Daily Nation article by Dauti Kahura
In 1969, security branch came to her Soweto home at 3.00am. She was alone with her daughters, aged 10 and nine. Winnie asked (the police) to fetch her sister one street up so that the girls would not be alone. The police refused, she was taken and her children left alone,” recalls Charlene. SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
Charlene recounts Winnie’s harrowing experience in the police cells, at the Old Fort that is not known to many people. “She spent 18 months in solitary confinement, naked, not allowed to wash, and not allowed out for exercises. She did not know what became of her girls.” Charlene says every time Winnie recounted this experience, her whole body physiology would change. “She was not allowed sanitary towels, when she had periods, nor water or clothes to clean and so, the blood caked on her.”
There is cruelty and there is cruelty. Winnie persevered all these inhuman treatment. And because she was all so human, Winnie became lonely and isolated. “It was here that drinking and drug taking began and affairs with younger men, including a dreadlocked filmmaker,” says Charlene. “The conservative black folk of Brandfort Township grew to loathe her.”
:oops::eek:
All this cruelty just because she wanted to stop colonial rule and stop apartheid.
Then after all this was over her husband told the people who did this to her something similar to “I forgive you for everything, let’s just start afresh. And don’t worry about the land and wealth, you can keep it all.”
Psychologists say that if your wife or children are assaulted and you as a man knows about it and don’t do something about it to the person who caused the assault then the relationship between father and the wife/child changes in very devastating ways because the trust and reassuarance has been shattered. Fathers bring reasonable strength and security to their families and if that strength and security is not guaranteed then the relationship is doomed. Women, it seems, are truly hard wired to find the alpha male.
She was the left man standing who believed freedom without economic empowerment for the blacks was useless.All the rest including Mandela and Tutu sold out to the whites.
Who in his right mind would expect his wife to live without sex for 20+ years ati he is waiting for him. Mandela was never interested in real freedom it was all about taking the white man seat for himself. He betrayed his people with a fake freedom
wewe umewai uma miaka 27 jela ndio uanze kujudge Mandela hapa? He had a young wife and a budding career and it was all taken away in the blink of an eye. He never even got a chance to practise law properly. Fuck that law degree enda ukapige mawe na nyundo hadi ile siku utakufa. No woman for 27 years. Prison broke him completely but it made him… a far better man.
Na Mungu huwa anakufanya hivo sometimes ndio akufanye leader. Coz Mandela was a hothead in his youth. Yote ilikuwa preparation. Hata Jomo alionja jela vizuri kabisa, hard labour and little food in Maralal akatoka akiwa mzee, ready to lead a nation. And Jomo started the struggle as a young man in the 1920s lakini alipata kiti akiwa mzee. Yote ni preparation. And you can’t lead some people… you have to lead ALL the people. Even your enemies.
And Winnie Mandela made her mistakes. She was just a young girl when all this was happening and expected to shoulder the burden of nationalism in a fucked up country. Wapewe heshima zao they played their roles.
Na leo hakuna mtu ana prevent a black South African to go to school and achieve.
Selling out cannot make a person a better man. EFF ya Julius Malema would not be attempting to correct the injustice if he didn’t sell out.
Jomo Kenyatta… That guy
Mmmhhh…I don’t think so. They divorced and Winnie retained Mandela’s name. Mandela started the struggle, Winnie just took over after his incarceration but she messed up. Mandela was also made to be a larger than life figure because he acquiescenced to the whites… so the whiteman media made him a hero…he openly admitted he wasn’t. But for Winnie people are trying to paint her as helpless hence her drug addiction and extramarital affairs…both failed at personal levels but one managed atleast to get SA have a black president the other didn’t
Have a cold one on me, please. People fail to see the bigger picture here. The Boers were cruel to her but her own people were worse…just because she could not tow the party line.
Malema is just playing politics, nothing new. He knows that that ‘sell out’ message resonates well with the masses. Mtoto akililia wembe mpe. Kiti atapata kama watu wataitikia kumpatia, but time will remember his comments. Ni kama tu Sonko alikuwa analilia kiti, ona sasa.
Anyway, since time immemorial leaders’ decisions have never been approved by everyone. Leadership ni ngumu sana. I think Mandela’s job was to get the people free, hio ingine wajifinyie. That’s not his problem. Kwani mtafanyiwa kila kitu? His job was to clear the path then you fuckers build the nation.
And it’s a good debate in S.A., “we are now free but how do we move to the next level of freedom; economic freedom?”
It’s okay to call him a sellout if it will make a difference. It’s a good debate.
There were very many white south Africans who supported Mandela. Some were even his friends. Sasa afanye nini? Awanyang’anye wote mashamba? Some of them wameandika black people, hao workers waende wapi? There were documents he signed before ascending the throne, he had to keep his word or the alternative was civil war kila mtu afe.
And what has Zimbabwe taught us anyway concerning forceful evictions?
Recently there was the serious drought in Kenya and Maasai herdsmen started to attack white ranchers. John Allan Namu did a very hard hitting series of dicumentaries that aired on NTV. In one episode he went to Maasai land to interview Kuki Gallmann whose house has just been torched. She had lost everything. Like most Kenyans I sided with the poor African Maasai. My fellow African against the racist colonial landgrabbers!
John Allan Namu talked to all sides involved. The warriors said they were being paid by politicians to push these white people so they don’t renew their leases. He then showed us a google map graphic showing that Gallmann’s farm was the only green spot left in the whole region. And the sad reality of these herdsmen is that theirs is a vicious cycle of poverty. Mzee alipoteza ng’ombe zote ba bibi akafa. A terrible life that is consuming everyone around rancher or pastoralist.
Pastoralists were herding cows all the way from Laikipia hundreds of kilometers down to her ranch. Na hawataki kujua ni yake… ati ni yao wako na haki. Ni kwao. Nikashindwa if they can do that to her basi hata Nairobi tuko next.
It looks very easy to say it, “get out Kuki Gallman white bitch!”
But then you look at her land, hizo ranch ndio pekee zimebaki. Wameharibu huko kwingine kwote. Hata wild animals zinajificha kwa hio ranch. And her’s is the last parcel of labd protecting the last water tower.
So this story of land repossession is much deeper and more complex than people being called sell outs. Kuna hesabu zingine hazisemwi hadharani. Na huyo mzungu amesaidia hao wamaasai na chakula miaka mingi.Very difficult situation.
I never expected such a callous sentiment from you. Justification for cheating because she is a woman,what the fuck does that even mean? And even if you didn’t like her ,calling her names is just not right man…I understand this is ktalk where you all have a grand time calling women names but saa zingine …No. She was a great woman,and even the heroes amongst mankind have their faults.
I agree she was great woman. Its that last part I don’t agree with. If she slept around, she slept around no problem. Buy I find blaming it on her imprisonment a bit far fetched.
the struggle for freedom was justified but terrorising your own people in the name seeking liberation is unacceptable. its like appraising alshabaab for fighting for the Somalis. Jail was a good place for them