Winnie Mandela was an icon of anti-Apartheid struggle

Since Monday April 2, 2018, when Mama Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, (hereafter referred to as Mama Winnie), the servant-leader and gallant fighter for African freedom and dignity in South Africa, passed on, progressive people the world over have been stricken by grief and pain.
As we celebrate and honour her selfless sacrifices and contributions to the uplift of a cross section of people in South Africa in particular, we are in grief and pain because for three decades she was the north star that provided light, hope and solace to millions of people who were in the inferno of apartheid.

Although Oliver Reginald Tambo (1917-1993) was the moral and intellectual compass in the struggle against apartheid after the Riviona Treason Trials in 1964 and the subsequent imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and other leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) in Robben Island, it was largely the indomitable courage of Mama Winnie that resonated with the great majority of common people and more than kept the flame for the liberation of South Africans burning.
In a significant way, it was by the force of her personality, the example of her commitment to the cause of African freedom and dignity in South Africa and the courageous defiance of her inhumane treatment, that she did not only give anti-apartheid movement a relatable-to human face, but also captivated and inspired progressive people the world over to empathise and to join in solidarity with the struggle against the vile apartheid system.

Even the harshest treatments to which she was subjected during the darkest days of apartheid, as when for example, she was placed under solitary confinement for 491 days from 1968- 1970, and then banished from 1977-1985 to the Afrikaner town of Brandfort in Free State, could not diminish her determination to the cause of her people’s freedom. Instead, she wore the scars of apartheid as a badge of honour, with elegance; and carried the crushing cross of suffering under apartheid defiantly, with fearless pride and dignity.

In defying all the odds, Mama Winnie seemed to have been driven by a singular sense of purpose, reminiscent of what Aime Cesaire, the spokesman of Negritude, has captured in one of his poems in Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, where he declares: “Grant me the savage faith of a sorcerer. Grant my hands the power to mould. Grant my soul the sword’s temper. I won’t flinch. Make my head into a figurehead, … [and] the lover of this unique people.”

Tragic irony
A tragic irony of African history is that despite Mama Winnie’s life-long selfless service to her people, the post-apartheid government of South Africa barely accorded her recognition commensurate to her contributions to and sacrifices for the struggle, until after she passed on.
It is a tragic irony in a double sense. In the first place, all over Africa, there is no greater affront than demeaning a mother. Yet despite the fact that it was on her almighty soul and shoulders that the aspirations of millions rested for more than three decades, a number of people have treated Mama Winnie as simply an appendage of her former and late husband, while others have even attempted to revile her by questioning her moral character.

And second, it is rather disorienting, if not disheartening, that those who have cast aspersions on her moral character when she was alive, are people who could not have withstood one-hundredth of what Mama Winnie was subjected to by the apartheid regime. Now to add salt unto injury, they profess to love her with a fierce sense of collective and even personal loss. To use an African expression, such detractors of Mama Winnie or what my Pan-Africanist comrade Sihaka Tsemo refers to as Negropeans, have no shame in shedding crocodile tears. But they cannot fool all the people all the times.
A simple explanation for both types of double-speak is most likely due to the combination of the ideology and practise of patriarchy with racism, all of which prowl and haunt the continent like a permanent nightmare.

Cancer of betrayal
But the refusal to give Mama Winnie her more than well-deserved formal political recognition could also be attributed to what Amilcar Cabral, the razor-sharp theorist of the African revolution, characterised as the cancer of betrayal, which he maintained served the ignoble cause of neo-colonialism, by gnawing away at African revolutionary movements.
It is worth quoting what Amilcar Cabral stated at the state funeral of Kwame Nkrumah in Conakry, Guinea on May 13, 1972, because it might apply with equal force to Mama Winnie’s situation. He declared, “Let no one tell us that Nkrumah died of a cancer to the throat or some other disease. No; Nkrumah has been killed by the cancer of betrayal that we should uproot.”

Whatever the trepidations or shenanigans of power elites, Mama Winnie is a historical icon and one of the greatest anti-apartheid activists of the second half of the 20th century. Now she becomes the only African woman to join the pantheon of African revolutionary leaders of distinction, such as Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Franz Fanon, Eduardo Mondlane, Robert Sobukwe, Thomas Sankara, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Steve Bantu Biko, Samora Machel, Chris Hani, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Julius Nyerere and Tom Mboya.

Legacy inscribed
Although Mama Winnie has physically departed from us, the legacy of her selfless work and sacrifices is inscribed in the hearts and minds of millions of people in South Africa in particular and the world at large. As long as her legacy remains in the hearts and minds of people, she cannot and will not die.
It is not a cliché to say that history will vindicate Mama Winnie, as a distinguished woman servant-leader who positively touched the lives of countless people by her practical work of compassion.
Because she made a positive difference in the lives of millions, they shall not only compose songs to keep her memory alive, but shall also carry high and relay the torch of social justice to future generations.
It is with a heavy heart and in solidarity that we pay this tribute to Mama Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, the extraordinary mother of the South African Nation. May Creator rest her soul in eternal peace.