanatic, was there in the car in gym attire. I was taken to the gym, to watch him sweat! That became the pattern of my life. One moment, I was watching him. Then he would dash off to meetings, with just time to drop me off at the hostel. Even at that stage, life with him was a life without him.”
Today, the two heroes are no longer with us. They are somewhere beyond the blue. Their sterling mark to the freedom of Africa permeates across the shared history of such similar characters across the continent. Here in Zimbabwe Winnie’s nationalist motherhood can be equated to that of Gogo Mafuyane, Gogo Chitepo, Gogo Muzenda the wife of the late General, Cde Lookout Masuku. These women are a collective symbol of the impact of family disintegration that came with nationalist love affairs. They endured heartbreaks, detachments from their loved ones for the simple crime of being attached to men of the revolution. These women’s affair with nationalism by virtue of being lovers to men who were liberation zealots subjected them to more psychological torment and long term personality fragmentations. Nonetheless, they kept themselves sane through fighting on and died chanting “Mshina wami mshina wami”. They died to their addiction for freedom and those still living among their contemporaries are still living for their addiction to Uhuru.
Nelson Mandela had been a free man for just a few moments when the iconic pictures were snapped. In them, his right hand was held aloft, clenched in a fist that had become a symbol in the fight against apartheid in South Africa and racism around the world.
His left hand clasped the hand of his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who had spent three decades fighting for her husband’s release — while only seeing him during prison visiting hours. The moment was a vivid celebration of love kept abound by trials and tribulation. In the same manner, one makes sense of Hugh Masekela’s song, “umama uyajabula …qoki mandifike khaya”. In another verse in the same song, Hugh is quoted, “When Mandela came out of jail, there was her daughter right next to the man. Umama uyajabula”. The song speaks of mothers who had lost their babies to exile who only returned home after the fall of the minority regime.
Today, these powerful songs which speak to the narratives of our struggle constitute a relevant part of the profound liberation theologies of South-Africa and Africa’s broad struggle for emancipation.
One of the cornerstone messages of these songs is the optimism for freedom which they encapsulated, Thula sizwe, ungabokhala uJehova wakho uzokunqobela (Weep not you dear oppressed land. The Lord God, Almighty Jehovah will win the battle for you). Thatha nansi ’nkululeko (Seize your freedom for God has delivered it to you).
This link of the liberation theologies to the celebration of South-Africa’s freedom is also summed in Azania’s anthem which is a supplication for peace and a request to the Almighty to exalt the glory of Africa: Nkosi sikeleli ’Africa. Maluphakanyisw’ udumo lwayo. Izwa imithandazo yethu. Nkosi sikelela. This song aptly connects with the role of ANC as a luminary African revolutionary institute which inspired many radical awakenings for freedom across the entire continent. In fact, Zimbabwe has a fraternal bond to South-Africa’s national anthem which at some point was sang across the present day Sadc as a supplication for unchaining the region from the wrath of Rhodes. Likewise, the late Winnie Mandela is a symbol of universal anti-imperial motherhood; as she a representation of the usually ignored contribution of women in the making of power.
Her life is a symbol of her undying magnanimous commitment to African liberation. As she rests in power, there is no doubt that her character has given sanguine meaning to the undeniable fact women are by nature communal agents of socio-economic development, family development, cultural development, love, counsel and philanthropy. All these attributes summarise her role as an icon and mother of the continent’s freedom.
She is indeed an epitome of African nationalist motherhood, but most importantly, she became the defining centre and direction to the principles of Black freedom against minority domination.
As we recollect on Winnie’s political journey we will also remember her as a champion of the realignment of property relations as espoused in South-Africa’s current land reform debate. Accompanying this great memory is one other ANC songs: Thina sizwe. Thina sizwe esimnyama. Sikhalela izwe lethu. Elathathwa ngamabhunu. Mabawuyeke umhlaba wethu. (We the Black majority of Azania weep for our stolen land by the colonialists. May they let go of this land which rightfully belongs us.)
This song marks a new era of reclaiming land ownership and repositioning the gains of South-Africa’s freedom under the banner of the country’s opposition, EFF. As Winnie rests, South-Africa is also grappling with the question of liberating knowledge, equally Biko is no more to witness the continuity of what he dedicated his life to. When all is said and done, the lives of icons like Winnie always reminds us of the task ahead and in the process we are forewarned not to surrender: “Ayesaba amagwala. Mama ngiyekele ngifuna ukuba lisotsha. Isibhamu yinto encane”, Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi leads one of the revolutionary songs. Makubenjalo! Mayibuye!