Word Echoes from SANZ: “Tribute to Winnie Mandela”

Easter Monday, 2nd April 2018, saw the death of a woman so famous she could be referred to by just one name : WINNIE.

Winnie was in the forefront of the liberation forces inside the country.
She mobilized Youth, Women and ordinary citizens to revolt against the Apartheid system.
She represented the essence of the fight for dignity, self-reliance, self determination
and self respect at a terribly troubled time of the nation.

Lots of false pieties will be said about her now.
The truth is that once there was a beautiful, proud woman who studied social
work with an older woman, Albertinah Sisulu.
Through her she met a handsome lawyer called Nelson Mandela. They fell in love.
He divorced his first wife to marry her.
They had two children. There marriage was passionate and he adored her.
However their life was never normal because of his political activities, which she embraced.

When Mandela went to jail, he was comparatively safe compared to the perilous life she experienced.
The Apartheid state punished her because of him, and too because of her.

The image of Winnie Mandela, fist high and her words uttered in rage against informers and the horrible punishment

they were promised is being brought again from the past of that cold, autumn day in April 1985.

They was more to MA Winnie than that single sentence “ with our boxes of matches…”

Winnie is the conscience of a Nation that has already forgotten the tragedy of Apartheid history;
even in her death, people do not realize how she suffered, how damaged she became
and how it hurt her and those who cared for her most.

They took her husband away
They banned her
They harassed her day and night
They tormented her through intelligence operations
They detained her for 491 days
They kept her in solitary confinement for 17 months and for the first 200 Days,
the only people she saw were her interrogators
They kept her up for 5 days and 5 nights to break her will
They kept her away from her daughters
They banished her to Brandfort away form her support system
Yet, they failed to crush her indomitable spirit

Winnie Mandela was quoted as saying:
“I am the product of the masses of my country. I am the product of my enemy.”
Long Live the Fighting Spirit of Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela-Mandela!!
#MotheroftheNation
Rest in Power MA Winnie ( 1936 – 2018)

BLOGGER: HELEWISE ARENDS