Mother of the Nation, fallen from grace
During the years of apartheid in South Africa, Winnie Mandela was a symbol of resistance as important as her husband. While Nelson Mandela stayed in prison serving a life sentence, Winnie went in and out of them for defying the government's orders, always courageous, always fighting, and at the same time being a mother to the couple's children. She was a source of strength, Mother of the Nation to many South Africans.
Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela was born in 1936 to a privileged life for a person of colour: Her mother was a teacher, her father a headmaster and a cabinet minister in the Transkei homeland government. Winnie took an education as a social worker and in 1956 started to work at a hospital.
"It was while working as the first black medical social worker at Baragwanath Hospital that I started to become politicised. I started to realise the abject poverty under which most people were forced to live, the appalling conditions created by the inequalities of the system."
She became increasingly involved in politics and took a Bachelor of Arts degree with an International Relations major at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Her first detention happened in 1958, when she protested against the pass laws (black South Africans had to carry a passport at all times). At this time she was already chairperson of a branch of both ANC* and ANCWL**.
She also met and married her husband in 1958. Nelson Mandela was a young lawyer on trial for treason at the time. In 1962 he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. At the same time his wife was ordered to stay in Soweto, but defied these orders. She was thrown into prison for this and other failures to submit to the apartheid system, sometimes for months, sometimes for years at a time. She kept standing proud, fighting in all the ways she could.
In 1990 Nelson Mandela walked out of prison accompanied by Winnie. Apartheid had come to an end. So had Winnie's all-good image, unfortunately. Rumours about her bodyguards, the 'Mandela United Football Club', carrying out kidnappings, torture and murders came out in the open. In 1991 Winnie was found guilty of kidnapping and assisting to the assault of five young activists, one of whom, the 14-year-old Stompie Seipei, died. She was sentenced to six year in prison, but after appealing had them reduced to two years, and suspended. She and her husband separated in 1992; they had a highly publicised divorce in 1996.
Winnie, now called Madikezela-Mandela, was elected to Parliament in 1994, but unseated the next year. Her testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in 1997 did not clear her name. She is still associated with the infamous practice of necklacing - placing a tyre over the victim's neck and lighting it. The charismatic and outspoken Winnie is still beloved by many. She is an icon of resistance for black women and should remain so. Her resistance to normal human morals is not an example to follow, however.
* African National Congress
** African National Congress Women's League