I have always loved Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela and cut her as much slack as I could. I was drawn to her resilient nature, her sense of style and above all her beauty. But even then I never knew 1/10th of her own part in what is known as “The Steuggle”. The Struugle against the evil that was apartheid but moreso the challenge of partriachy. In publishing this book, she allows us to take a peak into a journal she wrote while in solitary confinement and have access to letters she & Nelson wrote to each other. Plus letters they both wrote while incarcerated. The book is not so much a story telling or white washing of her legacy. Instead through the book she shares verbatim - through those letters - her own correspondence. As I read, I felt that some things were so personal and that I was peeping into someone’s deepest recesses.
Winnie was born a Princess from a royal house of AmamPondo. She was born into a family of teachers and in that regard - as black people stood - she was fortunate. Her grandmother had the privilege of being the first woman in Pondoland to wear shoes while she - Winnie - was the first black Social Worker in South Africa. Seeing this in the context of her time meant she was an achiever. She had the tragedy of being married to Nelson. It was a tragedy because in marrying him she married the struggle. He was already a man under the radar of the South African police and had been charged under the terrorist act & the communist act. In addition he was a man with a previous relationship so she - at a young age - was Step Mother to his children. That too, was a tragedy because Winnie married a man who came with baggage.
The outpouring of love at her funeral was amazing. Two weeks later, I am still listening to the tributes over & over again to get a better glimpse of this enigma. What I liked was that South Africans from all walks of life filled Orlando stadium to capacity to pay tribute to uMama Nomzamo. They understood that we must tell our own stories & celebrate our own heroes. There can never be an excuse for the brutality of Apartheid. A system that was created to dehumanize the black race. As if to add insult to injury, a system that was created to punish people simply for being black. I have read many books on the South African Struggle but none have touched me as much as 491 days. I remember as a young girl watching Sizwe Bansi Is Dead, Cry Freedom & Saraphina. I remember reading Mine Boy. I sang struggle songs without trully understanding what they meant. When Nelson Mandela died, I read “Long Walk To Freedom”.
As I watched Zenani & Zindziswa paying tribute to their mum, I remembered the suffering that they went through during the 491 days their mother was in solitary confinement and their dad on Robben Island. I thought about the prize they had to pay as young children as their mother was in & out of jail. I ponder their life and decide that I can forgive them anything because children cannot be separated from their parents & greater family just to prove a point.
I like the matter of fact way that the book has been written. It is up to the reader to deal with their own feelings. It is a book that should be read widely & studied in depth. It is a book that demonstrates the resilience of one’s spirit amidst so much against them. I could never explain or justify Apartheid...To borrow from Zenani’s tribute “The fight against apartheid was not a picnic”.
Neither Long Walk To Freedom nor 491 days deals with the real issues surrounding the break up of the Mandela marriage. In reading the book and going through the letters, I am still at a loss that that marriage could not have stood the test of time. I would have forgiven Nomzamo anything. In divorcing Winnie - after she had given up so much - my view of Nelson was irrepereably shaken. This book is not in response to the break up of her marriage and neither is it a challenge to Nelson’s legacy. As Zenani said, they were fortunate & proud to have both Winnie & Nelson as parents and their legacies are intertwined.
Hamba Kahle uMama weSizwe. Lala Ngoxolo.
