Sue Williamson A Few South Africans: Winnie Mandela, 1983 Photo etching and screenprint collage Work: 70 x 64 cm
Tula, tula Winnie tula
Tula Winnie tula
Bamtatha bamtatha bambeka e Brandfort
Wamku Wakala wathi amandla
Winnie, keep quiet
They took you and put you in Brandfort And you shouted and cried out ‘Power!’
This song of tribute marks the deep feeling of the people for Nomzamo Winnie Mandela, wife of the great political leader, Nelson Mandela.
In over 20 years of marriage, the Mandelas have had only about two years together – when he was not in prison, Nelson Mandela was underground. Winnie herself has been free of all restrictions for only 11 months of the 19 years since her husband was imprisoned. A key person in many black organizations now banned, she has been repeatedly subject to detention, house arrest and imprisonment.
Since 1977 she had been banished to the small, dusty Afrikaner dorp of Brandfort in the Orange Free State, where she lived in house No. 802 in the treeless location outside the town. Perpetual harassment has extended even to the confiscation of a bedspread in the colours of the African National Congress, and a conviction on a charge of contravening her banning orders when called at a neighbour’s house regarding a chicken.
But nothing had been able to crush the indomitable Winnie Mandela, or prevent her from speaking out fearlessly when she has been able to.
She remained a powerful symbol of the African struggle.
- Sue Williamson 1983
