03 April 2018 - Anti-Apartheid Campaigner Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Dies at 81
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela dies aged 81
Jason Burke (The Guardian, 02/04/2018)
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa but also one of its most controversial figures, has died aged 81.
The ex-wife of the former South African president Nelson Mandela, she died at a hospital in Johannesburg after a long illness, her personal assistant, Zodwa Zwane, said.
Seen as the “mother of the nation” by many who admired her steely leadership, firebrand rhetoric and courageous activism against a brutal racist regime, Madikizela-Mandela was also repeatedly accused of being linked to violence andcorruption.
Who was Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the controversial 'mother' of South Africa?
(SBS News, 03/04/2018)
Born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela, and known simply as "Winnie", she was married to Nelson Mandela for 38 years - one of the most storied romances of modern history.
Most of their marriage was spent apart, with Nelson imprisoned for 27 years, leaving her to raise their two daughters alone and to keep alive his political dream under the repressive white-minority regime.
In 1990 the world watched when Nelson Mandela finally walked out of prison - hand in hand with Winnie.
Winnie and Nelson Mandela’s marriage survived three decades of prison — but not freedom
Cleve R. Wootson Jr. (The Washington Post, 02/04/2018)
Nelson Mandela had been a free man for just a few moments when the iconic pictures were snapped. In them, his right hand was held aloft, clenched in a fist that had become a symbol in the fight against apartheid in South Africa and racism around the world.
His left hand clasped the hand of his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who’d spent three decades fighting for her husband’s release — while only seeing him during prison visiting hours.
Their marriage had endured his incarceration and hers. It had weathered her hard-won ascendance in the movement to end systematized racism in Africa’s southernmost country and his inability to be a physical presence in his family’s life.
State funeral for Winnie Mandela, divisive figurehead in South Africa
Harriet Salem (The Times, 03/04/2018)
Winnie Mandela, the controversial former wife of South Africa’s first black president, is to be given a state funeral.
Known as Mama Winnie or “mother of the nation”, the woman who spent 27 years campaigning for the release of her imprisoned husband, Nelson Mandela, died aged 81 yesterday after a “long illness”, her family said.
A divisive figure, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela — as she was latterly known — had a reputation as both a brutal, ruthless ideologue and a glamorous, outspoken activist at the forefront of the fight to bring down white minority rule in South Africa.