She is described as the Mother of the Nation. Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.  One of the heroines I feel should be celebrated everyday in appreciation of the freedom we are currently enjoying.She has shown outstanding courage and bravery in the face of adversity. Having to live most of her life as a young woman being subjected to harassment, imprisonment and torture at the hands of the apartheid security police. It all started in 1969 when she participated in a women’s anti-pass campaign and was detained for that.  Years later, being detained was part of the air she used to breath. She would be banned and restricted from towns and areas around South Africa, leaving the country was not even an option, arrested for charges starting from failing to give her name and address to the security police, communicating with a banned person in her house, having visitors at her house, having lunch with her children in a vehicle in the presence of a banned person, taking part in the June 16 Soweto uprising in 1976 where more than 500 young people died.

Her worst jail experience was in 1969 when the security police stormed and detained her in the presence of her two young girls, then aged nine and ten, holding on to her begging “mommy please don’t go”. She was held in solitary confinement for a total of 491 days. In most of her interviews, whenever she begins to speak about the solitary confinement experience, her eyes get flooded with tears, and her voice literally begins to tremble, and she literally re-lives  the experience.

The experience is also in her book “491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69 – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela”. In one of her interviews she said “in solitary confinement you are imprisoned in this little cell. When you stretch your hands you touch the walls. You are reduced to a nobody, a non-value. It is like killing you alive. You are alive because you breathe. You are deprived of everything – your dignity, your everything!! She explains that a solitary confinement was designed to kill you so slowly that you are long dead before you actually physically die. By the time you died, you were nobody. You had no soul anymore and a body without a soul is a corpse anyway. It is unbelievable that I survived this”.  And she also said “Throughout the years of oppression, I think my feelings got blunted because you were so tortured that the pain reached a threshold where you could not feel pain anymore. If you keep pounding and pounding on the same spot the feeling dies, the nerves die”.

After she got out of prison she was banished to Brandfort for 9 years, but still managed to open a clinic and a crèche, and also initiated feeding schemes for young children. She still managed give love and remain strong and resilient, regardless of the painful experiences that could have killed her.

This is why I think every woman has a dash of a Winnie Mandela in them.

1. Courageous and fearless woman

She was afraid and fearful when faced with difficulties but she also had many other feelings, like bravery, courage, confidence, joy, anticipation, and excitement that one day she will be free. So when you are faced with challenges remember that you might just need 20 seconds of insane courage, like literally 20 seconds of embarrassing bravery. Winnie was faced with just too much and she was able to go through and grow from it. This implies that you and I can do anything we want to do regardless of what challenges we are faced with.

2. She stood up for what she believed in

The other ANC members were against her ways of retaliating against the apartheid system, which was violence for violence. I completely understand why she had to take drastic and vicious decisions in her defence, I mean the system was cruel too. So hey big up to her for standing her ground and choosing her way of fighting against those who oppressed her. It is brave to actually listen to the other person and then have the self-confidence to change your point of view and accept someone else’s, or meet the other person halfway, without feeling like you’re betraying yourself. Sometimes women really struggle with self-confidence, so when you feel like that, remember that you are unique. No one can give what you can give. If you feel passionate about something, stand up and do it, do it with everything that you’ve got in you.

3. She refused to be defined by who her husband was.

She was known as Mandela’s wife. But somehow managed to change that perspective because she wanted to be known and remembered as Winnie Mandela. The best thing you can ever do is learn from your partner, but don’t compromise yourself, do you, do what makes you happy. Be remembered for coming up with great ideas and actually bringing life to it. Don’t be known as whoever’s whatever.

4. Her challenges and pain made her the strong woman we see today

In her book she wrote “As long as I live I shall never forget the nightmares I have suffered as a result of the daily prisoners’ piercing screams as the brutal corporal punishment is inflicted on them and other prison mates. As the cane lashes at them, sometimes a hose pipe, you feel it tearing at your own flesh mercilessly. It’s hard to imagine women inflicting so much punishment. I have shed tears at times and often forget to even wipe them off. These hysterical screams pierce through my heart and injure my dignity so much”. Winnie is known as one of the strongest and most resilient woman of all times. Pain makes you strong, but you just have to WOMAN up from it, and grow stronger from it.

The picture I am trying to paint here is if one woman can go through what Mama Winnie went through, and yet she is still alive today, who are we to not be strong on our own, who are we not to embrace our struggles, who are we not to stand our ground. Never compare yourself to others, be confident in your own space. Be the best version of you, like own who you are and work on you. And if you ever feel afraid or not brave enough, act as if you are brave, you will eventually be brave.

Article By Pamela Kunene

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