My respect for the spousal role Winnie Mandela played in South Africa’s “long walk to freedom” has always been undermined by my contempt for the political role she played, which too often had her behaving more like the matriarch of a crime family than the long-suffering mother of an oppressed people.
But even I was shocked and appalled in 2010, when she publicly damned Nelson Mandela as a money-grubbing sellout who had let all Black South Africans down.
Here is an excerpt from “Nelson Mandela Is a Traitor and an Albatross,” March 9, 2010, in which I put her unforgivable betrayal into context:
Truth be told, there was always a disconnect between Winnie Mandela’s behavior and the Joan-of-Arc vestments she wore during the last throes of Apartheid rule in South Africa. More to the point, her behavior always gave the impression that those vestments were covering up character traits that were more Ma Barker than Indira Gandhi.
But anti-Apartheid supporters in the West overlooked her intemperate, boorish, and even murderous ways because we considered her a rebel with a cause…
In any event, I suspect most of us were finally disabused of all hope that she would ever reconcile her behavior with those vestments, when it became clear that neither marriage to a freed Nelson Mandela nor the Black rule for which she struggled so heroically was enough to satiate her promiscuous political ambition.
Therefore, it was clearly just a matter of time before spiteful bile came pouring out of this woman scorned – presumably not only by Nelson (who divorced her in 1996), but also by the new Black leadership (which has refused to honor her as the ‘mother of the nation’ in ways she no doubt expected).
Well, here comes the bile. It flows from an interview conducted by Nadira Naipaul (wife of internationally acclaimed Trinidadian writer V.S. Naipaul), excerpts of which were published yesterday in the London newspaper The Evening Standard.
Here are just some of the things Winnie is now saying about Mandela – a man who, by all accounts, wore the vestments of a political saint and savior as well as any mortal ever could:
‘This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family. You all must realise that Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others, hundreds who languished in prison and died.
‘Mandela let us down… I cannot forgive him for going to receive the Nobel with his jailer de Klerk. Hand in hand they went.
‘Mandela is now like a corporate foundation. He is wheeled out globally to collect the money.’
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This is why I was so stupefied that I seemed to be the only one who bristled with contempt when Winnie began making quite a show of behaving as if she, not Graca Machel, were Mandela’s legitimate wife during his dying days. I duly registered my contempt in “Who the Hell Does Winnie Mandela Think She Is,” July 3, 2013.
Still, notwithstanding all that, even I never thought Winnie would stoop this low:
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has claimed in papers filed in the High Court in Mthatha that her divorce from former president Nelson Mandela was fraudulently obtained…
In her application, Madikizela-Mandela challenged Mandela’s estate, seeking the rights to his home in Qunu, Eastern Cape.
(Africa’s Mail & Guardian, October 15, 2014)
Of course, this might explain why she seemed so hell-bent on usurping Graca’s spousal rights and privileges. For Winnie evokes such cynicism, I can believe that – having good reason to suspect that Mandela had excluded her from his Will – she thought acting like his only legitimate wife would be the best way to get, what she clearly thinks is, her rightful share of his $4 million estate. Claiming now that she and Mandela were never legally divorced is just the coup de grâce.
Nelson Mandela left money in his will to children and grandchildren, staff and the African National Congress (ANC) but gave nothing to his ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, it emerged on Monday…
Lawyers said [Graca] Machel is likely to waive her right by marriage to half the Mandela estate, opting instead to receive four properties in Mozambique and other assets including cars and jewellery.
(London Guardian, February 3, 2014)
Frankly, I’m loath to dignify – with any further comment – Winnie’s latest attempt to defile Mandela’s good name. But it’s worth noting that the juxtaposition between Winnie grasping for the right to inherit from his estate, and Graca waiving that right, provides yet more insight into why Mandela divorced Winnie and married Graca.
But I fear Mandela will be rolling over in his grave for many years to come. After all, I’ve had cause on too many occasions in recent years to lament – in such commentaries as “Is Nothing Sacred?! ‘Being Mandela’ – the Reality TV Show?! March 18, 2013 – the way his children and grandchildren were shamefully exploiting and dishonoring his name. Not to mention the courtroom drama that unfolded when several family members took his eldest grandson to court over grave sites, which prompted my gallows observation (in “Who the Hell Does Winnie Mandela Think She Is” referenced above) that:
He who controls the Mandela graveyard controls the tourist dollars they all expect will come from pilgrimages to it.
The point is that this all happened when Mandela was still alive. Therefore, I shudder to think what other family members might do to get, what they think is, their rightful share of his estate; notwithstanding the specific provisions Mandela made for all of them in his Will.
So much for resting in peace….
Related commentaries:
Mandela is a traitor…
Who the hell…
Is nothing sacred…