If courage could take the form of a person, it would choose Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Today, comrade Winnie will be welcomed into the club of Struggle octogenarians, even though her youthful beauty may indicate otherwise. And while getting old in itself requires a great deal of courage, it is courage and loyalty that throughout her life have really distinguished her as the outstanding character she is.
I can hardly remember first meeting the young social worker who so seamlessly became part of both the Struggle and Nelson Mandela’s life. Destiny had chosen her to fulfil a role that would have lasting impact on South African history, and it had chosen well.
The young Winnie stood out for a number of reasons. Born in the Transkei, her childhood was characterised by the difficulties faced by many black South African children living in rural areas.
In an interview with author Diana Russell, Winnie said she first wore shoes in the eighth grade.
She was, however, an outstanding student, and having completed her studies, is said to have been noted early on for her leadership qualities.
Apartheid was designed to limit black excellence. But the example of Winnie, like many of her contemporaries, would discredit the system.
Winnie was to become the first qualified black social worker at Baragwanath Hospital where she started her career in the 1950s.
While she is too often noted only in terms of her connection to Madiba, she was already politically conscious as a school pupil.
Winnie states that she first came to know about Mandela in her matric year.
Her interest in South Africa’s socio-political landscape later arose from her experiences at the hospital – working with patients who bore the greatest burden of apartheid’s inequality. It was later, through increased political contact – particularly at the Treason Trial after meeting Madiba – that this interest deepened.
Winnie’s relationship with one of South Africa’s foremost “agitators” of the time would itself be a “sentence” of sorts. The long years they would have to spend apart, the banning orders, arrests and constant police harassment, while expected, were brutal.
Winnie was three months pregnant when she faced her first stint in prison in the 1958 anti-pass campaign, where she credits Albertina Sisulu – a nurse and fellow activist – for having saved her unborn child.
In later years, Winnie would endure 491 days in solitary confinement. She says: “I have spent most of my life in and out of prison. At first I was bewildered, like every woman who has to leave her little children clinging to her skirt pleading with her not to leave them.
“I cannot to this day describe that constricting pain in my throat as I turned my back on my little ghetto home, leaving the sounds of those screaming children as I was taken off to prison.
“As the years went on, that pain was transformed into a bitterness that I cannot put into words.”
But it was perhaps the cruel banishment to Brandfort that most tested Winnie’s courage. She recalled that her banishment – which was a rare punishment in South Africa at the time – was meant to “dehumanise” her.
But Winnie would not be broken.
Always the community activist, she opened a clinic and a crèche, and initiated feeding schemes for Brandfort’s children. In a video interview during those dark years, Winnie very assuredly remarks that she is “absolutely certain” of freedom. Though herself a prisoner in, and out, of an actual prison, Winnie had become the public face of Mandela, whom the world had not seen since his own imprisonment.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity of meeting Fadwa Barghouthi, a lawyer and wife of the jailed “Palestinian Mandela”, Marwan Barghouthi. I was struck by the similarities between the two women.
It was this Winnie Mandela who throughout the very turbulent years of the 1970s and ’80s was at the forefront of the Struggle at the height of political activity, while the Rivonia accused were still languishing in prison.
South Africans today, I am sure, are acquainted with the older Winnie Mandela: the MP; the popular leader welcomed with a roar of approval from the crowds at rallies; the politician repeatedly elected to the ruling party’s national executive committee; the glamorous public figure who, without asking for it, always captures the limelight, and the figure who has courted controversy and is not immune to fault or criticism.
Winnie’s first name is Nomzamo, which, loosely translated, means “one who strives”.
It’s a very apt name for a woman who will be remembered for spending the best years of her life courageously striving for South Africa’s freedom.
* Ahmed Kathrada is a former Robben Island prisoner. He remains an activist with a foundation in his name that aims to deepen non-racialism.