Report accurately on Winnie, Mokonyane urges media

Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane has called on the media to report on the late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela with sensitivity, historical facts and respect for her family, as well as South Africans.

Mokonyane said on Tuesday she has noted reports from a local broadcaster and some international news agencies which continue to use an apartheid-era narrative to cast aspersions on the character of Madikizela-Mandela.

“The narrative is not only a mischievous distortion, it is devoid of truth and a clear example of the lack of journalistic research amongst the media establishment.

“The attempt to present the legacy of this great liberation struggle stalwart as a compromised and divisive history is reminiscent of the stratcom strategy to undermine what was a fight by Mama Winnie and her generation against a brutal apartheid regime whose killing machinery found enemies in children and adults alike on the sole basis of them being black,” the Minister said.

Minister Mokonyane said in addition to the apartheid era style distortion, the narrative on the liberation stalwart is also grossly gendered and seeks to cast aside that Winnie Mandela was a freedom fighter first and foremost and not merely a wife to the late former President Nelson Mandela.

“Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was her own person, the notion of boxing her as former President Mandela ex’s wife is unfortunate and deliberately intended to undermine the woman, Winnie Mandela,” she said.

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