Pretoria - Mourners at the memorial service for Hope Zinde appealed for support for her son Mark Warona Zinde, who has been charged with her murder.
Friends and family who attended the service at the Hellenic Community Centre on Friday spoke of how disappointed Zinde would be to see her son facing a tough time alone.
Metro FM presenter Criselda Kananda said those who attended to honour Zinde had in fact failed her and her son.
“Where were we when a single parent was facing a challenge that had gotten into many homes all alone? Can you imagine being Hope coming from a nursing background and having graduated with honours in psychology and not being able to seek help because people around you have turned into judges?
“If it is Warona who murdered his mother, I know that the kind Hope that we are all talking about here has already forgiven him.
“And it pains me that I wake up and read headlines that Warona was alone in the courtroom filled with journalists. I ask you today: have you not bestowed judgment upon that child?”
The radio personality said the monster that had to be addressed was drugs and dealers who supplied it to children so readily. “We live in a time where drugs are just a doorstep away.
“This is a time when someone has taught our children that mixing cough mixture and pain tablets will give you a high; that when you break down a plasma TV screen there is something that you crush and you will get high; that to mix ARVs with rat poison and sniff that will get them a high.
“Who comes up with these concoctions? What is their agenda? You and I may look at this as a story of a tiny addiction and say children are naughty, but who started it all? Let us not gossip but pay attention and deal with this sooner rather than later.”
Minister of Small Business Development Lindiwe Zulu paid homage to Zinde’s mother for having given birth to a woman who made a remarkable contribution to communications policies; someone every community would have loved to have.
Zulu also spoke of the love that Zinde had at being a mother, and how much she adored her son.
“Many of us who knew Hope were aware that when she spoke of her son everything came to a standstill. Let this be an opportunity for the community, churches, NGOs and government to work together to fight the drug problem and find interventions,” she said.
Zinde’s Pecanwood Estate neighbour Velile Ramphele said Hope lived for her son, and that he needed everyone’s support. “I want to say Warona is sitting with a challenge and we have to support him. It is not his doings; he is but just a victim of the circumstances.
“He is a victim of the monster that South Africa and communities all over the world are facing and we have to fight it before it does more harm,” he said.
“I will be talking to others for us to go and support Warona in court. Let us not judge him. I doubt Hope will be happy if this child is left to wallow in judgment. We never helped or tried to find out what went wrong. Let it be our duty now to go out there and be his family.”
He said Pecanwood home owners had been speaking with the management and were going to clean up the area and surrounding neighbourhoods of drug dealers. “We can’t let drug dealers continue to be heralded as role models. We managed to fight apartheid; surely drugs can’t be a problem that cannot be beaten,” said Ramphele.
Pretoria News