Nomzamo: a life too complex to judge
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MAM’ WINNIE was only 23 years old and Madiba 40 when they wed. Thenceforth she was thrown into the harsh vortex of South Africa’s and the ANC’S tumultuous politics.
There was not enough time to celebrate their matrimonial bliss. Madiba was soon an underground pimpernel. Before they knew it, he and other Rivonia leaders were captured and jailed on Robben Island.
Oliver Tambo and other leaders escaped into exile. Others went underground. Some deserted. Many grass widows remained and she became a single parent for 27 years.
The brutal apartheid regime turned her into free meat. They hounded her, banged on windows in the still of night, and broke down doors in house number 8115 Vilakazi Street. They dragged her from her bed in her nightdress, poked fun at her, swore at her and beat her.
She kicked and fought back with her bare hands. They took her away and detained her in jail where they tortured and humiliated her, while her two young girls – Zenani and Zinzi – were left to parent themselves.
No human, let alone a woman, should ever be subjected to such brutality.
Back from detention, she was banned and isolated, yet remained the eternal powerful candlelight caught in the cross-winds of contradiction in society and the ANC.
Apartheid brutes “loved” her; they loved to finish her off. This should be left to the enemy, not to her comrades.
Mao Zedong, the Chinese strategist in the theory of warfare, likened the relationship between the guerrilla and the people to that of the fish and water.
Her exile to the loneliness of Brandfort was the enemy’s ultimate weapon to isolate her from the people and to break her down.
Sadly, some cracks began to show below the beauty of her wonderful skin, which many would die for.
In more ways than one,
Nomzamo turned Brandfort into a fortress of the Struggle and, to the horror of the enemy, she returned an indefatigable, hardened and more fearless warrior, which the enemy came to fear even more.
With flip-flops or designer high heels, she didn’t hesitate to plod into the mud, dog poo and human soil of Zonkizizwe, Diepsloot, Phola Park, Nyanga, Langa and other informal settlements where the real nation, of whom she was the mother, the nation of the unwashed, existed pitifully from day to day.
She criss-crossed the country to Kwazulu-natal and Limpopo settlements, to Boipatong, Sharpeville and other overcrowded townships where the wretched of the Earth survived – let alone Soweto, where she resided.
It was there, only a few metres from her house, where she heard the report of the enemy’s sustained gunfire which cold-bloodedly mowed down the children of the Class of June 1976.
It is in the course of fighting back with song, bare hands and stones that she was ready, on behalf of the people, to invoke any weapon, including matchboxes. The ANC, correctly so, said: “Hold, hold.”
At the same time we are reminded of the saying: Mma ngwana o tshwara thipa ka bohaleng! (The mother of a child catches the blade of a knife).
None of Mam’ Winnie’s shortcomings should be whitewashed; if anything, they should be aired and learned from.
In a way, it is leaders like her, who in the course of leading, will commit errors. It is for us to rectify them.
Thus it was welcoming for her to agree with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that things could have gone horribly wrong in the heat of battle.
That admission, in essence, is the hallmark of leadership.
The most critical aspect of the story of Winnie Madikizela-mandela is that she, the candle caught in the cross-winds of contradictions, was never extinguished.
Her courage for our victory in the Struggle for national selfdetermination knew no bounds.
To those who focus only on the burnt-out wax of the candle, remember: she was more about the light, the beacon of hope for our people during the most terrible times.
Freedom fighters are frequently tried and tested. They are tried by the enemy and tested by their own.
It is easy to judge when you were not wearing the torn nightdress, when jailers in detention mocked at you as you menstruated down your legs during torture.
It is easy to judge when you were not a single parent to two girls for 27 years, when you lost your husband for almost three decades in the dungeons of apartheid.
It is easy to judge when for half your life you never suffered degradation for the sake of your people, and not for any personal gain.
It is easy to judge from a distance. Nomzamo’s story of pain and selfsacrifice is too complex to simply judge from safe and comfortable heights. It is a bridge too far…
With her death, we the people should draw life from her supreme fortitude and tremendous courage of conviction.
What characterised her was the ability and fearlessness to spell out truth to power irrespective of whether it was the brutality of the apartheid regime or the wrongs within our popular movement.
For whatever could be said about her, the following remains a truism: she never betrayed our noble cause. Therein lies her legacy.
May her soul rest in peace.