Not long after, the couple separated, the marriage finally broken by Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's affair with a young lawyer. She had been convicted of kidnapping year-old Stompie Sepei, and many believed she was guilty of far worse crimes. There was the adultery against her venerable husband and incendiary comments, including condoning brutal violence against those seen as traitors. She faced corruption allegations, and was later convicted of fraud.
Mrs Madikizela-Mandela, now divorced and having taken her maiden name - Madikizela - while also keeping his, was accused living off her former husband's name. But he had tremendous sympathy for his friend, and stood by her side. In his eyes, she was as flawed as any human, making the wrong decisions but paying too steep a price for them.
Someone who had endured too much pain and too many indignities. He adored Mrs Madikizela-Mandela - for her strength and intelligence and the affection she showed to those around her in private. In later years, he watched her being a doting grandmother, and handling her financial struggles with "great dignity". He says Mrs Madikizela-Mandela often spoke with nostalgia about her abandoned dream of becoming a social worker. Now, he says she is suddenly gone and South Africa "has to reconcile what it will be without her".
He thinks history will be kinder to her memory than it was during her lifetime. Winnie is the one who made it to the end," he says. Winnie Mandela - the young mother who refused to be broken. Winnie Mandela in six quotes. In pictures: Winnie Mandela's life. Apartheid: 46 years in 90 seconds. Image source, Courtesy Gary Bedell. The wife of Nelson Mandela was adamant. Image source, AFP. That became the pattern of my life. One moment, I was watching him.
Then he would dash off to [political] meetings, with just time to drop me off at the hostel. Even at that stage, life with him was a life without him. National politics came right away after their honeymoon. Where they could, the couple organized others to seek concessions from the South African government. His two daughters with Winnie, Zenani and Zindziswa, had been born, with the older girl not even five. The infamous Rivonia Trial came in after Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists were arrested for inciting unrest.
When he was sentenced, the glass that divided visitors and prisoners at Robben became a metaphorical wedge too in the marriage between Mandela and Winnie. With Mandela in prison, Winnie quickly took on the baton to fight against apartheid on the outside. By her deeds, Winnie wrought her own silver sterling in South African political lore, the facts of which require another piece of writing. But as Mandela would later explain, Winnie lived her life fully more than he could take.
Her controversial reputation stemmed from harsh comments that appeared to promote violence and were critical of her famous ex-husband, along with accusations of murder and a conviction for bank fraud. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela joined the struggle to end apartheid after working as a hospital social worker in the s.
Around that time, she met her future husband, who was a lawyer and human rights activist. After he was arrested for his political activities, she raised two young daughters alone. She campaigned for his release and to rally support in South Africa and internationally for the anti-apartheid movement. She was also imprisoned and tortured, and she faced constant security threats.
When apartheid ended, she became a member of Parliament and served as deputy minister of arts and culture. While Nelson Mandela sat in prison, confined to intellectual pursuits and letter writing, Madikizela-Mandela's life on the outside put her in the heart of the struggle.
South African authorities arrested her in under the Suppression of Terrorism Act, and she spent more than a year in solitary confinement, where she was tortured. After her release, she was banished to the Free State, a province of South Africa, where her home was firebombed twice, according to a website belonging to the South African presidency.
Police raids on her home were as often as four times a day. She was banned from leaving her home at night and was later restricted from leaving her neighborhood in the Soweto Township of Johannesburg, according to a biography in South Africa History Online.
In , her defiant rhetoric caused alarm around the world as she appeared to endorse violent methods to achieve freedom for black South Africans.
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