|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
It is no longer news that Winnie Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid crusader and former wife of the First Black President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, has died at age 81.
In the tempestuous years of apartheid, Winnie was a rallying point for the unconditional release of her incarcerated husband. She was dubbed the “Mother of the Nation” while numerous musicians and writers across the world, who celebrated Nelson Mandela in their works, also accorded her eminence consideration.
She was married to Nelson Mandela for 38 years, including the 27 years the late President spent in prison. She kept the memory of her imprisoned husband alive during his years on Robben Island and helped give the struggle for justice in South Africa a universal image.
Up till the time she breathed her last, she was a leading member of South Africa’s frontline political party, the ruling African National Congress, ANC. At the time of her death, she was a member of the country’s parliament. In 1993, she was elected president of the ANC’s Women’s League. In 1994, she was elected to parliament and became Deputy Minister of Arts, Science and Technology in the country’s first multi-racial government.
Born in 1936 as Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela, Winnie married Nelson Mandela in 1958 at age 22, and firmly supported him at the risk of her own life and freedom throughout the dark years of apartheid in the Rainbow nation. She declined to be cowed despite the emotional pains and aches of unending pestering of her family by security forces, detentions, solitary confinements and banishment. Thanks to her doggedness, as well as the staying power of her co-fighters, in 1990, the curtain finally drawn on white minority rule in South Africa.
Ironically, despite Winnie’s vital role in securing a new and unprejudiced political system in South Africa, she became a victim of the political struggle that played out during the anti-apartheid campaigns. In view of her deep involvement in the vicious anti-apartheid battle, she became entwined in a series of scandals that eventually ended her marriage with Nelson Mandela.
In 1986, she was widely linked to “necklacing”, a code name for ‘jungle justice’ which involves the burning alive of suspected traitors who had flaming, petrol-soaked tyres forced over their heads. In December 1988, her bodyguards, known as the Mandela United Football Club, kidnapped four boys belonging to another anti-apartheid party. One of them, Stompie Moeketsi, was subsequently assassinated by her bodyguards. In May 1991, she was sentenced to six years in prison for kidnapping in relation to the incident, but the sentence was later reduced to a fine.
In 2003, she was convicted of fraudulently taking out bank loans and theft. But according to her, the loans were used to help poor people.
Her conviction for theft was later reversed since she had not recognized any personal gain from her actions. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission also accused her of human rights abuses during the apartheid years. Winnie was also accused of having several lovers while her husband was in prison. For instance, she was alleged to be having an affair with Dali Mpofu, a lawyer 30 years her junior and a member of her defence team. It was even alleged that she carried on with the affair with Mpofu after Mandela left prison.
The story of Winnie and Mandela is a classical narrative of people who chose to sacrifice their life, comfort and family for the good of the society and people. For Winnie, her whole life was defined by Mandela’s deep and passionate involvement in the struggle for a free South Africa. When she gave birth to her children, her husband was never there for her. Even though he was not in jail at the time, he was out on several commitments for the struggle. But then, she was aware of Mandela’s obsession with the struggle before marrying him, knowing quite well that his first marriage crashed because of the struggle.
In view of her several scandals, many have tried to paint Winnie as the devil who puts on the garment of an angel. But in all reality, how could she at the age of 28 have endured the emotional torture of being separated from her husband and tendering the children for the long period (27 years) she did without possibly getting involved in the several messy episodes that eventually consumed her marriage? In the first place, was it right for Mandela to have been so deeply caught up in the struggle to free his people without giving appropriate consideration to his family?
All alone and emotionally shattered, could Winnie have toed a more angelic path than she did in the face of loneliness, persecutions, betrayals and several other emotional traumas? How many women in her shoes could have been more rational in thoughts and acts?
Meanwhile, how will history judge Winnie? As a heroine or a villain? Time will tell.
Tayo Ogunbiyi
Ogunbiyi is of the Lagos State Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja
