Mama Winnie declared a Freeman
The Mandela daughters, Zindziswa and Zenani Mandela accepted the award on behalf of their mother.
Mama Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela-Mandela joined the great company of struggle icons such as Joe Slovo, George Bizos and Nelson Mandela amongst others as a recipient of the City of Johannesburg’s Freedom of the City award on Monday, September 25.
The Freedom of the City was conferred to Mama Winnie posthumously, and this came a day before the struggle icon’s birthday. City of Johannesburg Mayor, Herman Mashaba, noted that the honour came too late as Mama Winnie has already passed.
Mashaba also noted that Mama Winnie’s contribution to the struggle has been neglected and negatively framed in the media.
“…Take a look at how Madikizela-Mandela was, and still is, portrayed in the mainstream media as well as by some analysts and commentators and you will realise that the authors of history did quite a number on her,” he said.
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The mayor proposed that the COJ Council Chambers be named after Mama Winnie and that the children’s parliament is held in the Chambers annually as children were very important to her.
Representatives of the different political parties in Council spoke fervently about Mama Winnie and what she stood for. Ward 68 Councillor, Basil Douglas, shared the fond memories he had of her during the struggle.
Douglas recalled the how Mama Winnie always reiterated the values of the ANC and always managed to reign him back in when he was going off the road. He recalled the call he received from Mama Winnie when she found out they had started an organisation fighting against the marginalisation of coloured people in 1997.
“Mama called me and I was at pains to explain about marginalisations, saying things like “ma, you know this is reverse racism, why is Orlando getting flat rates and here at Noordgesig we are the stepchildren of these things.”
Mama was keeping quiet right through my explanations and at the end, she said “remember we never taught you about these things. We never taught you this, we never taught you about non-racialism, we never spoke about multi-racialism. We spoke about what must happen in the future and you mustn’t lose track,” explained Douglas.
The Mandela daughters, Zindziswa and Zenani Mandela accepted the award on behalf of their mother. The Madikizela-Mandela family was filled with emotion on the day as they too felt that it was sad that Mama Winnie was only receiving recognition now.
“Obviously to us as the family, it’s an emotional time and I think that the fact that the award [has been given to] her posthumously, is also something that is quite sad for us. But nevertheless, we do understand that sometimes it’s better late than never,” said one of Mama Winnie’s granddaughters Zamaswazi Dlamini-Mandela.
The Freedom of the City is the highest accolade that the City can award to a citizen or a group. It is only awarded every two years.
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