WeeklySA_AdminBESOTTED: Intimate tracks of romantic sparks between South Africa’s foremost struggle couple…
By Jacob Mawela
The title of two-times Sunday Times Alan Paton Award recipient, author Jonny Steinberg’s most recent tome, Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage, might mislead the reader to be of the impression that it is solely about the relationship between the late South African revolutionaries, Winifred Madikizela and Nelson Mandela – when actually it goes beyond their union in its quest to shed new light about the lives of the universally acclaimed couple.
In keeping with the hint in the title, I decided to glean salient excerpts from the book that resonate with romantic episodes from their courtship, interrupted marriage and mutual sacrifice toward relieving South Africans of varying hues from the yoke of grand apartheid.
Picture the scenario of two vehicles belonging to vying suitors spotted parked on opposite ends of a female hostel and a young ‘beautiful, flirtatious woman’ jumping out of the other and immediately dashing across to jump into another!
A pre-revolutionary and verily unmarried Winnie Madikizela would attend to the besotted whims of two rivals, namely, Barney Sampson – described as stylish and good-looking – and the then womanising and pioneering lawyer, Nelson Mandela. ‘Twas the 1950s and both future husband and wife had arrived in Johannesburg from the rural Transkei to stake their respective claims to professional careers during an era when Blacks were deliberately relegated to menial roles in society by the prevailing apartheid bureaucracy!
Sampson was to later attempt suicide from the heartbreak of losing Winnie to Nelson and the Thembu aristocrat ultimately claimed her as his wife! In Steinberg’s account, Mandela comes across as having been tolerant of Madikizela’s flirtatious conduct during their courtship – which extended to his being conscious of the presence of rivals competing for her affection.
“Such an intimidating and seductive beauty does not go with a revolutionary!” a comrade, Moses Kotane, once remarked to Mandela upon beholding Winnie. The content recounts a couple being the toast of both Black, White, Jewish and Indian society. Mandela, not only standing out by virtue of being one of a few practising Black attorneys at the time – but also by his bespoke and a certain two-tone Oldsmobile car he owned.
For her part, Madikizela, was renowned for being so fashion-conscious that she’d be seen with fashion magazines from which she adopted the trending styles of the era. In fact, Winnie made waves amongst her peers at the Helping Hand Club for Native Girls by being the only resident to appear in the Bantu World newspaper, not once but twice in a given year!
The duo attending Sunday lunches at Joe Slovo and Ruth First’s Whites-only suburban home, where a Black man would be seen nonchalantly laying alongside a White girl poolside –defying apartheid’s verboten statutes.
Another canvas depicts dances at the Bantu Men’s Social Centre with Nelson waxing poetically about Winnie convulsing her body with a Hawaiian dance whilst he stood ready to embrace her. Dates at the Donaldson Orlando Community Centre, where she watched him punching a bag and skipping and doing push-ups.
Other vignettes describe a name-dropping lifestyle embellished by the frequenting of prominent venues such as the Odin and Harlem cinemas in Sophiatown – as well as the place’s vibrant jazz scene; awareness of magazine page models ranging from the American dimple-cheeked beauty, Lena Horne to Black South Africa’s own celebrity, Dolly Rathebe, et cetera!
Their romantic destiny, let alone the political one, had sparked one rainy afternoon in March 1957 when Mandela’s law practice partner, Oliver Tambo, spotted him inside a roadside delicatessen whilst giving his fiancée, Adelaide Tshukudu, and Winnie a ride back home from work. Introducing the shy young lady from Bizana, Tambo exclaimed to Nelson, “Don’t you know Winnie?” “She is always dancing up and down the newspapers.”
Fifteen months after that rendezvous, they got married, with their union interrupted by spells in prison by either of them. A scene describes how Nelson once footed it home to Orlando West upon being released from a jail stint – to be met in the middle of the street by a buoyant and barefooted Winnie who had been watering the garden! They hadn’t seen each other for five months!
Steinberg’s extensively researched book also touches on Nelson Mandela’s own flirtations – a side of South Africa’s future president which put paid to his first marriage. “Nelly was a ladies’ man”, associates from the mid-1950s pointed out. In one incident, an ANC colleague, described as being a famously beautiful widow, who had earned the ire of Mandela, retaliated, “How can I be against Mr Mandela when he left his hat in my house?”
At times, he would be seen paying Winnie, the impressionable social worker, visits at Baragwanath hospital whilst still married to Evelyn Mase, the devout Jehovah’s Witness who happened to be a nurse at the same institution.
Ye Gods, even ANC Women’s League leader Lillian Ngoyi didn’t escape his attention – an intimation the author alluded to Mandela’s authorised biographer! So much so that fellow activist, Helen Joseph wondered in her memoir why the two didn’t end up marrying! When his union with Mase became untenable, Mandela decided to pool his lot with Madikizela –much to the chagrin of her dad, Columbus, who, at their wedding intoned: “If your man is a wizard, you must become a witch!”
An urbane patriarch protective of his progeny, the elderly headmaster’s misgiving about his daughter’s choice stemmed from her marrying a man already married to the struggle.
Featuring a monochromatic image depicting the post-1990 re-united couple snuggling to each other pending a social event, the book also includes another showing Winnie in the beauty of her youth during a ball at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work, in which she is wearing a white dress complemented by a ring of pearls around her neck. She appears majestically photogenic, as if in keeping with her stated intention of, “I had to become a city girl, acquire glamour!”
Offered a prominent figure of Winnie’s generation, “If a woman was ambitious, you look for somebody powerful, you choose a man like Mandela.”
Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage, is published in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers and is available at leading bookstores countrywide.
NEW BOOK MARKS 10th ANNIVERSARY OF POPE’S PONTIFICATE
FAITH: Walking with Pope Francis – The Official Documents in Everyday Language focuses on themes that dominate Pope Francis’ teachings in the last 10 years…
By ACI Africa
Readers of the newly co-published book, “Walking with Pope Francis – The Official Documents in Everyday Language”, do not require a background in theology or Church teachings to understand its content, Catholic nun and author Sister Mary Wangui Mutahi has said.
In an interview with ACI Africa about the 216-page book that was first published by Orbis Books, Sister WanguI said: “The book is suitable for all categories of people even those without basic foundation in theology and teachings of the Church,” she added about the book published to mark the 10th anniversary of the Pontificate of Pope Francis as “a helpful and reader-friendly digest of 10 of his most important documents”.
The Kenyan-born member of the Pious Society of the Daughters of St Paul (FSP) said that in synthesising the 10 Papal documents, the book focuses on the themes that dominate the teachings of Pope Francis in the last 10 years, and include faith, joy, mercy, care for the environment, love, fraternity, the liturgy, and refugees and migrants, among other themes.
Sister Wangui explains five Apostolic Exhortations, including the November 2013 Evangelii Gaudium on the “proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world”, the March 2016 Amoris Laetitia on “love in the family”, the March 2018 Gaudete et Exsultate on the “call to holiness in today’s world”, Christus Vivit on Christ who is alive, and the February 2020 Querida Amazonia that was addressed to the people of God in the Amazon region, and all persons of goodwill.
The author, who holds a doctorate in Missiology from Rome, synthesises two Apostolic Letters, which include the April 2015 Misericordiae Vultus that declared an extraordinary jubilee year of mercy to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, and the June 2022 Desiderio Desideravi on the “Liturgical formation of the people of God”.
In the June 15 interview, Sister Wangui recalled the initial stages of the book, saying Father Kroeger, who had published the book with US-based Orbis Books, requested that it be republished for the African audience.
“His request was timely because it fell under our priorities at that time, to publish the writings of Pope Francis as we mark the tenth anniversary of his pontificate,” Sister Wangui said about Father Kroeger, a long-time professor of Mission Theology at the Loyola School of Theology and the Jesuits’ East Asian Pastoral Institute in Manila, the Philippines.
She said the co-published book offers “a quick reference for one who would like to know what Pope Francis says about a certain topic since it includes both the major topics and sub-topics found in each of these documents.”
“Reading this book also arouses in one the desire to read more on the writings of the Pope,” the native of Kenya’s Nyeri Archdiocese said.
Going for US$10 (about R180),the book can be found in all PPA bookshops in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, South Sudan, and Sudan. It can also be purchased online from paulinesafrica.org.
