Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Research Articles

The Epistemic Codification of Satiric Indictment and the Decrying Gender Grotesque in Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s 491 Days and the Zimbabwean Maverick Movie Neria

Language, law, and literatures have at times discernibly and theatrically attempted the development of satire in academic discourses. They have raised a poignant question on the articulation of gender in society. Critical discourses have valorised the epistemic exegesis on how language is transfigured and re-interpreted to spur the dramaturgy and trajectory of gender through autobiography, biography, fiction, and movies. This article crystallises the societal perception of how satire has been used to ridicule and make distinctions by invoking scorn and pity on both men and women in society. The article probes the sensitivity of contemporary male obsessions with phallic power under an apartheid government. It dovetails through the existing epistemic configurations exhibited to recuperate women in revoking the phallocentric codifications in Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s epoch-making autobiography, 491 Days (1969). With the symbolic, ironic, iconic, and satiric prison number of “1322/69,” Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s anti-apartheid autobiography re-invokes the male imperative devices built up for years against vulnerable Black females and weak Black males in the apartheid South African regime. Similarly, the same epistemic vein and codification are obsessively projected by possessed and aggressive phallic patriarchs in the Zimbabwean film Neria (1992). The article relies on the theory of Nawal El Saadawi, which proposes confrontation on the questions of female polarisation, women’s objectification, and the quest for resistance against legally recognised social exegesis. This includes the application of coercive force and the rejection of satiric linguistic indictments against women and the weak as exemplified in the autobiographic and filmic works from South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Jung’s Recalcitrant Fourth

Abstract This paper enlists Jung’s notion of recalcitrant fourth to argue that, contrary to what some Jungian scholars contend, the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is not illustrative of the transformative process that Jung’s concept of transcendent function aims to illuminate. The TRC created a moral split between redeemed victim and resentful victim, discrediting and marginalising those who refused to reconcile: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was among them. Where antagonism is not allowed expression, no potential regeneration can take place. The recalcitrant fourth is a disruptor of harmony, and as such feared by the dominant ego position. Nevertheless, Jung cautions not to banish the fourth, as it affords consciousness with a crucial access to the crude realities of existence. Despite her questionable character, Madikizela-Mandela’s resentment should have been taken seriously, as it pointed towards the deeply ingrained social and economic inequalities that still today are cause of resentment among many disillusioned Born Frees.

Integrated development plans as catalyst to enhance small scale farming in municipalities: the case of Winnie Madikizela Mandela local municipality

Integrated development plans as catalyst to enhance small scale farming in municipalities: the case of Winnie Madikizela Mandela local municipality

Examining the COVID-19 Coping Strategies Employed by Residents in selected South Africa’s rural areas

Rural communities are vulnerable to shocks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The resilience of these communities depends on their ability to cope with the impacts of such shocks. This study examines the COVID-19 coping strategies of residents of Matatiele and Winnie Madikizela Mandela local municipalities in South Africa. We collected primary data through 11 FGDs and 13 individual interviews. Of the six coping strategies identified, the most cited was resorting to alternative food sources to address food insecurity. Other coping strategies include alternative sources of income; reducing remittance and expenditure; shifting to new activities; and introducing emotional support. The findings reveal that coping strategies entail changes around basic needs such as food and income. To protect these communities against future shocks, strong local institutions working in collaboration will be invaluable in empowering communities to identify and implement alternative livelihoods while building supportive infrastructure.

Gap in Service Delivery in the Winnie Madikizela Mandela Local Municipality: Prospects and Challenges

Gap in Service Delivery in the Winnie Madikizela Mandela Local Municipality: Prospects and Challenges

Endleleni: Political activism of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as pastoral caregiving

Endleleni: Political activism of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as pastoral caregiving

The Problem of Community Participation in the Comprehensive Development Plan of Winnie Madikizela Mandela: Exploration and Practice

The Problem of Community Participation in the Comprehensive Development Plan of Winnie Madikizela Mandela: Exploration and Practice

Women Surviving Apartheid's Prisons by Shanthini Naidoo

Reviewed by: Women Surviving Apartheid's Prisons by Shanthini Naidoo Yoly Zentella Naidoo, Shanthini. Women Surviving Apartheid's Prisons. Washington, DC: Just World Books, 2021. Women Surviving Apartheid's Prisons honors the women who survived imprisonment during the movement to end South African apartheid. It recognizes women as dedicated freedom fighters playing key roles of leadership in the struggle, and a documentation of herstories from which, in much of the literature, save for narratives on legendary figures like Winnie Madikizela Mandela and Miriam Makeba, women are absent. It also sheds light on prisons as a space for political struggle. [End Page 220] Naidoo's style of writing, easy flowing but penetrating, makes the book suitable for the average reader. It is an invaluable teaching tool at the university level among the disciplines of history, ethnic studies, South African studies, women's studies, and mental health. Readers interested in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the aftermath of apartheid will also find this book an excellent companion to Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela's A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid (2003) and Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa (1998). It is also suitable reading for high school classes on social justice and anti-apartheid activists. The author, Shanthini Naidoo experienced the tail end of apartheid as a youth. Later, while studying for a master's degree in journalism, her reporting on the of death and funeral of Winnie Mandela in 2018 motivated her to seek out the six women incarcerated with Mandela, defendants in the less-well-known Trial of Twenty-Two in 1969. Her first book, Women in Solidarity: Inside the Female Resistance to Apartheid (2020), which was published in South Africa, was the product of subsequent conversations with the four remaining survivors. That book was subsequently published in the United States, which is the title under review. Women Surviving Apartheid's Prisons is an emotionally difficult journey for the reader, yet the underlying theme of the universal desire for freedom and human rights made possible by activists makes this a necessary read. The book's twelve chapters pivot around chapter 3, "The Trial." In 1969 South Africa's government arrested twenty-two activists—fifteen men and seven women—and accused them of terrorism, and twenty-one charges were levied under the Suppression of Communism Act. The arrests appeared orchestrated to break the anti-apartheid movement and the African National Congress (ANC). Despite brutal torture, solitary confinement, and threats of violence toward their families, the seven women refused to testify against their comrades and the prosecution crumbled. The twenty-two were released in the fall of 1970. While covering the death of Winnie Mandela, Naidoo sought to learn more about the women who survived imprisonment. Chapters 4–7 focus on the four survivors: journalist Joyce Sikhakhane-Rankin, trade unionists Shanthie Naidoo and Rita Ndzanga, and activist Nondwe Mankahla. Deeply troubling is the brutality that emerges from the interviews, the survivors' unresolved trauma resurfacing as raw, open wounds passed on to younger generations, and reflected [End Page 221] in South African society today. Intricately connected to these sections is chapter 12, addressing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Of focus is the lack of specificity in documenting gender-based violence against women, instead characterizing such brutality as "serious ill treatment" (175). This flaw is critical, as violence against Black women under apartheid continues in other forms and contexts in postapartheid South Africa, described as parallel to entanglement in the cycle of poverty, lack of resources, economic instability, and unhealed trauma. An open-air prison. The book's strengths are in the author's interaction with the reader, sharing her thoughts and emotional responses as a journalist during the time of Winnie's death, and in her desire to explore unspoken events surrounding the imprisoned women, Winnie's comrades. Naidoo's approach to the survivor's experiences and the impact of the barbarity of apartheid, during and after, makes for an informed, compassionate journalism that can be extended to other populations presently under siege. Journalism can expose injustice, acknowledge its occurrence, and motivate...

A Turbulent Path: Constructing Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in Hegemonic Documentary Film

ABSTRACT The death of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was accompanied by startling revelations concerning the strategies employed by the apartheid state in the (un)making of her political image. This commentary considers how documentary representation of Madikizela-Mandela derailed her political ambitions in the context of the new post-apartheid hegemony, and confused the manner in which her responses to apartheid-era trauma were represented in collective memory. In the documentaries under discussion, Madikizela-Mandela is portrayed in contradictory poses: as a powerful, internationally renowned female leader and as a deranged tyrant. Arguably, such representations capture aspects of South Africa’s “difficult past” which the ANC-led government sought to manage. Given this context, this essay explores the ways in which representations of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela be viewed as a site for remembering and forgetting. And how are her individual acts of memorialising apartheid’s trauma to be received.

The Burden of Representation in the Life Stories of Wambui Waiyaki Otieno and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Wambui Waiyaki Otieno are both iconic, yet controversial, women who made important contributions to nationalist and feminist thought in South Africa and Kenya, respectively. Their lives constantly pushed the boundaries of socially sanctioned gendered behavior relating to motherhood, widowhood, and iconicity. In this essay, the author examines the implications of the two women’s responses to their status as mothers and widows from their positions as public figures invested with symbolic meanings in their communities. The author also explores how the textualization of women’s lives and experiences as symbols often comes with containment within the dictates of gendered sociopolitical and moral economies.

Winnie Mandela: Homophobia and Dystopia in One of Achmat Dangor’s Forgotten Short Stories

This article focuses on a transition-era short story by Achmat Dangor, “Mama & Kid Freedom” (1995, Index on Censorship 24 [3]: 108–13), which has thus far been wholly overlooked by literary scholars. The story depicts a political dystopia that is characterised by assassinations, arbitrary violence, and the mass incarceration of those deemed to be homosexual. There are also clear overlaps between the eponymous character Mama and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. The story reproduces the binary tropes that surround Madikizela-Mandela and her then estranged husband, Nelson Mandela: whereas he is cast as the hero of the narrative of nation-building, she is cast as its villain. In this article, I argue that Dangor weaves a story that pulls together two particularly salient transition-era political discourses: Madikizela-Mandela as a homophobic and violent woman, and sexual rights as a bellwether of the country’s project of democratic modernity. The story evidences a homonationalist logic in which the recognition or non-recognition of sexual rights comes to be read as the axis on which post- apartheid democracy and human rights depend.

A Note on Mandela v Executors, Estate Nelson Mandela 2018 (4) SA 86 (SCA) and the Conundrum around the Customary Marriage between Nelson and Winnie Mandela

The note is about the appeal lodged by the late Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to the SCA against the decision of the Eastern Cape High Court, Mthatha, dismissing her application for review in 2014. In that application, she sought to have reviewed the decision of the Minister of Land Affairs, to transfer the now extended and renovated Qunu property to Mr Mandela and to register it in his name. Because her application was out of time, she also applied for condonation of her delay in making the application. The court a quo dismissed both applications with costs, holding that there had been an undue delay on her part. Mrs Mandela then approached the Supreme Court of Appeal, for special leave to appeal the decision of the court a quo. Two questions fell for decision by the SCA: whether there was an unreasonable and undue delay on Mrs Mandela’s part in instituting review proceedings; and whether the order for costs was appropriate in the circumstances of the case. The SCA held that there was indeed an unreasonable delay (of seventeen years). Shongwe AP (with Swain, Mathopo JJA, Mokgothloa and Rodgers AJJA concurring) held that the fact that there had been an undue delay does not necessarily mean that an order for costs should, of necessity, particularly where, as in this case, the other litigant is the state. It is the writer’s view that two other ancillary points needed to be raised by counsel and pronounced on by the Court: (a) the lawfulness and regularity of the transfer of the Qunu property to Mr Mandela; and (b) Mrs Mandela’s status as a customary-law widow—in relation to Mr Mandela.

Social work as protest: conversations with selected first black social work women in South Africa

Radical and critical social work has existed since the start of the profession. Still, the history of social work education in South Africa does not put prominence on black women social workers like Ellen Kuzwayo and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, among others. Remarkably, these women also participated in the national women’s protest against the pass laws in 1956 by the apartheid government. The authors espouse radical perspectives, such as feminist, human rights and social justice frameworks, embedded in an Afro-sensed approach. Expressly, the authors argue that, in its very nature, social work is protest, which can be used to restore ravaged history, as well as to influence the teaching and practice of social work.

Hold onto critical jurisprudence

ABSTRACT The main aim of this article is to reflect tentatively on the importance of a continuing critical jurisprudence. By thinking about the lives and legacies of the late Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and his second wife, Winnie Madikizela Mandela, I want to reconsider a specific kind of critical jurisprudence, with particular attention to the issue of constitutionalism. I argue for a critical jurisprudence that responds to the many complexities that South African society faces , with nuance - not broad strokes and generalizations ; with care, neither aggressive nor defensive; and with thought, not strategic or calculated. I am of the view that this third position also has an important, albeit minor, place in legal scholarship and legal education and most pertinently in the LLB curriculum. Keywords: Critical Jurisprudence; Constitution As Living Document; LLB Curriculum; Arendt; Derrida; Nelson Mandela; Winnie Mandela

Not Just Nelson’s Wife: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Violence and Radicalism in South Africa

The late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was a political figure who excited strong views; these continue in the immediate aftermath of her death. Most analyses of her utilise the binary trope of good/bad mother and wife, and seek either to excoriate or to sanctify her. In this article, I re-examine the key incidents in her ‘fall’ from political grace, when the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC) embarked on a series of violent actions in the mid 1980s. Using a feminist lens, the article argues that Madikizela-Mandela deployed gender as a political resource, but that she went beyond the boundaries set for women in South African liberation politics to become a populist leader in her own right. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela exemplified the radical rejection of political negotiations in South Africa and supported an accelerated and, if necessary, violent confrontation with the apartheid government. The article revisits the 1997 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearing into the activities of the MUFC, exploring Madikizela-Mandela’s testimony as a performance of the refusal of the terms of the democratic transition. Rather than accepting the contingent, messy and sometime compromised arrangements that accompanied the end of apartheid, Madikizela-Mandela articulated a set of radical positions that were in tension with the position of the African National Congress (ANC), a movement of which she was a leading member. Against the dominant position that a political compromise was necessary, she held on to the fundamental argument that only a thoroughgoing overturning of apartheid (not just legal forms but economic and social dimensions) would be acceptable, and that, if necessary, this should be achieved by violence. This radical position remains attractive to important sections of the left, but leaves key questions of politics – in particular the place of revolutionary violence, and the terms on which friends and enemies are identified, unanswered.

Psychological sequelae of political imprisonment, specifically post-traumatic stress disorder, in 491 Days by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

This article analyses well-known anti-apartheid activist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s prison memoir 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69 (2013) for depictions of suffering. This memoir reveals aspects of politically inflicted trauma, particularly the suffering sustained in prolonged solitary confinement and the resulting psychological sequelae for the prisoner. To move beyond a vague understanding of her traumatic experiences, this article draws on the field of psychiatry, specifically the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to gain greater insight as this tool may also be regarded as a type of narrative that could aid in the comprehension of traumatic events. References will be made to the three main cluster symptoms of PTSD: involuntary re-experiencing of the traumatic event, avoidance of reminders and an ongoing sense of threat. An interdisciplinary literary-psychological approach will probably lead to a deeper understanding of the mental consequences of political imprisonment, as PTSD was not an acknowledged disorder during Madikizela-Mandela’s detainment.

Breaking boundaries, defying borders: transnational networks of gender and race in South Africa and the United States

This special issue examines transnational connections and collaborations among women and People of Color from South Africa and the United States, from the late nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first century: it considers how connections were fostered and how ideologies travelled. Key figures include Emily Hobhouse, Charlotte Maxeke, Cecilia Lilian Tshabalala, Maude White Katz, Madie Hall-Xuma, Elizabeth Mafeking, Miriam Makeba, Gloria Steinem, and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Actively and symbolically, each of these non-state actors approached the relationship between the two nations differently, through political and religious affiliations, and as individuals and through organizations. Many challenged and transcended the restrictions imposed upon them officially, through state-sanctioned segregation and apartheid, but also socially, on account of their gender. These women fostered intellectual and social connections with each other, as well as for their nations, through interpersonal relationships and in print, but also simply – and perhaps most problematically – through abstracted ideas about humanitarianism, motherhood, apartheid, and nation. Such travels and intellectual journeys could prove both mutually beneficial and hierarchically imbalanced, but nonetheless reiterate the continued transnational relevance and resonances between South Africa and the United States.

Happy birthday Mama Winnie! The cultural politics of nostalgic portraits on the Twitter feed of @WinnieMandela

This article examines the Twitter feed of @WinnieMandela (purportedly the official profile of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela), in particular the trend that sees iconic portraits of her being shared by her admirers on meaningful days, such as her birthday. A notable practice on the feed is the regular sharing of historical images of Madikizela-Mandela, tweeted by some of her 69,000 followers, often on her birthday. Juxtaposing these images are current photos tweeted from her own account as well as those shared by fans who meet her and take pictures together. The article presents a visual typology of the narratives of womanly identity that are captured in the historical portraits of Madikizela-Mandela that fans share. The analysis is contextualized within scholarship on gender and politics, the representation of women politicians in the media, and the use of social media by politicians. The article theorizes the fan photo-sharing on Winnie Mandela’s Twitter feed as a process that partially constructs her public image in opposition to negative mainstream media coverage. It concludes by reflecting on what an attachment to nostalgic images of Winnie Mandela mean in the current moment in South African politics, as well in relation to communication on social media.

Televising South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: what liveness tells us about the commission; what the commission tells us about liveness

Contrary to existing scholarship on the broadcasting of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this article argues that the televising of hearings did not constitute a ‘media event’, as defined by Dayan and Katz. Based on a qualitative analysis of the only two live broadcasts, a glance at viewership statistics and discussions with media personnel, the article attempts to uncover what media events can tell us about the Commission and what the Commission can tell us about the media events. The article argues that the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) decision to ‘go live’ – with the opening hearing and the broadcasting of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s testimony – demonstrates the ways in which the controversial amnesty provision provided loopholes that altered the original expectations of the Commission’s work over time, leading to the African National Congress’s (ANC) eventual dissociation from it. Additionally, the article argues that complex, unpredictable and contested content – usually the subject of national commissions of inquiry – is unsuited to the media event genre.

‘Just Say the Words’: An Operatic Rendering of Winnie

ABSTRACTIt has been noted by the creators, performers and commentators on Winnie: The Opera, that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is a good subject for operatic treatment. The most basic commercial logic explains the pairing a contentious public figure with what Lindenberger called the ‘extravagant art’. I propose that deeper roots support the suitability of Madikizela-Mandela to operatic treatment, and that these roots draw on the specific signifying capacities of opera as a genre. These capacities are best expressed through the uniquely operatic vehicle of the aria, and in this article the operatic rendering of Winnie is examined in relation to the aria as a conceptual unit. Furthermore, that this rendering nuances the story of Winnie in particular ways, suggesting a reversal of the opening comment: that opera as a medium offers an interesting perspective through which to consider Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as an historical figure. My primary argument is that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela makes such a good opera subject because of a combination of individual qualities that compel interest in what has been called the novelistic mould, and themes more usually encountered in representations of classical epic heroes. For particular reasons explored below, the operatic form is able to express these usually incommensurate renderings. Beyond the individual subject of Madikizela-Mandela herself, the strength of the generic capacity of opera and the growing body of South African operas speak to the potential for opera as a contemporary story-telling form in 21st-century South Africa.