I was standing between hooray and hallelujah when the ludicrous president of the ANC Women’s League, Bathabile Dlamini said: “We must confess; we have allowed patriarchy to oppress you.”
How the ANC Women’s League maintains discombobulated and morose programmes in a bid to deprecate patriarchy within the ‘father body’ is bloodcurdling. Singing ‘Nelson Mandela, there is no one like you’ at the funeral of Mama Winnie was one of the trivial things, yet deeply rooted in many ANC women, that engenders the superiority of men.
Both Bathabile Dlamini and her entourage (women who sung loudly without shame on the grandstands at the Orlando Stadium) are languished in confusion around their so-called ‘clarion call’ to end patriarchy. They denounce it with speeches and promote it in person.
Oh, Mama! Is this a sign that Jesus is coming back sooner or these are just incompetent cretins? How do you wish to correct the wrong history in favour of patriarchy by praising the ex-husband at the funeral of a woman you christen ‘Mother of the Nation?’
Hypocrisy or obliviousness, one of the two, or both. Unless if they meant, there was no one like Mandela who failed to forgive his wife but shook hands with his jailers. Who knows?
The Winnie tell-all documentary really gave us an insight into the nation being fooled to praise the wrong Mandela. We have so long praised the Mandela who is turned into a corporate footing. The Mandela who is put as a vast black statue to front white monopoly capital in big cities where the economy is very much 'white', like where a square is named after him in Sandton yet the dealings in those exclusive compounds define the black majority from without.
Nevertheless, it is okay since ‘Badakilwe’ confessed. But she must realise that it takes more than a day set aside as Winnie Mandela Day to commemorate her life. And Malema must know that changing a name of an airport will never be an economic freedom in our lifetime.
The league must ask Bishop Desmond Tutu to apologise for turning the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) into a religious circus. The commission did not fulfil its purpose because it scratched off the most important parts of our history – the role of women in liberation. Trying to wash away the dark cloud hanging around the country is just for history sake, it will not better the present and brighten the future.
But, mates, what stopped Mama from removing the Mandela name from her green book? She also believed the name held waters. She herself gave them power by continuing to be comfortable under the umbrella of the Mandela legacy. Maybe she, equally, was only telling a half-truth to power. And transferred the muddle to her mentee Badakilwe.
I think the country is not moving forward because honouring Mama Winnie, as the women put it, will not improve the economy, or eradicate poverty and inequality. The disparities in South African weigh far more than the fight for an evenhanded or fair deal of legacies.
This is where South African politics lose the plot. Politics is consumed by anger and personal debts. Our politicians suffer from self-exaggerated importance because they want to be known for what they have done other than know what they have done. Everyone who fought or fights for the liberation of people do not do it for the country but self-entitlement. Hence, corruption will forever rise because these freedom fighters want recognition more than the results of their fight. Now they are paying themselves.
Maybe Azania must first heal before starting new fights. Fighting with wounds will only hurt us more.
