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It all started the year I turned six. My mother and I lived in a modest apartment in Sunnyside, Pretoria. I remember how she came to me from where I sat in the tiny space we’d dedicated to make a sitting room, with a reserved look on her face. I must’ve been watching Lion King 2, or Stuart Little or another one of my many childhood favourite films.
My mother told me, “there is something I’d like for us to watch together, but it’s very scary and very sad.” I truly didn’t care that it was scary or sad. I was but a little girl, filled with curiosity for the ways in which the world worked and plus, I’d have never passed up an opportunity to snuggle up to my mother and wile the hours away with films – our favourite weekend pastime.
My mother was right in what she’d said to me because I remember bawling my eyes out sometime into the movie, screaming bloody murder because I felt as though the world had come to an end. I was so horrified and so deeply saddened by what I’d seen, not because it was a gory horror movie or an explicit film that I had no business watching, but because in that movie, people who looked like my mother and I were being beaten and hurt by people who looked like my nursery school teacher with her yellow, fluffy hair and pasty skin.
I asked my mother if all of that had been real and told me that yes, all the things that had taken place in that film had taken place in real life a long time ago. I asked her why. My mother didn’t answer me. That was the first time I was exposed to the idea of Apartheid.
Two years later, I remember coming home and telling my mother about Tata Madiba who I’d learned about in school that very day. My mother smiled at my childlike excitement about the man who’d invented the rainbow nation, the hero and saviour of us all, the one who made it possible for me to attend my former model C school and to share a class with White, Indian and Coloured children. My mother then said to me, “Yes, Mandela did all of that but I also want you to know that Mandela’s wife is Winnie and Winnie helped us too.”
For the next few years I never forgot that very special fact that my mother had told me. My mother was the smartest lady I knew because she knew everything. This was especially solidified because every Human Rights, Freedom, Youth, Nelson Mandela and Heritage Day; we spoke of Tata Madiba, Peace, Ubuntu, Rainbow Nation and Freedom at school. In my heart I’d always add, And Winnie Mandela Who Helped Us Too because my mother was smarter than my teachers, textbooks and all the people on the news because she was the only one to know that.
It was only when Nelson Mandela passed away the year I turned fourteen that I saw your face for the first time, Mama. You were on TV talking about Nelson’s death and I couldn’t quite remember what you said but I remember they showed pictures of you and him and it was then that my mother said, “Winnie Mandela is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
And so the cycle continued. Nelson Mandela. Ubuntu. Peace. Rainbow Nation. Freedom. Winnie Who Helped Us Too. Winnie Who Is The Most Beautiful.
Then in 2016, the year I turned 17, everything that I’d ever known to be true proved false. Amongst these shattered illusions lay the values of the Rainbow Nation and Ubuntu but when I looked about to the world around me, I could not see it. It was then that I was introduced to Feminism and then went on one of the most difficult journeys I’ve taken so far.
Mama, the process of learning and unlearning was so hard. I went searching for answers and came back only with questions. I can admit that I’m not the smartest feminist, nor am I the bravest, nor am I most well informed, even though I’d tirelessly spent hours upon hours researching, asking, reflecting and absorbing all that I could, I found that I was still doubtful of my ability to remember all the isms and phobias. In fact, for a long time, I had difficulty understanding what all the key concepts of emancipation for marginalised groups were.
This filled me with much shame, Mama because I wondered if I’d truly come to understand everything that needed to be understood. I always had nightmares of being given an important platform to talk about LGBT rights, or racism or colourism or the patriarchy and floundering once I got up there, saying something so disgustingly incorrect that I’d be labelled as an embarrassment to all feminists. But I persevered and persisted until it all began to make sense, until I was no longer filled with a cold dread at the thought of someone asking me to explain Why This Particular Statement Is Offensive or What The True Purpose Of Feminism Is.
And then I started with university this year and like the past two years I sought and found, learned, re-learned and unlearned. And then the first recess came around and I got diagnosed with my first case of tonsillitis. I missed a family trip to Cape Town because of it. I remember wanting to call my mother and tell her all about it, or in the true spirit of Mommy’s Girl, sulk about it. I may be an almost-19 year-old, but I’d never pass up an opportunity to be a child in front of my mother, (who is in all honesty, the only person I allow myself to be wholly vulnerable in front of.)
My mother did not answer any of my calls that day.
I learned then from my grandmother, whom my mother lives with back in Limpopo, that she was ill again. I was numb. I’d thought that Mother’s illness was something we’d dealt with years ago and it was no longer a problem, but here it was, that nasty, nasty thing, staring me in the face and once again, I was helpless.
On the day the online news sites headlined “Winnie Mandela Dies At Age 81." I was resting in bed as was instructed to me by my GP for the tonsillitis. It seemed so sudden and surreal that I couldn't process it, it had to be a joke. Then social media came alive with an out pour of condolences and people were texting me about it and even still, none of it felt real.
This is the part of the post where I will say that this was the point in my life where I could finally grasp what it all meant, after years of trying to understand. The discussion centered on you began and the release of Winnie the documentary was set to air soon. Mama, there are words to describe the numbing realisation and the helpless anger that overwhelmed me when I came to know at the full extent that they tried to destroy you, Mama. Up until this point I'd asked myself "Why doesn't anyone ever talk about Winnie Mandela, where is she? Where is she?" and it was finally answered. You were a force so strong that they not only had to break you, they had to annihilate you, tarnish your memory so that when the time of your death came, the public would celebrate and dance upon your ashes.
And then one day, amidst hours and hours of discourse on social media about your contribution to The Struggle, with a playlist of all the songs that reminded me of my mother and our happy times (Oliver Mtukudzi’s “Neria” and Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry” was definitely there) it suddenly struck me that you were gone.
Mama, it was like a heavy, oppressive blankness fell over me and settled inside of me. It was like I was watching the world through a fish tank, everything was washed over in water, blurry and incoherent and I realised then that I was drowning.
And then I was burning.
And then I was crying.
And then I was lost.
Nothing made sense anymore Mama, nothing.
I wanted to lie down for a minute and just forget the world existed (I still feel like that sometimes.)
Online, we all cried for you Mama, all the womxn that are fighting the patriarchy, the ones who inspire me to be bold and brave in myself, we all felt your loss so deeply. Many took leave days from work, others said they could not get out of bed and others could not even turn to the embrace of their lovers. It was with them that I felt that I was a tiny bit understood because we all felt the same deep, dark grief -- we didn't need to explain and justify ourselves, we felt and therefore, we expressed.
It felt as though I’d lost something so vital to my existence when you passed away Mama. Sometimes, I’d be going about my business and then I’d be hit with the sudden realisation (and it always feels like a punch to the gut – sudden, painful, knocking the wind from my sails) that you were no longer alive.
I can’t quite explain it to anyone, nor would I want to anyway, but when you passed away, it felt like something in me shriveled up, withered and laid down with you in your resting place. I've never a known a loss so morose and unkind. Months have passed and sometimes, I still feel that jab in my gut and I still cry warm, tentative tears of disbelief, Mama. These tears have convinced themselves that if they trail down my face with hesitance, then they'll be reassured by someone else that it didn't really happen and that you're somewhere alive and happy and still with us.
This letter is part finally-airing-all-of-the-sorrows-I’ve-repressed and part Promise. It’s mostly Promise, though.
Mama, I promise that I will never let your name die from my lips, that as long as I live, I will shout your name like a gospel and I know that your bravery and strength will comfort someone like it did for so many of us, your daughters.
In you, we found someone who understands our plight, someone who will open up her arms and tell us that there were times when she too, was afraid and unsure and that it is alright to not always have the answers but it's imperative to keep moving forward anyway.
I especially promise that I will tell my daughters about you. I will pass on the torch – Mother told me Something about you and now, I will tell my daughters Everything about you. I promise that I will not only tell my daughters that you 'helped in the struggle too’ but rather, I will tell them that you were the Lighthouse Of The Struggle, that without you, The Struggle would’ve been snuffed out like a weak candle and our atrocious suffering may have escalated to a darkness deeper than the most isolated caves, a place worse than hell. I will not patronise them with Peace and Ubuntu, I will instead strengthen them with Power, Knowledge and Bravery. I will tell them that as Black Womxn there will be so many obstacles stacked against them and although it is unfair, they will find comfort in your courage.
We will celebrate Winnie Madikizela Day every year, with raised fists and songs about empowerment.
