Revered by many as an epitome of imbokodo (the grinding stone) Mama Winnie is known in Thembuland as Nkosikazi Nobandla Madikizela-Mandela.
Much has been written about her public life as a political activist, so ours is to reflect on some of the aspects of her life that we wish to celebrate on this, her birthday month as she celebrates 80 years of age.
This is a very critical age in African communities because she has now transcended from being merely a wife, a mother or even a grandmother.
In our culture, a woman of such advanced age is a spiritual medium, she is a man in her own right who now has the authority to enter even the sacred spaces within the homestead and she possesses most of the critical information about rituals.
One of her critical tasks is mediating in disputes and rivalry that may occasionally rear its ugly head within the family.
Arguably, Mama Winnie maintained a more cultural posture than her husband, the former president, the revolutionary, the world icon who was himself a Thembu kingdom prince. After all Mama Winnie was raised in a very culturally rooted community in Mbongweni village, outside the small town of Mbizana in the Eastern Cape.
And after pursuing studies in social work and becoming the first qualified black social worker, she started becoming more exposed to the nature of the struggles of our people, with her work putting it into context.
Thus her own political activism was formally launched.
It is no coincidence that in her late 70s she took on the struggle to defend the rights and privileges of the many voiceless and faceless African women all over the country. By deliberately taking the matter of her Qunu marriage home to court, she effectively sought to leave a legacy by which civil law would provide that which is already provided for in our longstanding customary law – that the marriage home belongs to the wife who was there when it was built.
Custom dictates that akukho mfazi wakhela omnye, loosely meaning “no one wife should be forced to build a home for another”. The house and the wife cannot be separated because in our custom the house is the wife and the wife is the house.
Surprisingly this was overlooked by many so-called women’s rights activists. The matter was personalised in the media, sensationalised and never put into the context of what was actually at stake for the now vulnerable women in rural South Africa, should their husbands decide to divorce them.
Mama Winnie is also synonymous with traditional attire and she always infuses the patterns of her AmaMpondo origins into her traditional dress, in such an undoubtedly queenly manner that once you are in her presence you have no doubt that African wisdom is going to ooze from her mouth.
When former President Nelson Mandela was in hospital in Pretoria, towards his last days, the AbaThembu King Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo summoned traditional leaders and at that meeting a decision was taken for a delegation representing the entire AbaThembu nation to travel to visit the ailing former president.
The king requested that the family should not have to deal with our arrangements as they were already dealing with a lot concerning the health of the former president and visitors.
When, as a big delegation we arrived at the hospital Mama Winnie was pleasantly surprised to see us in the waiting room.
In true African culture she followed all the protocol in handling our delegation, not missing a single step, addressing us according to perfect AbaThembu custom and taking us through the process of what was happening concerning the life of the former president.
He was almost unconscious, not moving and hardly even blinking. But on that day, Mama Winnie spoke to him and told him “natsi ikumkani neenkosi zabaThembu zize kukulanda”, loosely meaning “here is the AbaThembu king and the chiefs, they have come to fetch you”.
He blinked and turned his head slightly.
Needless to say the warmth we felt from Mama Winnie at the hospital was extended to the home in Houghton as she had apparently started making arrangements with Mama Graca Machel and Ndaba Zweliyajika Mandela.
We were also told on our arrival at hospital that Mama Graca had just left to return to Houghton to freshen up.
Mother of the Nation, a true revolutionary, a beam of hope and an inspiration to many, at barely 22-years-of age, the young Winnie was detained in 1958 for political activism. But what is striking is that despite this vast life, she remains as attached to her cultural roots today as she was back then. Look at the images of the most significant events in her life and you will see her in her traditional regalia, unfazed, unashamed and proud as ever, as though there is some metaphysical power that she draws from her traditional clothing other than merely asserting herself as an African woman.
From her wedding in 1958, to the infamous Rivonia Trial, to the scores of important occasions she has attended officially, the images of her do not place her anywhere else but as a married, dignified African queen, one who is cautiously soft spoken and intellectually astute.
In isiXhosa we say, akukho nzwana ingenasiphako, which loosely translates: all of man has its shortcomings. It continues to say that honour is granted to those whose positive and inspirational traits far outweigh the negative ones.
That towering jazz legend Letta Mbulu said of Mama Winnie: “Sis Winnie is a powerhouse, and amazingly throughout her life she stuck to her truth. Here is a great looking woman, beautiful, she could have been anything she wanted to be, but she chose an undying love for her people. As an African woman from Pondoland myself, just like her, I am proud of her and I have always been greatly inspired by her, even during my nearly three decades of exile in United States.”
And as Dr Maya Angelou, the great, says:
“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise ...I rise ... I rise.
Our parting shot is a message of gratitude and an expression of pride in you Mama Nobandla, we salute you and we are indebted in you as the AbaThembu nation because some of the trials and tribulations in your life were inflicted by your association with one of ours, whose political activism, together with yours, caused you to suffer the indignity, harassment and brutality of the worst order. Yet you remained unbent under the weight of the neurotic apartheid regime.
And you emerge with so much charisma. You do not reflect hate or resentment. Like a grinding stone, you remain intact while the corn was finally crushed in 1994.
Jongisilo Pokwana ka Menziwa is part of the Pokwana Traditional Council, director of Vusizwe Foundation for Oral Historical Research and a regional chair of Contrasela. Email: jongisilo@vusizwefoundation.org
A dignified African queen
Much has been written about her public life as a political activist, so ours is to reflect on some of the aspects of her life that we wish to celebrate on this, her birthday month as she celebrates 80 years of age.
This is a very critical age in African communities because she has now transcended from being merely a wife, a mother or even a grandmother.
In our culture, a woman of such advanced age is a spiritual medium, she is a man in her own right who now has the authority to enter even the sacred spaces within the homestead and she possesses most of the critical information about rituals.
One of her critical tasks is mediating in disputes and rivalry that may occasionally rear its ugly head within the family.
Arguably, Mama Winnie maintained a more cultural posture than her husband, the former president, the revolutionary, the world icon who was himself a Thembu kingdom prince. After all Mama Winnie was raised in a very culturally rooted community in Mbongweni village, outside the small town of Mbizana in the Eastern Cape.
And after pursuing studies in social work and becoming the first qualified black social worker, she started becoming more exposed to the nature of the struggles of our people, with her work putting it into context.
Thus her own political activism was formally launched.
It is no coincidence that in her late 70s she took on the struggle to defend the rights and privileges of the many voiceless and faceless African women all over the country. By deliberately taking the matter of her Qunu marriage home to court, she effectively sought to leave a legacy by which civil law would provide that which is already provided for in our longstanding customary law – that the marriage home belongs to the wife who was there when it was built.
Custom dictates that akukho mfazi wakhela omnye, loosely meaning “no one wife should be forced to build a home for another”. The house and the wife cannot be separated because in our custom the house is the wife and the wife is the house.
Surprisingly this was overlooked by many so-called women’s rights activists. The matter was personalised in the media, sensationalised and never put into the context of what was actually at stake for the now vulnerable women in rural South Africa, should their husbands decide to divorce them.
Mama Winnie is also synonymous with traditional attire and she always infuses the patterns of her AmaMpondo origins into her traditional dress, in such an undoubtedly queenly manner that once you are in her presence you have no doubt that African wisdom is going to ooze from her mouth.
When former President Nelson Mandela was in hospital in Pretoria, towards his last days, the AbaThembu King Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo summoned traditional leaders and at that meeting a decision was taken for a delegation representing the entire AbaThembu nation to travel to visit the ailing former president.
The king requested that the family should not have to deal with our arrangements as they were already dealing with a lot concerning the health of the former president and visitors.
When, as a big delegation we arrived at the hospital Mama Winnie was pleasantly surprised to see us in the waiting room.
In true African culture she followed all the protocol in handling our delegation, not missing a single step, addressing us according to perfect AbaThembu custom and taking us through the process of what was happening concerning the life of the former president.
He was almost unconscious, not moving and hardly even blinking. But on that day, Mama Winnie spoke to him and told him “natsi ikumkani neenkosi zabaThembu zize kukulanda”, loosely meaning “here is the AbaThembu king and the chiefs, they have come to fetch you”.
He blinked and turned his head slightly.
Needless to say the warmth we felt from Mama Winnie at the hospital was extended to the home in Houghton as she had apparently started making arrangements with Mama Graca Machel and Ndaba Zweliyajika Mandela.
We were also told on our arrival at hospital that Mama Graca had just left to return to Houghton to freshen up.
Mother of the Nation, a true revolutionary, a beam of hope and an inspiration to many, at barely 22-years-of age, the young Winnie was detained in 1958 for political activism. But what is striking is that despite this vast life, she remains as attached to her cultural roots today as she was back then. Look at the images of the most significant events in her life and you will see her in her traditional regalia, unfazed, unashamed and proud as ever, as though there is some metaphysical power that she draws from her traditional clothing other than merely asserting herself as an African woman.
From her wedding in 1958, to the infamous Rivonia Trial, to the scores of important occasions she has attended officially, the images of her do not place her anywhere else but as a married, dignified African queen, one who is cautiously soft spoken and intellectually astute.
In isiXhosa we say, akukho nzwana ingenasiphako, which loosely translates: all of man has its shortcomings. It continues to say that honour is granted to those whose positive and inspirational traits far outweigh the negative ones.
That towering jazz legend Letta Mbulu said of Mama Winnie: “Sis Winnie is a powerhouse, and amazingly throughout her life she stuck to her truth. Here is a great looking woman, beautiful, she could have been anything she wanted to be, but she chose an undying love for her people. As an African woman from Pondoland myself, just like her, I am proud of her and I have always been greatly inspired by her, even during my nearly three decades of exile in United States.”
And as Dr Maya Angelou, the great, says:
“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise ...I rise ... I rise.
Our parting shot is a message of gratitude and an expression of pride in you Mama Nobandla, we salute you and we are indebted in you as the AbaThembu nation because some of the trials and tribulations in your life were inflicted by your association with one of ours, whose political activism, together with yours, caused you to suffer the indignity, harassment and brutality of the worst order. Yet you remained unbent under the weight of the neurotic apartheid regime.
And you emerge with so much charisma. You do not reflect hate or resentment. Like a grinding stone, you remain intact while the corn was finally crushed in 1994.
Jongisilo Pokwana ka Menziwa is part of the Pokwana Traditional Council, director of Vusizwe Foundation for Oral Historical Research and a regional chair of Contrasela. Email: jongisilo@vusizwefoundation.org
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