Yes, in the several documentaries that I watched or reviewed, one gets a better understanding of what happened. Of course the most damaging part for Winnie in terms of public relations are two things and Mandela understood in one respect with her.
She was accused of sleeping with other people and this continued even after he came out of prison. First one would not be surprise becasue the documentary covered when Mandela met Winnie -- she was not his first wife. But more importantly, he was much older than her. Winnie as a young woman was truly attractive and Mandela met her just somewhere and just decided to get her to marry him. He asked about her. Like all mortal beings he fall in love, whatever that means.
The age gap was really significant. But she was not just "beautiful" or attractive, however you want to call it, but she was also articulate, especially given the way women are not often given voice in some traditional African cultures. But soon after they got married and the woman was really young, the husband was sent to prison. There was a place where they said while she was once under arrest, a white police officer managed to persuade her to sleep with him only to come and use it against her -- suggesting she was an irresponsible woman. Mandela in one interview addressed this directly. He was realistic. He said she was a young woman and he was away and no one knew when he was going to be out or even whether he would be out of prison. Indeed, one wonders why Winnie as a young woman did not just forget about everything regarding the marriage. That is another question.
She was accused of sleeping with other people and this continued even after he came out of prison. First one would not be surprise becasue the documentary covered when Mandela met Winnie -- she was not his first wife. But more importantly, he was much older than her. Winnie as a young woman was truly attractive and Mandela met her just somewhere and just decided to get her to marry him. He asked about her. Like all mortal beings he fall in love, whatever that means.
The age gap was really significant. But she was not just "beautiful" or attractive, however you want to call it, but she was also articulate, especially given the way women are not often given voice in some traditional African cultures. But soon after they got married and the woman was really young, the husband was sent to prison. There was a place where they said while she was once under arrest, a white police officer managed to persuade her to sleep with him only to come and use it against her -- suggesting she was an irresponsible woman. Mandela in one interview addressed this directly. He was realistic. He said she was a young woman and he was away and no one knew when he was going to be out or even whether he would be out of prison. Indeed, one wonders why Winnie as a young woman did not just forget about everything regarding the marriage. That is another question.
But more importantly, I am not a psychologist but a sociologist by training. Yet, there is much sociological theory that discusses how the self especially in the modern world is constructed and how it is fragile. When we relate to each other, it is our "self" that relate. As Epicurus said if my memory is correct, if you want to maintain friendship, you have to meet regularly and talk, you have to have a small community where you meet like face to face. Such relationships keep the friendship alive.
The point here is that if you watch the documentary well and reflect, Mandela and Winnie grew apart (their selves changed over time), and there are many marriages not just their own that have collapses because the two "selves' grew apart. Sexual relationship is not just sharing physical bodies but it involves feelings and emotions. This is why some people who want to protect rationality are afraid of women because men's relationship with women can lead to the knocking down of some strict rational attitudes. For instance, Auguste Comte, the French philosopher / sociologist who wrote about science and positive philosophy as they way forward for humanity, later in his life fall in love with a woman. This guy, with all his positive philosophy abandoned that project and started writing on the "healing power of love." When the woman died, I think every week he will visit her grave as an expression of how she touched his life. Well, now when one finds himself in this situation, he is in another planet. I always laugh and reflect when I teach social theory and come to this part of Comte -- the healing power of love. It is hard to have relationship grow or build it in absentia. Even Durkheim said that for people's faith to be sustained, they need regular rituals to renew. Interestingly apostle Paul made the same point in a different way.
The only issue in this case is to reflect depending on what one's discipline and experience is, how the social conditions and circumstances that contributed to Mandela and Winnie growing apart, i.e., their "selves" grew apart.
But this is not the only issue or challenge in South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle. Some years ago, my university organized a highly subsidized educational trip to South Africa and I participated. For two weeks we visited important sites and met important people to listen to their assessment of the struggle. I bought some books then that were very good. One challenge that emerged after the collapse of apartheid was that many of the people on the ground who fought against apartheid did not get the opportunity to acquire good education, invest in their human capital or become technocrats. But when you are running the government of a country, you need technocrats, and it turned out that it was ANC people in exile that got most of the opportunity to be trained as technocrats. One sees this as one of the major faultiness between Mbeki and Zuma. So the two groups kind of grew somewhat apart. Those who grew up in exile tend to be more cosmopolitan than those who grew locally.
The point here is that if you watch the documentary well and reflect, Mandela and Winnie grew apart (their selves changed over time), and there are many marriages not just their own that have collapses because the two "selves' grew apart. Sexual relationship is not just sharing physical bodies but it involves feelings and emotions. This is why some people who want to protect rationality are afraid of women because men's relationship with women can lead to the knocking down of some strict rational attitudes. For instance, Auguste Comte, the French philosopher / sociologist who wrote about science and positive philosophy as they way forward for humanity, later in his life fall in love with a woman. This guy, with all his positive philosophy abandoned that project and started writing on the "healing power of love." When the woman died, I think every week he will visit her grave as an expression of how she touched his life. Well, now when one finds himself in this situation, he is in another planet. I always laugh and reflect when I teach social theory and come to this part of Comte -- the healing power of love. It is hard to have relationship grow or build it in absentia. Even Durkheim said that for people's faith to be sustained, they need regular rituals to renew. Interestingly apostle Paul made the same point in a different way.
The only issue in this case is to reflect depending on what one's discipline and experience is, how the social conditions and circumstances that contributed to Mandela and Winnie growing apart, i.e., their "selves" grew apart.
But this is not the only issue or challenge in South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle. Some years ago, my university organized a highly subsidized educational trip to South Africa and I participated. For two weeks we visited important sites and met important people to listen to their assessment of the struggle. I bought some books then that were very good. One challenge that emerged after the collapse of apartheid was that many of the people on the ground who fought against apartheid did not get the opportunity to acquire good education, invest in their human capital or become technocrats. But when you are running the government of a country, you need technocrats, and it turned out that it was ANC people in exile that got most of the opportunity to be trained as technocrats. One sees this as one of the major faultiness between Mbeki and Zuma. So the two groups kind of grew somewhat apart. Those who grew up in exile tend to be more cosmopolitan than those who grew locally.
Overall, Winnie helped in keeping the struggle while Mandela was in jail. Let us face it, she was an attractive and articulate woman too. As some would say she was photogenic. And her appearance in the video even when she was younger all give you the impression that she was a kind and gentle woman. But history is something else and she and Mandela found themselves growing apart. It is not just our principles about life that matter about what we turn out to be, but how those principles play out in concrete social and historical realities decisively shape who we turn out to be.
Samuel
On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 1:46 PM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu> wrote:
Fortunately or unfortunately a lot of Black South Africans think positively about Winnie.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2015 6:22 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: Mandela Is Not My Hero
it read like a hatchet job to me, and an idealizing of winnie--she could do no wrong, so he musthave been bad.
i agree that we can question mandela's choice to retain a capitalist system, call it a neoliberal one as well; but it is questionable that he had a lot of choice at the outset. what became of that choice, with mbeki and zuma, over time, is another question.
ken
On 8/31/15 1:19 PM, 'Chambi Chachage' via USA Africa Dialogue Series wrote:
He "explained his decision" in his 'Long Walk to Freedom':
"I chose to tell no one what I was about to do. Not my colleagues upstairs nor those in Lusaka. The ANC is a collective, but the government had made collectivity in this case impossible. I did not have the security or the time to discuss these issues with my organization. I knew that my colleagues upstairs would condemn my proposal, and that would kill my initiative even before it was born. There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way. Finally, my isolation furnished my organization with an excuse in case matters went awry; the old man was alone and completely cut off, and his actions were taken by him as an individual, not a representative of the ANC" - Nelson Mandela (1994), Long Walk to Freedom, page 627,
________________________________
From: "Anunoby, Ogugua" <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu><mailto:AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com (USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com)"<mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com(USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com)> <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com><mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2015 1:10 AM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: Mandela Is Not My Hero
The following was forwarded to me. Please read if you may.
"According to this documentary, the story goes back a few months before the release of Nelson Mandela. He is abruptly transferred from his prison, separated from his companions 26 years in prison, to a luxurious private residence with garden and pool. Now, this is where you should live, this is the standard that corresponds to your rank, he was told. No sooner said than done, Mandela was comfortably installed at home. His wife Winnie is conducted to this villa by the South African secret services. This was the big day for Mandela to consume his first intimate night with his wife after waiting 26 years. But Winnie refused. On that day, their marriage was over. Winnie visited all the rooms of the residence quietly, going to the pool, looking at the manicured trees. And returned to tell Nelson, she did not feel comfortable and she wanted to go. Winnie understood that her husband had been bought.
"What surprised members of the ANC who were still imprisoned is that Mandela decided to negotiate with his murderers for the future 80% of the South African population without consulting anyone in the party who for 27 years had carried his torch lest he be forgotten, so that he would not be killed in prison. Nobody knows what really happened. He never explained his decision."
http://pougala.org/no-mandela-is-not-my-hero/
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Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
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