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What is worse?
If I told you that I do not believe in GOD what would you think? If I said GOD is not the answer, GOD is not going to save us, GOD is the evil you preach against, how would you react? Do you reply by giving me a sermon on the need for a religious grounding and so on, or do you blow me off as a silly sceptic?
What if I said NELSON MANDELA is not a hero. If I said Nelson “sold out his people to the white man”. If I said Nelson Mandela betrayed the very people he was supposedly fighting for? Would you call me a racist? Would you become emotional and argue with me?
Trial of unity: Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie arriving at the Rand Supreme Court, Johannesburg, in 1991 to hear charges against Winnie of kidnap and assault against 14-year-old Stompie Moeketsi
So why does Winnie Mandela get away with it? Why does Winnie have the right to diss the icon of freedom. If I say Nelson Mandela should not have accepted his Nobel Peace Prize people get all tense and start freaking out at me, yet Winnie says it and they stop, think and even see the logic in what she says.
In her interview with Nadira Naipaul yesterday Winnie said some of these things, and more.
“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. Many unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle, and there were others in the leadership too, like poor Steve Biko, who died of the beatings, horribly all alone. Mandela did go to prison and he went in there as a burning young revolutionary. But look what came out,”
I read these words and as a South African I am saddened. Just because a man changes from a militant freedom fighter to a humble peace broker, should not make him a lessor person. In fact, more of the ANC leaders should give up the “struggle” talk and start some nation building. But I think there is more “White Hate” now than ever. I am not sure why, but maybe it is not as easy as the new leaders imagined it to be. The running of a country, whilst satisfying the promises made to the masses is not that easy. The money to fulfill all the peoples needs is not easy to find.
Anyhow, Winnie Mandela still receives mega attention in South Africa, good and bad. I am just worried about the ANC at the moment. It all seems to be coming apart at the seems.
14 Comments
I'm not entirely convinced by the comparative analogy of God to Mandela, but I do get where you coming from.
Winnie Madikizele would be pretty much a nobody if it weren't for that "name Mandela that is an albatross around her neck".
Does anyone know Chris Hani's wife? How about Mrs. Biko? Mac Maharaja's wife name please? I'm sure they, and Winnie, did play an important part in the lives of their respective spouses. But honestly, saying that her association with Mr. Mandela has been such a burden on her life? Give me a break.
Why didn't she drop the "Mandela" bit from her name when they separated? Why even to this day does she continue to use the Mandela connection to further herself and her ambitions?
I Think my GOD/Mandela comparative was more about the fact that I would get more flack for dissing Mandela as apposed to God.
It spurned from an argument/constructive conversation I was having on another blog re the same subject.
The name MANDELA will always be her "meal ticket" and when things are tight at the bank she will agree to an interview and say something that sells.
Found this on a TIMESLIVE.co.za blog by Minor Matters.
Reading Nadira Naipaul’s interview with Winnie Mandela reminded me of my lunch with her daughter Zindzi a few weeks ago. I was invited by Maya Katra, the Lebanese ambassador’s wife. Her special guest was Zindzi.
Zindzi spoke fondly of her father and told us how the family got together often for lunch and how Winnie and Graca sat on either side of Madiba at the long family table.
What Winnie tells VS Naipaul’s wife sounds at odds with what Zindzi told the lunch guests last month. Naipaul says:
Zenani, now 51, and Zindzi, 50, remain very much in the background, having no wish to enter politics themselves, Winnie said. Nelson Mandela is no longer “accessible” to his daughters and they have to get through much red tape just to speak to their father, she told us.
More fall out from the interview….
The ANC was trying to contact MP Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to find out if she really said Nelson Mandela had let down black people, an official said on Tuesday.
"She is in the US now and we are in the process of trying to locate her," said ANC spokesperson Ishmael Mnisi.
"We want to ask her if these comments were made by her; if this is exactly what she said."
DUH! Pick up a phone, dial her number. 21st century people!
“We want to ask her if these comments were made by her; if this is exactly what she said.”
That article looks very well documented and is an excellent piece of writing (lets' assume that the London Evening Standard is not in the same level of tabloid nonsense as my "friends" at the Sun newspaper).
On that basis, why would the writer have made this all up?
Come on ANC, time to accept that the movement is under internal assault – Cosatu, Vavi, Malema, now Winnie too are all stirring the pot from within your own falls. It's a palace revolt in the making.
The London Standard is a little bit better than the Sun, me thinks anyway.
Ahh Winnie. She really does know how to manage the media. Isn't parliament in session at the moment? Shouldn't she be parliament if she's an MP?
Good question, the travel allowance from the US and back must hurt the budget….
Also, Winnie Madikizele Mandela = WMM = Weapon of Mass Mobilisation?
Hahaha!
WMM = Was Mandela's Missus.
Which is why she may be grumpy now maybe? Bit of the old sour grapes, woman scorned thing going on here perhaps?
WMM= WILL MOCK MANDELA………
Please, enough is enough. You people have done enough harm to this family. But still you are not tired.
Please concentrate your energies on your own lives and leave this woman in peace.
If not Mandla who has sold Mandela funeral rights, it is Zindzi who didn't paid her rent or is earning money in her fathers name or is Winnie who has crticized Mr. Mandela.
What I want to know is, do Mandela family members eat in your homes? do they borrow clothes from you? do they interfere in your family matters?
You are making all this noise and campain because of Mandela Legacy. But I know God is on His trone. He is God of Justice and is Greater than your god, the one you people serve and obey who is called prince of this world, who take pleasure to harm honest people, but he is defeated on the cross. So all your agitations is already doomed to failure.
It is better you people surrender your lives to Jesus and seek to love and do good to people instead of hating and harming them ofrfor no reason.
Bon entendeur salut!!!
Thank you for your comment.
I am not sure if you know that WINNIE MANDELA does not carry the same amount of support that NELSON does. He is cut from an entirely different cloth, that is why they are no longer married.
I am still horrified at how quickly this story 'disappeared' from the news. Agree that to compare Nelson and Winnie is like comparing chalk and cheese.