No surprise that the NYT has chosen to produce a hagiographic account of Mandela’s life. A convicted kidnapper, she has also been implicated in numerous acts of torture and murder. There is no mention of her famous 1986 speech in which she said that “with our boxes of matches and our necklaces we will liberate this country” (“necklaces” is a reference to the brutal practice of placing a tire filled with gasoline around a person’s shoulders and igniting it). Mandela’s bodyguards--known as the “Mandela United Football Club—carried out many beatings and murders at Mandela’s request. Also missing are any references to her loan sharking activities, a practice that did nothing to liberate black Africans from oppression but did enrich Mandela. It is little more than a fairy tale that she fought against apartheid, what she did fight for was her own enrichment using her imprisoned husband’s name to add legitimacy to her activities.
3
Winnie was tough WAY before Nelson, and South Africans who can remember know it. Her "slave revolt" was visceral, impassioned and yes, violent. She knew that the government had no intention of giving equal rights to Black Africans so she fought, literally. While Nelson fought with eloquence internationally, Winnie was an in-fighter whose every waking moment was to erode the will of ruling South Africans by any means necessary, to give them a fight they would not have the stomach to continue long-term. History is indeed quite often written by the victors. Considering the fight Winnie Mandela won against formidable forces, history has little choice but to remember her fondly. I don't care if her enemies don't; EVERYBODY had blood on their hands.
3
Winnie Mandela was a true inspiration to many women internationally and helped to free South Africa from its Aparthied days. She will be missed!
Learn more about Winnie Mandela, (Winnie Mandela Biography: The Mother of the Nation) http://authl.it/B07CB2R5J3
1
Ms. Winnies' contribution to the struggle against apartheid can never be diminished. As other commentators have rightly pointed out, it was the situation she and millions of other blacks were in that prompted her & others to retaliate with violence. However, it is very unfortunate that as she was loyal to the struggle she was not to Mandela. Regardless, we cannot turn back time and what happened cannot be undone.
Nevertheless our condolences to her friends, family and the people of South Africa.She was a flawed human as we all are but a hero nonetheless.
Amandla!Awethu!
2
The milk of human kindness in Winnie Mandela curdled during Nelson Mandela's long years of imprisonment.
Although the anti-apartheid movement and the African National Congress had many titanic figures of great personal integrity and high principle, it is impossible, given the public record, to include Winnie Mandela among them.
14 year old Stompie Moeketsi's torture and murder in the grounds of her house by her bodyguards were real events, as was her conviction for having him kidnapped pursuant to the murder. She was, on numerous other times, recorded as having called for the gruesome killing of people she considered to be foes to the cause.
A casual perusal of Google results, or even of this South African Justice Ministry website link (below) reveals that she had become a most unpleasant and violence prone person in the latter years under apartheid, and that the unpleasantness continued afterward.
It is also a matter of record that the African National Congress leadership renounced her.
In the sympathetic West, though, going by the comments here, Winnie Mandela has become the very embodiment of a strong female black hero.
But it is unprincipled of us to hold on to and emotively promulgate that image in the face of strong evidence to the contrary, simply because we have so much invested in a positive view of Winnie.
http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media%5C1997%5C9711/s971124l.htm
5
So, NYT - You recently noted the sexist bias that has plagued your obits, but you thought it would be good to lead with Ms. Madikizela-Mandela's relationship with her husband rather than with her personal accomplishments? Just mentioning women doesn't make your sexism go away. You have to treat them like people rather than just extensions of a man. Maybe this is one reason she "grew to resent being overshadowed by him", as you so eloquently put it.
2
How amazing that this incredibly courageous woman is blamed for her flaws and acts of violence when whites committed far more atrocious violence against her and her family, and against those she worked with in their fight against the appalling and deeply shameful racism and injustice of apartheid South Africa. Does anyone believe the corruption and sadism of the white uber-class allowed her the luxury of a pristine morality? She needed to survive in a grossly unfair society. She should be hailed as one of the greats freedom fighter who may have stumbled but never wavered on the path to the end of apartheid and a new South Africa. Her country is indebted to her, as we all are.
3
Thank you for sharing your life with us! Rest in peace my Sister.
3
Some would say that the politics and situations were complex. But what is complex about kidnapping and then slashing the throat of a 14-year old boy? There is no ambiguity about that.
In Winnie's eyes the boy did not deserve the civil rights she claimed for herself - indeed, she deemed the child worthy of being slaughtered. Yet she is hailed as the heroine of civil rights. No sale. Murder is murder.
17
I wonder if all the people who claim to care about Stompie have given Stephon Clarke a single thought.
13
Stating that Winnie was an icon of the struggle against Apartheid without acknowledging the fact that she was instrumental in the killing of a young black boy and countless other people is embarrassingly deficient in sincerity. She had her own little gang of thugs called the Mandela United Football Club, who were notorious for necklacing - the gruesome method of putting a tire around somebody’s neck, dosing it with petrol and setting it alight. This club of thugs, of whom Winnie was the coach, made a clear statement: the struggle is going to be brutal and the struggle necessitates the killing and torture of children. I suppose one man’s child torturer and child killer is another man’s freedom fighter. Winnie continued her “struggle” after 1994. She found an impressionable young man called Julius Malema, whom she made into her version of what a freedom fighter should look like: spewing racist rhetoric, espousing populism and promoting anarchy. This is the same Julius who has said: “we are not calling for the genocide of white people… not yet”. Julius' party (the EFF) has a 6% representation in the South African parliament now. Winnie has done her job very well. The values of the Mandela United Football Club live on. Winnie is no Rosa Park, and yes, Rosa Park didn’t have to face the brutal machinery that was the Apartheid government. But I doubt whether Rosa Park would’ve become a brutal, child killing Winnie had she been in the same situation.
11
She is and will be. The brutality that created her and her wrongs do not fail to acknowledge what her life represents that apartheid was cruel and needed to end.
1
Rest in peace. Revolutionaries are often saints and part sinners. It takes a bold person to fight for change. The struggle can eat one's soul.
9
Indeed Winnie Mandela was a complicated and imperfect human being but her sacrifice and commitment to abolish apartheid was unwavering and absolute. We should be honoring and celebrating her life.
10
Sounds like a person who lived two lives:
The first devoted to courageously pursuing freedom for others; the second characterized by violence, selfishness, and self-aggrandizement.
Plenty to applaud and plenty to denounce.
22
It says here that she was beaten and tortured while in solitary confinement for 13 months. No wonder she became violent. You can't blame her. Blame her torturers. I think she was very brave.
7
Nothing, not an oppression, not a lack of civil rights, nothing justifies slowly burning people alive.
17
If you have actually seen someone "necklaced"
then you would never wish it upon anyone.
She wished necklacing on people and that says,
very sadly,
all too much about her.
19
That was a nice summary. I didn't find it overly fawning or condemning as other readers did. Obituaries are not usually the proper place for public floggings. And, thankfully, this is not supposed to be an opinion piece. Sometimes NYT readers are so used to opinions they are let down by plain reporting. But this is the newspaper of record for the US, not a gossip rag.
Alan Cowell, I think you did an excellent job.
9
She reminds me of Zuma and Mugabi in the sense that these men started out as heros and liberators of their country with noble intentions and ended up arrogant dictators, corrupted by power not to mention money -- she too started out a heroine and ended up tarnished by scandal and responsible for torture, murder and other crimes.
13
How she stayed out of jail for murder was a disgrace.
A wicked woman who doesn't need to be glorified.
10
Such a bizarrely laudatory and simplistic summary of a complex, oft-troubled life. Promoting necklacing, butchering a young boy, and many other crimes and abuses are given little prominent mention. This is an Orwellian airbrushed retelling of revisionist history. What has happened to the Times?
13
Ms. Mandela would be considered a terrorist in any age. Necklacing is and was an inhumane, cruel and barbaric practice comparable to lynching and other atrocities against mankind. Where would we be today if the great Dr. King had resorted to violence? Progressives should not and cannot condone the actions of this woman.
23
I was born and raised in South Africa and came of age as the apartheid era waned. Winnie (as she was known to all South Africans, no last name needed) was a polarising figure to be sure and was complicit if not guilty for the deaths of four teenage activists in South Africa's turbulent 1980's. And yet she was the Mother of the Nation. What she endured at the hands of the apartheid government while her husband languished in prison for 27 years is beyond comprehension. I remember listening to news bulletins and hearing again and again how she'd been detained by the police on her way home from the airport after visiting her husband on Robben Island off Cape Town. She was subjected to arrest, detention without trial, YEARS of house arrest, banishment and humiliation. White South Africans were taught to despise her. She was a student at Wits University when I was there and I remember her serene, regal presence as she sat in the canteen and I, a gobsmacked twentysomething-year-old, could only stare at history seated at the table next to me. It was she who suggested to a government minister on a flight between Johannesburg and Cape Town that her husband was interested in a dialogue with the apartheid regime. This eventually led to his release, the unbanning of the ANC and democratic elections in 1994. We have much to thank her for. She was a flawed human being but we all are. Sala kakuhle Mama. Enkosi. Amandla!
71
A great woman who not only fought against apartheid but also against the rampant sexism in South Africa. She was doing #Metoo decades ago.
I find it interesting that some people condemn her for waging war on traitors. George Washington did the same in the name of freedom for the colonies and is still hailed as a hero. Winnie Mandela was fighting against one of the most oppressive systems that ever existed and she had to make tough decisions. Decisions that helped to topple apartheid.
One of the most telling things about her is that she never stopped fighting and continued to live among her people. She didn't abandon them to go live in some palace while they still lived in squalor.
RIP great lady.
7
And most white people in the US and elsewhere have no difficulty at all with lauding Washington even though he made his a living as a slave master. According to them, even though the race based chattel slavery system remains one of the most murderous and inhumane systems ever devised and imposed on anyone on an international scale, the good works of George and hundreds like him outweighs the bad.
3
The opitome of the Strong Black Woman she was and I am forever convinced that she was Mandela's true love, no matter how many wives came after her, regardless if even he realized it. She's an irrevocable piece of SA history and a pillar of that struggle, she will be sorely missed.
4
It is remarkable how many white Americans feel themselves qualified to comment on the life of a black South African revolutionary. It is clear that the NYTimes was not ready to publish a proper obituary of this woman.
15
Again and again it is proven that people are not saints. History shows us that we must often take good leaders with bad streaks in order to ultimately move towards progress.
6
“Yet she chafed at being defined by him” yet in the two sentences that accompany this headline on the NYT app, that is all we will do. I see that the institutional self-reflection about obituaries of prominent women of color is going really well.
10
Why is it that wives of prominent national figures, leaders often go loony and erratic? They aren't all bad but it happens often enough.
Jimmy Carter's wife is stable enough, but there are many others who are/were not.
Really. Your reflex is to assume I am being flippant but I'm not. Take as an example Martha Mitchell, wife of Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell. How's that for your #metoo revolution?
1
Interesting. I might add the often overlooked question of, "Why is it that every time we hear of a mass murder, a rape, a kidnapping, we see that the victimizer is often a man?" Insulting a woman of great importance whom you do not know, on the day of her death with some trifling question about her mental state says more about your inability to deal with life than any woman, even when it is Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
You sound like you need mental help. Don't waste any time. Just go.
7
Martha Mitchell was a pill-popping footnote. Winnie Mandela was a revolutionary and activist in her own right. You can't even compare them. Shame on you.
5
I can say with great confidence that both of you have completely missed the point. Zing! That was it zipping way over your collective heads.
I didn't insult anybody. Just consult the historical record and maybe a little bit more.
1
Is this how the NYT will report on the death of Robert Mugabe? Is this liberal America's view of what an African patriot and freedom fighter is? Winnie Mandela was a monster, and her lionization smacks of a tacit acceptance that, other than her once-in-a-lifetime former husband, murder and brutality are to be expected, and the best that can be hoped for in that part of the world. This is a grave insult to the many courageous men and women striving to bring true freedom and democracy to Africa's people.
9
You can't compare Mugabe to Winnie Mandela. That's risible and ridiculous and, yes, RACIST.
5
In the last 500 years or so, how much freedom did King Leopold, Cecil Rhodes, or the Boers or other white invaders bring to the continent? How much justice? How much opportunity? With that track record, it's no wonder the Chinese are displacing western influence in much of the continent.
2
The STORY for 2018 in South Africa is the 50,000 to 100,000 white property owners and other South Africans that have been murdered the past couple of years. It's like the Soviet takeover of Russia without any news reporters at all.
South Africa is apparently going the way of Zimbabwe, with land being taken by force and handed out to friends of the tyrant. Any new Winnie Mandela rising up to fight that would be REAL news.
7
The headline in your email alert states, "but grew to resent being overshadowed by him." This is what you highlight?
Winnie Madikizel-Mandela endured solitary confinement. She fought white oppression. Yet, the NYTimes headlines RESENTMENT?
@Katlego_Moncho on Twitter posted this -
Rest In Peace to a woman of wonder, a woman of strength, and a woman who not only empowered many, but taught us valuable lessons beyond being a wife.
11
There is simply no way to gloss over her ordering of the kidnapping of four boys and her responsibility for the cold-blooded murder of one of those young boys. No way, at all.
13
Think of the worst thing you've ever done in your life. And now imagine that that's the thing you're remembered for. Maybe it's even written on your gravestone. Because that's what you're doing to Winnie . Shame on you.
4
Shame on you. Most of us are not responsible for murder and torture.
3
I haven't noticed any "glossing over." I see an attempt to examine and understand how it was that this leader did make some awful mistakes but was nonetheless an important part of accomplishing a great good in the face of brutal opposition. How do you feel about Truman killing tens of thousands of children at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Burning many of them alive I believe. These are not simple stories of good and evil as we would like them to be.
2
Perhaps, like Benedict Arnold, who if he died at the Battle of Saratoga, would be in the eternal pantheon of American patriots, she had vanished before her contradictory second act, her legacy would shine. But her second act was a direct fall from grace. Burned in my memory was how she was worshiped by feminists when she did an American tour sporting a most apparent current corrupt and mean persona for all to see. It was an eye opener for me in seeing people who I had held in esteem undermining their credibility in full light by fawning over her.
7
I can't imagine that the obit of an Auschwitz survivor would spend so much space on her personal failings and not say of her experiences being brutalized in a death camp.
Winnie Mandela was a freedom fighter for Black people. Everything else pales in comparison.
15
Winnie Mandela was, as others have written, a strong, courageous woman who fought against apartheid while raising her children alone. However, she was also a murderous vigilante. I remember the murder by "necklace" that she routinely authorized the thugs that surrounded her to carry out, sometimes for no other reason than to consolidate her power.
8
When will corruption ever end? In Southern Africa, the corrupt are comfortable with a public reputation of such. In Europe and the States, the corrupt go to great lengths to hide their wayward decisions. It's all the same. Ms. Mandela is no different. Yet, her Nelson Mandela was very different. He was pure. She was not.
2
OK...You sure about that?
3
It could not have been easy to be a female leader in that movement and culture, but I always experienced her as a narcissist and opportunist. There were so many unheralded heroes, many of whom she would not let eclipse her, and quite a few she destroyed
I still find Mr. Mandela the hero of the movement, and remain in awe of his life story.
17
Why isn't there a thumbs-down available? I would gladly use it for this post. Who is is this person to judge a person who endured so much and persevered til the end. Would Nelson have ever been released without her leadership in keeping the struggle against the jackboots alive.
2
This article is the worst sort of hastily thrown together tabloid journalism. It is not in keeping with the standards of the New York Times. Any positive statement about Ms. Mandela is immediately undermined by one full of innuendo, disrespect and reporting on accusations and trials as if Ms. Mandela had been found guilty, when she was not. Never reported is the fact that the intelligence agencies of the apartheid regime and others, seeking to undermine her influence on her husband, within the ANC and globally, subjected Ms. Mandela to a smear and disinformation campaign, accusing her of violence and murder among other things, when if fact those acts were committed by infiltrators and informants.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is a Mother of Africa. She was an indomitable, fearless, incorruptible and resourceful woman who in spite of banishment, imprisonment and constant persecution carried on the struggle at the micro/ grassroots and macro/global level. She turned the bitterest of lemons into lemonade every day. She also never lost touch with her ideals and those she fought for.
Today we lost a great Freedom Fighter, but her spirit and the fruits of her labors live on. Her example will continue to inspire freedom fighters and fearless women and girls everywhere and in every age.
14
I am a man who is in favor of women's power, but I hope today's girls and women don't take a liking to the "necklaces" that WMM is quoted as advocating. It takes a profoundly sick and twisted person to suggest that putting a car tire around someone's neck, filling it with gasoline and lighting it afire is anything less than utterly barbaric.
11
She was nobody's mother. An undeserved description of a woman full of flaws.
7
Ah, but she was, Andrew. She was mother to two girls and the mother of a movement whether you like her or not.
8
Although the West loved her, she was a black eye for South Africa.
Her 'football club', the "Mandela United Football Club" was a private secret policing by armed thugs.
They murdered Stompie Moeketsi by "necklacing" him.
"Necklacing" was where a tire was secured around the neck and then set on fire.
The "Truth And Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, (Vol.2.) found her 'personally responsible for murder, torture, abduction, and assault of numerous men, women, and children, as well as indirectly responsible for an even larger number of such crimes.'
I'm 70 so I remember following her life. My initial pleasure and pride quickly gave way to horror at the death of Stompie and other reports of graft and violence.
My question in those years was why I considered her a thug and few others did.
I don't get that embracing of thuggery that is rampant today.
Never have, never will.
"...with our box of matches and our necklaces..."
What an ugly legacy.
17
Without a source to back you up, I cannot accept your statement that Stompie Moeketsi was necklaced. Does not the Truth and Reconciliation Commission say his throat was slit? Please name your source or refrain from unfounded assertions.
3
The murder of Stompie Moeketsi Seipei, age 14, was a horrible, unthinkable crime, as is any killing of any child. Before his death he was also the country’s youngest political prisoner (“detainee”) when he spent his 12th birthday in jail without trial; that, too, was a horrible crime, perpetrated by the white apartheid government. He started fighting the government’s racist, criminal regime at age 10. At age 13 he was expelled from school. His life was short, tragic, yet also heroic. “Stompie” was killed by Jerry Richardson, who confessed to slashing his throat with a pair of shears, in Richardson’s words, “like a goat”. He was not “necklaced”.
I don’t think anyone who did not know Winnie Madikizela-Mandela personally, and was not at her side throughout her whole remarkable life has the ability to judge her. God is the only one with that insight. I certainly don’t think anyone who is not a South African woman of Ms. Madikizela-Mandela’s generation can even begin to comprehend her life life and struggles and trials and her actions and reactions. This obituary raised more questions than it answered, and did not do justice to it’s topic. Winnie was a complicated woman at the forefront of a complicated struggle and hopefully in the next few years, while some of the people who really knew her still live, biographer(s), historian(s), and/or journalists will be able to put together an overview of her life that does justice to her many roles and impact on her country and history.
5
“...While there is something of a historical revisionism happening in some quarters of our nation these days that brands Nelson Mandela’s second wife a revolutionary and heroic figure...it doesn’t take that much digging to remember the truly awful things she has been responsible for...
Seems like something along the same line could've been written about Oscar Lopez Rivera...
As far as fact-checking...
https://qz.com/966763/huffington-post-south-africa-editor-verashni-pilla...
3
In the United States, anyone convicted of kidnapping whose hostage died as a result would also be liable for murder. It is hard to understand how this article could see fit to leave the kidnapping and death unmentioned until the 33rd paragraph.
11
In ten years, I wonder what the history books will say about Nelson versus his ex-wife. While Nelson seemed to transcend the impossible situation he found himself in, his wife seemed more human and struck back at the powers that made their life so difficult. Only history can be the judge...
19
His situation was not "impossible". He was offered freedom numerous times over the years and all he had to do was denounce violence as a means of political change.
Such a long distance separates us from that time... Heroes were criminals in the making, and criminals were running that society... In a way, her husband allowed us to feel better about ourselves and how blacks were treated around us. Whereas she was the reality of South Africa. Let's not forget: a society founded on violence generates nothing but violence... For those who condemn her, I have nothing else to say but to ask you one thing: had you been in her shoes, would you have been much better?
55
Mandela once said something similar. He said that in some ways, maybe being in prison made it easier for him to hold on to his ideals, and he couldn’t be certain that he wouldn’t have turned out more like her if he’d been on the front lines for those 27 years.
8
to Alex: I am not sure about "being better" than Winnie, but I would have refrained from torturing MY OWN people.
7
You hope. But, you really don't know because you never had to walk in her shoes.
2
George Washington was notably summary and cruel to traitors. Winnie Mandela did not have the luxury of a formal judicial process or the luxury of the spin of victors but she did as all leaders before her embattled in war have done and probably with greater personal sacrifice.
She was left by her husband a mother of young children but then she won a war. The movement she led contributed to the ending of his incarceration and insured a more unified people upon Mandela's release. Clearly she was mistreated and wrongly characterized after Mandela's release. F. W. de Klerk, head of the National Party, oversaw Apartheid and was responsible for the killing of many and oppression of millions. He was absolved by the Truth and Reconciliation tribunal set up to try those who had committed crimes against humanity under apartheid. He was absolved though he was found to have lied to the Commission. In contrast, Winnie was held to account by the Commission. She, beaten and tortured, a victim of apartheid, was convicted for acts of an alleged "associate" but de Klerk was absolved for acts attributed to his "underlings." Nelson Mandela was held in prison because he refused to denounce violence as a tactic in the fight for freedom. He is rightly recognized as a hero to the world. Winnie is a victim of sexism and racism and the intersections thereof. This NYT article wrongly gives short shrift to that. Winnie was and remains a hero--an able general in the fight for freedom.
21
Comparing W.M. to George W. is spurious. If Martha Washington had sentenced any traitors to death, it would have cast a shadow on the integrity of the battle for independence against our British oppressors. Then again, the Washingtons weren't imprisoned and tortured for decades.
3
Wow, what a life. I don't know whether to Love Winnie or to Hate her. But, this is how whites throughout the history of the world have affected People of Color, America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Israel, Palestine, etc. Injustice is wrong, especially torturing a woman while her husband is imprisoned.
6
Unlike many on this thread you are one of the few who realizes that the system which Winnie and countless others fought against was one of the most oppressive known to humanity. And far too many westerners keep leaving out the fact that the apartheid state was the apple in the wests eye for decades. The US and the UK and other western nations spent more vetoes at the UN defending white settler states in Africa than on any other issue for YEARS. They also looked the other way while the apartheid state developed nuclear weapons. When it comes to this issued both the settlers and their western backers are morally bankrupt.
1
It is obvious that those celebrating her death are insincerely hiding behind the infamous Stompie saga to prove how evil she was, when in actual fact, the real reasons for their joy is that Winnia Mandela played an instrumental part in the eventual freedom of black South Africa. She was their enemy.
Let's not fool anyone. The shift in power structure and privilege from white minority to black majority, no matter how small, is not easy for the dominant power to digest.
For since when did the death of a 14 year old black boy ever matter, let alone one who was supposedly connected to a political movement. Black lives didn't matter then in SA. Now all of a sudden they do?
Stop the facade.
59
Exactly. These are the same white people who tell blacks that their behavior is why they are being killed by the police.
8
Flawed leaders are just that. Please don’t try to justify their failings.
2
What a brilliant, strategic, loving and revolutionary woman Winnie was.
Be clear: It is Winnie who brought the name Nelson Mandela and the struggle against apartheid to the world stage, and with her strength, voice, beauty and dignity would not allow the world to turn away. May her revolutionary spirit live, grow, and infuse those of us who remain.
15
Before we lionize an apartheid icon, it has to be said that it is almost certain that she started the sequence of events that killed her own son, James Seipei, who was 14 at the time of his death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stompie_Moeketsi
13
Okay we can go slow on the lionization, but you need to cite some evidence for what you say is "almost certain." And why on earth do you write that Seipei was Winnie's "own son" ? The wikipedia article you cite says nothing of the kind. Nor does any other document on the web.
3
Thank you NYT for editing your initial headline in which was highlighted how Winnie Mandela "grew to resent being overshadowed by him [Mandela]." I believe her struggle was the same as his, but due to the times they lived in, she did not had the same influence as he did. Nowadays, she could've been president, although her ideas of action sometimes may have been extreme and not what South Africa needed. Nevertheless, her complexities need a book and space of her own, just like Mandela.
8
It's remarkable how eagerly, how quickly and how gladly people overlook the venality and thuggery of others providing they share a political or social agenda.
Madikzela-Mandela was a force to be reckoned with but no decent person's idea of a role model.
40
Thank you. You and other commentators have validated my assertion that "the majority will not accept someone who is willing to fight back." You want people to be docile and vulnerable to your attacks, but don't dare react in humanity. During Easter Sunday, a couple of people looked at me strangely when I told them that I was "God-fearing, but far from a Christian." If GOD is to be feared then you will not allow anyone to influence the humanity that he made possible.
6
Everyday children in America are taught to overlook the venality and thuggery of the so called "founding fathers" and others held up as American heroes. The excuse is always that they lived in a different time and we need to understand. It seems the understanding of the times Winnie Mandela lived in is just ignored.
8
One can view the overthrow of Apartheid as a mere “political or social agenda.” But to me it’s as monumental an advance as the founding of the US, ending slavery, and defeating the Axis powers.
I don’t eagerly overlook Winnie’s use of violence anymore than I eagerly overlook Jefferson’s embrace (political and carnal) of slavery, Lincoln’s racist ideas, or Truman’s dropping atom bombs on civilians, or but nevertheless, I do view each of them as an invaluable role model.
Hard to it is difficult to understand why Mandela is being celebrated. She was responsible for murders, kidnapping, other violent crimes and the pillaging of millions of dollars. And she has shown her racist side by promoting the violence against white South Africans as well by cheering in the rape, pillage and murders of white farmers. Pretty loose standards for heroes today I guess.
26
It may be justifiable to be brutal during a liberation struggle, but this person became ever more brutal as she gained more and more power. Nothing remotely human(e) in that
24
Rest in peace good and faithful warrior Winnie!
8
Her worst faults pale by comparison to the evils of government that she fought her whole life. She was more saint than sinner and should be remembered for her pursuit of freedom for the African majority in their country. A noble lady.May she Rest In Peace.
60
Well said.
3
So two wrongs make a right. Got it.
1
Don't agree. She adopted the violent tactics and methods of her oppressors. In the end her narcissism and opportunism seemed more related to her own profit and fame then to any principles regarding freedom for her people.
Nelson Mandela wasn't a saint in his personal life either but thank God he did not adopt the policy of 'an eye for an eye'.
3
"Her fight against apartheid benefited from the celebrity status of her longtime husband, Nelson Mandela. Yet she chafed at being defined by him and the marriage imploded in scandal."?
The (utterly revisionist) attempt to rewrite history in the obit is truly jaw-dropping! And so too is the effort to shoehorn this into today's larger media concern with bad treatment of women (much -- ''most? -- of it totally justified and newsworthy, I add). But does EVERY story dealing with a woman have to portray her as a victim, even a "victim," who betrayed a cause and used thugs, violence, kidnapping, and ever murder, as Winnie Mandela later did?
She "chaffed at being defined by him" and "her marriage exploded"? What an utter mischaracterization!
Winnie Mandela once had a legitimate role in South African reform, but she betrayed this -- and also sought to exploit her ties to Nelson to grab power and operate in a way that eventually appalled him.
And Nelson Mandela was the major figure in our world -- and one whose power of example, protest, human decency and unbelievable forgiveness continues to inspire us. HE was the one in jail -- not her -- and to suggest her role as "conduit" was somehow the same as his, in prison, is really the worst sort of misleading false equivalency.
It's really a smirch on his incomparable legacy -- and one which may make it easier for some to dismiss him and what he stood for. As such, this piece is travesty of the worst, most harmful, sort!
19
You wouldn't have lasted a month in her shoes. Nelson wasn't running anything from a cell, on a rock in the middle of the ocean for 27 years. Meanwhile the system was grinding people up. And when Nelson was released they all got passes. while most of their victims stayed impoverished. That's Nelson Mandela's legacy. As long as you and many others are okay with the fact that those who ran and profited from apartheid and committed massive human rights violations got passes you should be okay with ANYTHING that Winnie and others who opposed the system did.
Paulo Freire said, "The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors.” Unfortunately, Ms. Madikizela-Mandela life is yet another example of this road to perdition.
15
I find a lot of these comments maddening. Nelson Mandela was a great man, a hero to the people of South Africa and to the world. Winnie Mandela, whatever her contributions to the end of apartheid in South Africa, was a monster. She ordered the torture and killing of several people, not just Stompie Moeketsi, a 14 year old boy. Winnie Mandela was present when Stompie was tortured by her personal "bodyguard". Stompie's throat was slit while on her property, and his corpse thrown into the rubble outside her house. Read the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation commission. She was no hero.
26
Wow - readers here who do not dispute and forgive her of her crimes because they support her cause. Liberal or Alt Right, the hypocrisy is the same.
8
Chris in West Hartford, Not clear whose "hypocrisy" you are calling out.
2
Does anyone seriously believe this was a morally good woman, a human being worthy to be seen in the same heroic light as her sometime husband, whom of course she betrayed?
20
I saw them speak nearly 30 years ago. Nelson shared a message of hope and perseverance. Winnie said "you will give us lots of money". They were in the same struggle but on different paths I believe.
13
She was able to express the radicalism that nelson could not, because then the white allies with money would have deserted their cause. Similar to Malcom X & MLK.
5
Actually, if you want to play the game where South Africans have to be shoehorned into American models, Steve Biko would be the SA stand-in for Malcolm X, and Winnie Mandela necklaced his supporters with reckless abandon. What she said represents the ideological stance of the ANC until the end of apartheid. Socialism and the anti-racist struggle were bound up together both for honest ideological reasons, and to ensure support from the former Communist bloc. At the end of the Cold War, and with victory in the anti-apartheid movement, the socialism piece was effectively dropped as policy.
2
A tough cookie who beat her own drums fiercely.
12
people who on this very op-ed page have properly criticized the US for its use of waterboarding as a tactic for interrogations will turn ,not a blind eye,but an ADORING one on this woman.
Her practice of 'necklacing' dissenters makes waterboarding pale in comparison. A person was tied to a post and a car tire soaked in and filled with petrol was hung around their necks. Set afire it would burn for 30 mins or more, right around the victims head.
Girl power! or something....
17
I was a resident at the time and had to try and treat necklacing victims. I say treat, but there was nothing we could do for people with 98% burns and their throats and upper airways seared away. Apartheid was evil, but this brutality was inhuman at the most personal of levels. The boxes of matches and tyres mostly liberated people of their humanity. It was awful.
7
Thank you Dr. for your corroboration ...and willingness to help them even though you likely drew the unwanted attention of the bad guys.
Again thank you!
3
in the best of my knowledge, thea ar no words yet to decribe wat she meant to south africa and africa at large, she was a world known worrior,sold hearted i cant say enough but God is the overall supream controller, He gave u to us for a purpose and i for one believe its done. may your soul rest in eternal peace
8
Winnie suffered tremendously at the hands of the apartheid state. But, temperamentally she brings to mind Yasser Arafat. Had she had the latitude to do as she wished, she would have damaged the black South African cause as immeasurably much as Arafat did the Palestinian cause. She felt that a lot was owed to her, and that was indeed true, but her interpretation of that was profoundly scary. Luckily for South Africa's future, she was contained by the post-apartheid black government. She was not ultimately a force for good.
20
Paul, you should take time to learn about Winnie Mandela rather than repeat very tired assertions and make hollow comparisons to individuals like Arafat. Couch critics who do not even bother to educate themselves on subjects should be cautious...
1
RM, Did she, or did she not, harm her cause? It is ironic that in the U.S., people are arguing about statues erected to honor Confederate generals. They at least put their lives on the line in battlefields and did not succumb to personal thuggery.
3
She started out great; not only did I have nothing against her but ahw was a great personal hero. Then she betrayed her people through gruesome tortures and betrayed Nelson Mandela who dissociated from her and divorced her. What more can one say. A tragedy that a hero would squander the love of the world through torture and brutality. Just like Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winning President of Burma, Winnie squandered her human rights legacy and heroism through torture and murder and betrayal. A tragedy in both cases.
28
I think the sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial said it best. Life is a bloody mess.
7
There is a spiritual reckoning when you consider MLK's 50th anniversary of his assassination by the United States government and the death of a fiery objector of apartheid. “I am the product of the masses of my country and the product of my enemy.” As brilliant and courageous of a leader Winnie Mandela was to South America, I'm certain she would accept a friendly retort "of being a product of GOD that should empower the masses in defeating the enemy."
4
She was fiery alright.
"In 1986 Winnie Mandela, then-wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, stated "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country" which was widely seen as an explicit endorsement of necklacing."~Wikipedia~
8
The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial said it best. Life is a bloody mess, with some funny bits. It’s up to you to figure out the meaning of life.
1
I can only imagine what commenters are writing about Winnie Mandela at the Wall Street Journal's website right now. When Nelson Mandela passed away in 2013, Rupert Murdoch's rag was UGLY and full of the kind of gutter vitriol one has sadly come to expect from the mostly upper-income whites who are stupid enough to put even more money into Murdoch's coffers (you need to purchase a paid subscription to the WSJ to upload comments there). Like a bunch of whites in Mississippi reacting to Dr. King's assassination 50 years ago Wednesday.
Anyway, Winnie Mandela and her husband fought for decades against a sick, depraved regime based upon the garbage pseudoscience of white supremacy. I'm not justifying the tactics both of them resorted to in order to get rid of the illegitimate apartheid regime, but P.W. Botha & Co. sure as hell didn't make it easy for any black South African to choose Gandhi-like non-violent civil disobedience as an option.
Mahatma Gandhi himself, of course, lived in South Africa for decades as a young man and began his campaigns of non-violent civil disobedience there rather than in India. But if Gandhi had lived into the 2nd half of the 20th century rather than being gunned down by a Hindu fanatic in 1948, it wouldn't have been surprising if his own views about how to best bring about change in South Africa had become radicalized and oriented towards violence (apartheid wasn't officially established in South Africa until 1948, the year Gandhi was killed).
13
You underestimate Gandhi. Surely, his lifestyle says a lot more than Winnie Mandela's.
3
Ha! You might want to look up the facts of Gandhi’s “lifestyle”. Naked girls in his bed, etc. He stood for and accomplished great things, but he was flawed. Same goes for Winnie Mandela. People seem to have a need to place their heroes on impossible pedestals.
1
Gandhi's system couldn't cut in SA, that's why he left. In India unlike SA, the whites were so vastly outnumbered and spread so thin that it was easy to undermine them with strikes and protests. Non violent protest is not the magic silver bullet which it is portrayed to be. I also suspect that many of those who claim to believe in non violence only believe in it when white people are the oppressors and black people the victims. I don't see too many non violent responses from the people of the west to attacks by the jihadis.
A giantess with flaws, like the rest of us! R.I.P.
20
Well written and balanced summary of Winnie Mandela's life.
She was both a rebel against white apartheid and a zealot who supported the use of "necklaces" to terrorize those black South Africans who opposed her.
She most certainly was not universally admired within South Africa, not even among the ANC.
27
The ANC which gave away the store in order to appease white western multinationals and has failed to deliver basic services to large segments of the black population while whites continue to dominate the land and the economy as if the Boers won the fight against the anti apartheid movement.
A fitting piece. The only sentence I would edit is: "As a barefoot child she tended cattle and learned to make do with very little, in marked contrast to her later years of free-spending ostentation."
I would remove the dependent clause.
6
It was not resentment at being overshadowed by Madiba that caused the breakup of their marriage, but her unwillingness to forgive. Considering what she experienced while in prison (sleep deprivation, physical violence and sexual abuse), this is understandable. Hamba Kahle Ndlovukazi
24
I went as a 20 year old college student to South Africa in the late sunset of the apartheid,. en route to Swaziland to do a semester abroad in archaeology.
The brutality, cruelty, and racism of the white South African regime was staggering to witness. No one evaluating the life of Winnie Mandela should take it out of the context of how she and others were treated. Visualize parks, where blacks had to sit on the ground with little white girls perched on the bench next to them. Imagine restaurants where servers were berated by patrons as being "cheeky," hotels where the staff cleaned your room on their hands and knees.
Imagine imprisonment where the worst torture was routine, where there was no freedom of the press, where most of the philosophies and practices of Nazi Germany were in operation without a blush of hesitation.
I am no apologist for the violence that Winnie Mandela sometimes encouraged in her revolution, but it cannot be considered out of context. The whites were determined to crush the black majority and retain the spoils of the state. The whites had vast wealth, huge corporations with international ties, a heartless military and national police, torture, censorship and cruelty on their side.
it took every tool the black liberators could imagine to overturn this. Some were noble and Gandhi-esque. Others had questionable ethics. Some were violent and despicable. I don't care that Winnie Mandela was flawed. I care that she was brave, and that she won.
142
The end does not justify the means.
2
I don't know. And I wonder why you think it's so clear. Did the end justify the means when we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden, and thousands of innocent people died? Personally, I've never had to make such decisions, but my reading of history is that it's very difficult to fight great evils like Nazism or Apartheid, and sometimes the pain and fear bound up in the battle means that you can easily make terrible mistakes. If you claim Apartheid was not as great as evil as Nazism, I will say again, I don't know. But how can anyone make such an evaluation, when each of these evils was as awful as history tells us it was.
3
"The end does not justify the means" -- such an easy thing to say when one himself does not have to live the interim reality.
1
A conflicted and confused woman who was a brave freedom fighter none the less. Both attributes are part of her. And, we must treat her rationally for what she was.
12
She was (and will remain) a stalwart freedom fighter and South Africa's First Lady of Black Liberation. She was totally clear that the enemy is white supremacy: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
22
"I am the product of the masses of my country & the product of my enemy."
-WWM
No matter your thoughts on her or her & her with Nelson, the pair made their mark not only in SA or Africa, but globally.
Your part in this work maybe done, but not forgotten. You, among many now gone, paved the way. We'll continue where you left off.
Rest easy, Madikizela!
23
Heroes are fictional constructs; real-life people are more complicated. If you want to learn more about South African history check out these two very intense books: 'Country of My Skull,' by Antjie Krog, narrating the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (where Winnie Mandela appeared); and 'Born a Crime,' the memoir by Trevor Noah. Worth reading!!
9
Winnie Madikzela-Mandela was a childhood heroine. Most Americans discovered the anti-apartheid struggle in the 80s but it had been going on for decades. My parents marched against apartheid in England when my mother was pregnant with me more than 50 years ago.
For millions of people, Winnie Mandela was the face of the anti-apartheid movement and Nelson Mandela's voice. The torture and harassment Winnie endured is unimaginable. She was told that it would stop if she would only shut up and be a good wife and mother. But she refused.
The price Winnie paid for being a African revolutionary WOMAN was heartbreaking. If her views became more extremist than her husband it was because she was on the front lines of the struggle, fighting daily. Winnie was surrounded by hangers-on, South African government spies and 'allies' who resented her. Many of the trumped-up charges against her were, the result of the South African government trying to drag her down by any means.
I will never forget the day Winnie and Nelson walked out, hand and hand, heads and fists held high. It was one of the happiest days of my life. It hurts to realize that when Nelson Mandela had to choose between becoming the leader of South Africa or standing by the woman who had stood by him for so long, he didn't choose Winnie, but the years apart had taken their toll.
I hope Nelson is there to greet Winnie, now that she is finally at peace, and to honour her courage and sacrifice. I always will.
47
I understand Nelson divorced Winnie and married someone else. I can't say I know how it works in Heaven, but the divorce suggests to me that he may not be there to greet her. Perhaps instead she will be greeted by those killed by the barbaric "necklacing" she advocated, or by the youngsters she was convicted of killing.
2
Maybe he was greeted by all of those who died for nothing so that he could give away the store to their oppressors, few of whom have apologized or made any attempts to undo the damage they did. He as naive and people are paying for it.
I would think that if a powerful oppressive state hounds an individual for 30 years (1964 - 1994), that person is bound cracker somehow. I'll even be blasphemous here in thinking that that cracking up process might be easier to resist if one is jailed and subjected to to a routine.
The moderates who engineered the present hodgepodge that South Africa is today are revered. But they didn't bring about a nascent enduring just society and former oppressors seem very satisfied with the result in which all their previous priveledges are intact. Winnie Mandela's alienation from the transition process to achieve the reconciliation to today's ineffective kumbaya-nation is something I think future historians will be not all positive about.
11
Mandela himself once said that being in prison made it easier for him, and the violent person she became might well be because she was on the front lines when he wasn’t.
3
I would have taken a much harder line at the peace table. The Brits and Boers, and their international backers had far more to lose than the average black South African did at that time. Nelson, Tutu and the ANC blinked when the so-called international community threatened to undermine them as the did independent Zimbabwe. I would have called their bluff, they would have had to hurt too many white people in order to carry out their threat. I hate to say it, but in the long run, Chinese and other non western investment is going to be the thing that finally break the grip of the west and its white settler colonies on the continent. The US and the EU cannot breakout of their racist and paternalistic sense of entitlement to the wealth of the African continent.
Winnie Mandela was spent years in prison and house arrest. She was tortured, her family was ripped apart, and she was banned from her home. The fact that she did not emerge from this experience a Ghandi like figure handing out flowers to her oppressor, no way diminishes her legacy as one of the 20th century great freedom fighters.
How many of us would have survived five years of imprisonment and torture. She did. War is ugly and people do ugly things in it.
Ms. Mandela did not inflict the darkness on her country, others did.
She is the equal to her husband in her determination to free her country.
Today I celebrate her life.
70
Condolences to the Family of Dr. Martin Luther King. The living are never prepared for the departure of one who features as part of the tapestry of one's life. A controversial figure by the reading of commentators, Mrs. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela showed courage, and it is the words of Brother Francis which come to mind 'Who Am I to Judge'.
4
In the late 1980s, Ms. Madikizela-Mandela allowed the outbuildings around her residence in Soweto to be used by the so-called Mandela United Football Club, a vigilante gang that claimed to be her bodyguard. It terrorized Soweto, inviting infamy and prosecution....
[ To my thinking, this was a tragedy, a measure of the betrayal of the philosophy of the African National Congress and of Nelson Mandela. ]
31
I can’t define her by what her husband did. While he is an important figure, she is, too. Her obit should stand on her own merits and contributions.
27
"Her obit should stand on her own merits and contributions." It seems difficult to tell whether her record of activism was genuine concern about racism and the plight of her people, or whether it was largely ego-driven paranoia. Nelson Mandela she was not.
14
She was a strong person who never succumbed. I respected her and still do
28
She did succumb to the corruption of power, and I don't think her suffering is an excuse for the suffering she brought to others. Her brutality must be acknowledged, as we acknowledge the iniquities of all leaders no matter how just the causes they championed.
16
A quote of Ms. Mandela, "I am a living symbol of the white man's fear...", speaks to the power of her presence. Rest in Peace.
42
Always interesting to see how vicious hatred of white people motivates so many of the sort of people who supported the anti-apartheid movement.
Those who claimed to support "democracy" didn't seem to have a problem with all the other far more oppressive dictatorships that existed across Africa, they simply couldn't tolerate the existence of a country led by white people who didn't hate themselves.
These supposed champions of colour blind "equality" and "human rights" won't lift a finger to help the white population (that voluntarily gave up power) as it is subjected to increasingly vicious state sanctioned persecution and likely eventual genocide (as has happened to so many other ethnic minority populations in Africa).
14
Always interesting to see denial in action. Was not apartheid the pathological and systematic implementation of a vicious hatred of black people? It's inaccurate to describe the former South Africa as "a country led by white people." Those people did not lead. They bludgeoned, murdered, and stole their way to tyranny.
8
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was a great woman of inspiration and courage who faced struggles and the threat of violence which very few can ever begin to understand. Most of us would be crushed by the fear, let alone her brave and fearless acts in the face of such oppression and hatred. She was the POEM of FREEDOM and she fought heart and soul. Her voice was strong. Her song was justice for her nation, her people. I know she had deep love for her nation and its people and for Nelson.
This picture was the union of that force and the union between them. Mandela was released one day after my birthday and I remember that I never had a greater birthday happiness that lasted so long or touched me to my soul. I just couldn't stop crying that day. Tears of joy.
I was a NYC woman who remembers when they both came to town. FREE. I followed them through the entire city each and every day.
When Mandela danced down the center of the chruch to beating drums I felt a feeling of love supreme that I've rarely felt before in life. I loved him. I loved her. I hope they are united as ONE now.
Hamba Kahle sister. Bless your fighting soul which is now in peace.
48
I too followed them around NYC that day in June 1991. And when I saw Mandela dance in Riverside Church to the African drums, I broke down in sobs. Winnie Mandela was deeply flawed, deeply enraged but rarely does one emerge intact after years of torture. I think something broke inside of her yet she couldn't give up or retire from the struggle. She could only resist in the ways that she did. Racism, hatred destroys all of us. RIP
8
The road to freedom is generally paved with, less, the triumphs of the oppressed and, more, the inequity and backwardness spawned in the depths of an oppressive system that continuously reasserts itself. As Faulkner observed, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
So it was with Napoleon in the wake of the French Revolution. The short-lived Reconstruction and rise of Jim Crow following the American Civil War and the assassination of Lincoln. Stalin's crimes authored in the isolation of the October 1917 Russian Revolution. And Mao following 1949.
Josip Broz Tito defeated Hitler and faced down Stalin but the dream of Yugoslavia came to tears immediately after Tito's passing. Jacob Zuma and Winnie Mandela were mere pikers by comparison.
Two steps forward. One step back. Always.
15
I can't imagine what her life was like. Or the life lived by anyone suffering under brutal oppression. And yet, when I read that she was convicted in the kidnapping of children, at least one of which, - a 14 year-old boy, was murdered, I have a hard time vaunting Winnie Mandela. I know, - desperate times/desperate measures, but this just seems beyond the pale... (and I object to the obit writer's use of the word "missteps" to refer to her crimes and corruption. Likewise, the authors phrase "her life had begun to unravel" seems to absolve this complicated woman of personal responsibility for her misdeeds. Very generous!)
38
Those convictions and allegations have no value in the corrupt ill system in which they came to be, especially in the context of that political and military struggle.
7
If murdering children can be justified, we have no moral ground to oppose oppression in the first place. And kidnap and murder children she did...people who were affiliated with anti-apartheid groups that were in contest with the ANC for leadership of the anti-apartheid movement.
2
Commenters seem to want to diminish the role she played in fraud and especially the role she played in the kidnapping and murder of young boys. I’m sad for her death but the facts say her record is decidedly mixed.
89
I do not give full faith and credit to the courts and system that convicted her. That would ignore and diminish the reality in which she existed, especially given that she served no time for those alleged crimes.
6
As was Mr. Mandela's, to a lesser degree. Leaving Wife #1 for a young Winnie didn't speak well for him.
1
Thomas Jefferson fathered kids with his enslaved female African property. The Louisiana Purchase was a constitutional fraud. Some of George Washington's slaves fled to freedom. The disparity between private and public Iives matter.
4
It's terrible how even after death those antagonistic to the black liberation struggle express their disdain and try to diminish her. She is the person most responsible for getting her husband out of prison and keeping international attention on his and his people's struggle for freedom. It is SHE who made him a "celebrity," and she was after vilified to diminish her influence.
53
Why did a world hero like Nelson Mandela divorce Winnie? His was the voice of reason and reconciliation - hers was the voice of violence and retribution which is always attractive to many in South Africa, even today.
52
Violence and retribution are not attractive in South Africa. Desperation, inhumanity long perpetrated by an authoritarian regime, brutality as a tool of a hostile, hate-riddled society dominated by minority whites -- such conditions made violence inevitable in the struggle against racist oppression in South Africa. Violence in South Africa was not a tool of the struggle as much as a result of deprivation, degradation and hate-fueled repression. These are lessons we in the U.S. need to learn.
2
Maybe they both changed too much over 28 years of separation? I visited South Africa during the death rattle of official apartheid. I returned two decades later, as a tourist and eventually spent three years there for work. It's a complex place, of great contrast and extremes that are hard to imagine.
I was most impressed with the resilience of South Africans to turn the page peacefully, and commit to the difficult task of rebuilding their broken nation. Who among us is without flaws? Who among us has had our flaws exposed so publicly? And who knows how any of us might behave had we been in Winnie's shoes? RIP Winnie. It must have been hard.
Surely one reason for the divorce was politics. He could not continue to lead with her disgrace covering him. He had to cast it off.
Regarding your choice to paint Nelson as good and Winnie as evil, you are being simplistic. History is always complex, more so in the contexts of colonialism and racism. There can be no surprise that "the voice of violence and retribution" was attractive to Winnie and continues to be attractive to so many around the world. Please remember the history of rampant lynching in the US. Those whites who actually implemented or passively allowed it were attracted to violence and retribution, most apparently only because they feared an idea: the idea that they were not racially superior.
20
Shosholoza! Things did go horribly wrong at times during the anti-apartheid fight. But we can't let that obscure the brutality and inhumanity at the core of the struggle. We're in a similar fight in the U.S., needing to acknowledge the deadly racism that exists on our streets, in our neighborhoods, and yes, sadly, in the hearts of so many. Then we must work together to overcome this scourge. In the spirit of all who have given so much to fight racism around the world, we must keep working...
38
"But we can't let that obscure the brutality and inhumanity"
Funny how those who obsessed over the "brutality" and inhumanity" of apartheid had little to say on the far more brutal and vicious dictatorships that ran most of Africa at the time.
Really of course it seems that it was just guilt and white self-hatred, hence the loudest voices attacking South Africa being the United States and Great Britain, two oppressive empires that had only dropped their own racial supremacist systems (segregation and empire) a decade before they began lecturing South Africa.
5
You're quite mistaken about the United States "dropping their racist supremacist systems" of racial segregation years ago. This country, albeit through the electoral college, just voted for a Racist, Fascist, Narcissist and Dictator-in-Chief named Donald Trump. His assault on liberty and freedom in our democracy is akin to apartheid in South Africa decades ago. Trump's proud association with Ku Klux Klan leaders represents his bigotry and racist agenda to "make America great again." Trump and de Klerk embody the twin towers of Jim Crow and apartheid. The only difference, is one American and the other is not.
4
I think there has been a lot said about oppression and brutal regimes on all continents. Here's a few others: the murderous Khmer Rouge, the dehumanizing slave-holders in the U.S., war crimes committed by Japanese troops, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, violent oppression in Zimbabwe, police attacks on unarmed black men in the United States. And on and on. The existence of many other states that resort to atrocities to stay in power doesn't justify the selfish, hate-inspired apartheid system that finally collapsed in 1990. Not fair to rail against violence in South Africa without acknowledging the chains of oppression so tightly clamped on those who had no choice but to fight for survival. The aftermath of the racist rule known as apartheid continues with a haunting legacy of economic inequity and empty promises endured by those long-deprived of decent living conditions. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela refused to succumb or surrender to oppression, yet still acknowledged things went horribly wrong. That was a huge admission worthy of respect, especially when the vast majority of blacks in South Africa remain mired in poverty while a small minority -- mostly whites -- control the country's land, resources and financial wealth.
2
Winnie Mamdikizela-Mandela (WMM) the second wife of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (NRM) (July 18, 1918 to December 5, 2013), the first nonwhite African president of South Africa remained married to him through his entire imprisonment by the white apartheid regime. WMM was a fiery leader of the ANC during the time Madiba (as Mandela was affectionately called) during his 25+ years in Robyn Island prison. Months after Mandela was released from prison, WMM controversies and allegations began to surface and the ANC convinced NRM to divorce WMM. Winnie remained a powerful political voice for poor down trodden masses, who did not bear the fruits of the end to apartheid. She was a courageous, bubbly woman and the most prominent historic woman of South Africa's struggle against apartheid, biological mother to two daughters from NRM and the symbolic mama Africa to many South Africans. She was until her death a lightning catalyst for hope during and after apartheid. South African press and media has one less person to kick around. May Winnie Mamdikizela-Mandela rest in peace. and may the new president Cyril Ramaphosa, lift the country out of the corruption, occasional xenophobia and the land grab of white farmers under the guise of land reform.
21
Winnie Mandela was as complicated as her beloved husband, Nelson was inspirational. This closing remark "it doesn’t take that much digging to remember the truly awful things she has been responsible for” tends to linger on the brain much deeper and longer than the positive and good works her husband was responsible for in his lifetime. With all due respect, I found her "unsettling contradictions" made her an odd duck, at the best of times.
20
Love your avatar, the great Secretariat.
I can only imagine the brutality that Winnie Mandela endured but she will be missed and her contribution will never be minimized.
Rest In Power!
27
She is so misunderstood and does not receive the credit she deserves. The documentary "Winnie" by Pascale Lamche does a much better job of explaining her contributions, her battles, the gender discrimination she encountered and includes interviews with Winnie herself.
36
That was a great documentary and helped me to see her in a much different light than the media portrayed her. Men love to denigrate women that powerful and strong. I guess it makes them feel better about dumping her once she wasn't useful to them anymore. Glad to see that a lot of people haven't been brainwashed by the negative stuff put out there about her.
2
Thank you for mentioning this; another way to experience her and her contributions.
1
Please don't judge Winnie unless you have walked in her shoes. Rest in peace, Mother of the Nation.
101
I was never a fan of Ms. Mandela, but I can't help but wholeheartedly agree with your extremely wise words Justice. Well said.
16
Some of us can hold a nuanced view of complicated situations and people. I can applaud her fight against apartheid and deplore her crimes at the same time. It does humankind no good to whitewash legacies.
88
I didn't ask for a whitewashing. I asked for empathy and compassion.
11
Winnie Mandela carried the flame of freedom in South Africa while Nelson Mandela was in prison. She was not a saint as we expect our heroes to be but she was a strong and intelligent women who led the struggle during its darkest hours and suffered terribly as a result. She will always be among the heroes of the struggle for freedom in South Africa.
Hamba Kahle sister.....
68
Winnie was a woman who was a Great She Elephant. Which is much better than a saint.
1
It is one of those articles written with fogged lenses. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s hallowed place in the liberation struggle is well secured and shall never be eroded by anything. She would always remain a global icon for justice and hero to the marginalised. She had her fair share of mistakes but to suggest her legacy can even be eroded shows highest level of naivety.
56
I do not see how anyone in the West, who is not an avowed pacifist, can criticize any violent actions she authorized. Those is power did not give up because of the goodness of their hearts. I will always remember Winnie Mandela as an incredibly dignified and beautiful woman who was unbowed by pressure that would crush the average person.
81
Amen!
America's Founders did not march, pray and sing for their freedom. Lincoln did host a farewell banquet for the Confederacy.
3
Winnie suffered in ways that most of us cannot imagine and the brutality of her oppressors shaped her, for better and for worse. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be separated from her husband at the young age of 28 for the next 27 years, raising two children while banned from working. She deserves praise for the things she did right even while we acknowledge where she went wrong. My condolences to her daughters and grandchildren.
160
Where 'she went wrong'?
Unlike America's Founding Fathers Winnie did not resort to violence, owned no slaves and did not steal from Natives while white rich and male.
3
Where Winnie "went wrong" was committing murder. Oh well...
2
I think that she must be credited with playing a major role in getting the white South Africans to abandon apartheid, regardless of how she it. Perhaps, if she were a man in South Africa she would have been given her rightful due.
120
Seriously? I would stand your comment on its head: Would anyone be praising a corrupt, scandal-plagued man who murdered teenagers by burning them to death? There is indeed a double-standard here, but I don't think she is on the losing end of it.
4
Truly awful things were hers to bear as well. I did not know until reading this article that Minnie Mandela had been imprisoned and in solitary confinement for such a long time. As she would write, this changed her. She resisted and reacted and this pattern caused her great grief. I salute her for her contributions to changing to some degree the South African nation. I cannot castigate her for not being an Eleanor Roosevelt, or the more dignified woman Nelson later married. The struggles continue in African, the US, and elsewhere for real equality and fairness for all.
69
Long Live Winnie Mandela!!!! Winnie Mandela, a mother of Africa, has passed away. I remember her raising Nelson’s hand up in the air – victory – after he was released from prison by the white apartheid government. It was then Mandela became my prototypical example of black female strength and endearing loyalty. Winnie Mandela’s exhausting courage spoke clearly and truthfully on the plight of Black South Africans. She dearly will be missed.
55
I found this column confusing. On one hand, it seemed to want to diminish her life as just an orbiting personality of Mandela, a world-wide hero. On the other hand, she appeared to be a violet person who used her husband's influence. I guess that it what all of our obituaries will reveal, we are both good and bad.
29
The honest obituaries, yes. She was a terrible person who murdered political opponents. She was a leader who kept the fires of the anti-apartheid struggle alive when the regime imprisoned her husband and slaughtered other activists. She was both of those people...everyone deserves to be remembered for who they are, not just in some way that serves the needs of the living for a hero or a villain. If there is a God, let him sort out the balance of Justice.
4