If Winnie Mandela were a Ghanaian
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is the divorced wife of the global icon, Nelson Mandela, who died barely a fortnight ago, right? He divorced her for reasons, among which was an alleged infidelity with a man her junior in age, right?
Advertisement
He re-married, taking as his wife Graca Machel, the widow of another African freedom fighter, and lived with her till his death, right? So, if Winnie were a Ghanaian, would she have had any role to play in the funeral of her late ex-husband? I doubt it.
If Mrs Madikizela-Mandela were a Ghanaian, no matter how close the relationship with her former husband was while he was alive, there was no way the extended family would have allowed her to have played that prominent role during Mr Mandela’s last few hours at his state funeral and finally at his burial in his home village. Why? Is it because the man divorced her?
From what I have read and seen played out in the media concerning the funeral, coupled with her interview with British television news, ITV, the rhetorical question, “What if Mrs Madikizela-Mandela were a Ghanaian?” is an obvious one.
Undoubtedly, from most of the reports on last week Tuesday’s state funeral for the late South African leader, the cameras did not shy away from focusing their lenses on the ex-wife, as if they wanted to make a point. Years ago, she was painted by the South African media as the most hated woman in that society, linking her to all sorts of allegations.
I was, however, stunned to watch on television last Tuesday that each time the beam was on her, there was thunderous applause for her by the South African crowd who were watching the funeral proceedings on giant screens. What would have been her chances in Ghana as a “controversial” divorcee?
She was one of the first people, alongside Mr Mandela’s widow, Graca, to have joined the procession that filed past the casket. She even received a warm embrace from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and very good friend of her ex-husband, right in front of television cameras. No, this certainly could not have happened in Ghana. That was the time the prominent members of the society and certainly the man’s friends would have distanced themselves for how dare her show her face at such a gathering?
I have always admired Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela not only for her beauty and confidence but also for the fact that for the best part of the 38 years of marriage to the late Nelson Mandela, she stood by him. As a young mother of two with a husband thrown into jail for fighting apartheid, she was not deterred and continued his political efforts which reportedly sometimes landed her in trouble with the authorities.
Her interview last week with ITV, however, heightened my admiration for her. She obviously refused to be beaten down by any syndrome while mourning a man she knew so closely for nearly four decades. Yes, Mr Mandela divorced her almost two decades ago but she was ready to be with him during his final moments and until his body was interred last Sunday, perhaps for old time’s sake. Indeed, in the television interview, she said when Tata (meaning father) was drifting away, she received a phone call to rush to the house.
She was by his bedside for three and-a-half hours before he gave up the ghost. She disclosed at the interview that she went close to him and noticed he was breathing slowly at which point she held him trying to feel his temperature. He then drew his last breath and he was gone. According to her, God was very kind to them to have given the family such a long time for them to say good-bye to him.
Really, if Mrs Madikizela-Mandela were a Ghanaian divorcee, who would have called her to be by her dying ex-husband when those are moments usually reserved for very close family, including wife and children? Yet, in her case, she stayed till the body was removed for the mortuary, adding, “The hardest moment was when the military came to remove the body”. And listen to her, she even tried to close his mouth, “but the doctors said they’ll do it.”
For a divorced wife to be allowed to come this close to a dying ex-husband who remarried and for the last 15 years lived with this wife, Winnie is lucky she were not a Ghanaian. It is not only the extended family who would have made hell for her during the funeral, but also the media. The media would have called her names, haunted her with unprintable headlines, nothing like the exposure she got from local and international media. As for the applause she received last Tuesday, it would have been tagged “rented applause”.
But of course Winnie is not a Ghanaian. While her colossus ex-husband taught the world about forgiveness and reconciliation in his political life, he obviously made sure he kept seamless family relationships too. She must have learnt useful lessons from him. No wonder the people of South Africa warmed up to her and gave her the teeming applause for exactly that.
Plenty of lessons, I guess, for us in Ghana too.