February 11, 1990. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was coming out of the jail after 27 years. With a smile on her face, Winifred “Winnie” Madikizela-Mandela was greeting her husband….the iconic leader. The 20th century album is not complete without this frame. Nelson passed away four and a half years ago and Winnie died on April 2 in Johannesburg. She was 81. With her death, South Africa’s struggle against apartheid lost its parents.

In South Africa, Nelson and Winnie are considered as ‘Father’ and ‘Mother of the Nation’, respectively. Of course, Winnie’s image was tarnished after her divorce with Mandela and also because of her alleged involvement in corruption and crimes. However, no one can deny the ‘historic’ role she had played during South Africa’s movement against colonial rulers and apartheid. On April 28, 2016, Winnie was honoured as a recipient of the ‘Silver Order of Luthuli’ for her role in the struggle against apartheid at the 2016 National Orders Awards ceremony in Pretoria.
Winnie was such a leader who absorbed all the contradictions, accusations, ups and downs of the history. Her Xhosa (a Nguni Bantu language and also an official language of Zimbabwe) name was ‘Nomzamo’, which derives from Zulu word ‘mzamo’ that means ‘Mother of all endeavours’ or ‘She who tries’! Yes, there was nothing that Winnie won’t try. For her, there was no giving up….. nothing was impossible!

Her spokesperson Victor Dlamini informed the press that Winnie was admitted to the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg just a week before her death. In a statement, the spokesperson said that she died “after a long illness, for which she had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year”.
Winnie lost her mother, Gertrude, at the age of eight. Her father, Columbus, was a history teacher. She spent her childhood in Bizana, Pondoland (now the Eastern Cape Province). After completing matriculation, Winnie moved to Johannesburg to study Social Work at the Jan Hofmeyr School, ignoring restrictions on the education of blacks during the apartheid era. Later, she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from the University of Witwatersrand and also got an opportunity to visit the US with scholarship. Winnie decided to stay in South Africa and started making preparations for taking part in the anti-apartheid movement. Later, she joined the African National Congress (ANC).

Winnie met Nelson, already a father of three, in 1957. Nelson, who was still in a failing marriage with Evelyn Ntoko Mase, divorced his first wife in 1958 and tied knot with Winnie later that year. Winnie and Nelson had two daughters – Zenani (b. 1958) and Zindziwa (b. 1960). However, they spent just five years together, as Nelson was arrested and jailed in 1962. When the police captured Nelson on August 5, 1962, Winnie said: “Still better! At least, no death sentence…”
Charming, intelligent, complex, fiery and expressive, Winnie emerged as ‘leader’ of the ANC in Nelson’s absence. For many of those 27 years when Nelson was in prison, Winnie was exiled to Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area. She was allowed to visit her husband at Robben Island once in 1964. Later in 1969, she had to spend 18 months in solitary confinement at Pretoria Central Prison. During this period of time, Winnie became well known figure in the West. She was again arrested in 1976 and was behind the bars for five months. Later, she wrote that torture and physical abuse by the police made her stronger. Delivering a speech in Munsieville, Winnie once declared that “together, hand in hand, with our boxes of matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country”. By necklace, she meant ‘wearing tires on the neck’.

Winnie was highly criticised for her aggressiveness and ferocity. She also formed an organisation, ‘Mandela United Football Club’. Apparently, members of the Club were her bodyguards. However, they were tasked to find ‘corrupt’ members of the ANC. Winnie was found guilty in a case of kidnapping and murder of the four young men by members of the Club (in 1988). As the global community learned of the ‘reign of terror’ inflicted on Soweto by her street thug enforcers the “Mandela United Football Club”, Winnie’s earlier tag of ‘Mother of the Nation’ was amended to ‘Mugger’.
In 1995, South Africa’s first black President Nelson sacked Winnie from his Cabinet because of her alleged involvement in corruption. The couple finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. (But) after Nelson died on December 5, 2013, Winnie’s presence in his funeral was just like an ‘undeclared’ First Lady. No one can deny the fact that Winnie kept alive the flame of Nelson’s resistance to apartheid for much of the time he was in jail. Winnie’s death has made their (her and Nelson’s) ‘story’ immortal.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das