THE NEWS THAT World War II had ended was brought to eMbongweni by a truck driver, who told the Madikizelas that there were big celebrations in the streets and town hall at Bizana. The children begged Columbus for permission to go and join in the merriment, and when he agreed they clambered onto the back of the truck, laughing and chattering with excitement.
But eMbongweni was sheltered from the realities of life in South Africa. To their shock and disappointment, they found the town hall doors barred, and were told the celebrations were for whites only. For Winnie, being shut out was like a physical blow to her stomach, but the children could do nothing except peer through the windows at the celebrations within. White children and their parents, wearing their Sunday best, were eating and drinking, celebrating to the music of a band. Uneasy about the black children looking longingly through the windows, some of the whites threw fruit and sweets onto the ground outside, and the children scurried to pick the treats up from the dirt.
It was Winnie’s first experience of black–white relationships in South Africa. Deep in her mind she heard the echo of her father’s words about the injustices towards blacks, and afterwards she began to notice that his neatly pressed suits and darned shirts were shabby in comparison with the clothes worn by white officials who came to the school. Reminded of the losses suffered by her people in the Xhosa wars and fired by youthful indignation, she made a resolution to start where her ancestors had left off, and get back her land.
Columbus’s passionate lessons about Xhosa history stirred anger among his pupils and a determination to work for change – emotions that were the forerunner of their political consciousness. During music lessons, he taught the children rousing patriotic songs. One was about the founding of the African National Congress (ANC) in Bloemfontein in 1912, and Winnie remembered the words for years after she had left school.
Columbus also taught them other songs about the history of the Xhosa people, songs that had been written by traditional composers, and at home Winnie listened to the songs her brothers had learned from the elders about the contract workers who went to work on the mines, and their sadness at having to leave their homes and families behind.
Whites who mistook the dignity and respect of tribal blacks for docility and subservience could not have been more wrong. Increasingly, black parents were realising that their children had to be educated if they were to have a future in the changing world. This often required back-breaking sacrifices by black families, because education was neither compulsory nor free, as it was for whites. Nevertheless, many black parents were prepared to endure whatever hardship was required to pay for their children’s education.
Winnie was fortunate that in her family an education was taken for granted, and the highlight of her existence continued to be the hours she spent at school. She took to heart her father’s repeated admonitions on how important it was to have a proper education and, moreover, to speak fluent English. But when she was in Standard 6, the highest class at her father’s school, her education was interrupted when Columbus told her he had been instructed by the department to close down the senior class because the school was overcrowded. With immediate effect, Standard 6 would become the responsibility of secondary schools, and Columbus’s school would only offer classes up to Standard 5 in future. Winnie and all the other senior pupils would have to leave at once.
Winnie was distraught. It was March, close to the end of the first term, and all the secondary schools in Bizana and neighbouring Ndunge were full. Columbus decided Winnie could work on the lands until the start of the next school year. She was heartbroken, but would not have dreamed of questioning her father. Every day for the next nine months she walked the long distance to a little stream to fetch a drum of water for cooking and washing, returning with the container balanced on her head, a difficult feat learned at an early age by all young black girls in rural areas. Winnie also herded cattle and sheep, milked the cows, tended crops and helped with the heavy work of preparing the fields for planting. There was no division of labour on grounds of gender – in fact, black women traditionally performed the lion’s share of manual labour, and still do, in rural areas. Winnie toiled industriously, waiting patiently for the year to pass until she could return to school and complete her education.
Luckily for her, Bantu Education – which was inferior in every way to that of the whites’ – was not introduced until the early 1950s, and she thus received as sound an education as any white child at the time. The standards were high and all schools followed the same syllabus, with an emphasis on academic subjects such as Latin, English, chemistry, physics and mathematics. With the introduction of Bantu Education, standards for black children dropped dramatically, with fewer subjects being taught and with a more parochial focus. Pupils no longer learned about the outside world, and over time fewer blacks were taught to speak proper English.
Amid the demands of daily life, the trauma of Gertrude’s death began to ebb, and her family gradually came to grips with the changes her loss had brought. Columbus struggled to feed and educate his nine children on a less than adequate salary, and worked hard to supplement his income from his farming enterprises. Between teaching and caring for his family, he had time for little else. But in their closed community it was inevitable that he, an attractive and educated man of influence and means, a man with status – and a widower to boot – would be noticed by the eligible women.
A new teacher, Miss Jane Zithutha, joined his school, and soon began to single Winnie out, spoiling her and giving her sweets. Then she started giving Winnie letters for Columbus. When Winnie told Makhulu, her grandmother nodded knowingly, deep in thought. Miss Zithutha rented a room about a kilometre from Winnie’s home, and one day, without warning, Columbus asked Winnie to go and live with her, because she was lonely and uneasy about living alone. When Makhulu heard this, she again nodded knowingly.
But Miss Zithutha would not become Mrs Madikizela. Nature at its most terrifying would prevent that. One day, while a fierce storm was brewing, Makhulu told Winnie to fetch the cattle from the field. The clouds were darkening fast, and in the distance there was thunder and lightning. As Winnie approached the kraal, there was a resounding explosion and a blinding flash. She heard Miss Zithutha scream as the tree in front of her hut crashed and fell on the structure. Within seconds the hut was enveloped in an orange blaze. Columbus was running and shouting, trying to get water to put out the fire, but it was too late, and Miss Zithutha was dead.
With their lives having barely settled back into a pattern after the untimely deaths of Vuyelwa and Gertrude, the Madikizelas were once again plunged into tragedy, with conflict soon to follow. Despite embracing aspects of the Western way of life, centuries of tradition could not be discarded without cost, and the family did not escape intrigue and upheaval as modern influence clashed with tribal custom.
Winnie’s brother Christopher, having completed his studies for a teacher’s diploma, was teaching in the district. One day he arrived home unexpectedly, bringing with him what appeared to be a person, completely wrapped in a blanket. It was early in the morning, and he asked a startled Winnie to check whether his bedroom was clean and the bed made up. She did as he requested, neither protesting nor asking any questions. Then he asked her to stand guard in front of their father’s room, and slipped the blanketed bundle into his own room. Winnie was asked to prepare food and to bring water for washing to the room, after which Christopher locked the door and left. Eerily, for the rest of the day no one said anything about the person locked in the room. Winnie suspected it was a woman, but couldn’t ask anyone. That evening, Christopher came home with one of their uncles, and they disappeared into Columbus’s room, where they talked for hours.
The next day, Christopher took the woman, still wrapped in the blanket, to another hut. Everyone pretended not to look, but Winnie caught a glimpse of a slender, fair hand. During the day a group of women went into the hut and hung a curtain, behind which the woman remained hidden for a week. During this time her relatives arrived, and had long meetings with the Madikizela elders. At the end of the week Winnie’s uncle returned with representatives from the kraal of Chief Lumayi, and it finally emerged that it was his daughter in the hut. More shocking was the news that she and Christopher were already married, despite the strict convention that children did not marry without their parents’ blessing.
Winnie was too young to be told why there had been no wedding, with the compulsory family tradition of a church ceremony and the bride in a white dress and veil. But there appeared little else to do except celebrate the strange marriage. An ox was slaughtered, and the young, very beautiful bride emerged from behind the curtain in a long green printed robe and elegant traditional headdress. She was fair skinned, as Gertrude had been, but Columbus appeared not entirely happy with the situation, and Christopher and his bride soon left and set up their own home. Winnie surmised that her father was probably upset because they had eloped and married without consulting him. Xhosa custom dictated that marriages be arranged by the tribal elders, and it was uncommon for young people to make their own decisions and arrangements. Some years later, when she was confronted with a similar situation, Winnie would be reminded of the dramatic circumstances surrounding her brother’s marriage.
The family’s bad fortune continued. An aunt fell ill, and although they nursed her lovingly, she died. Then Winnie’s sister Irene took ill and was sent home from boarding school. She seemed possessed of strange spirits, wailing constantly and babbling unintelligibly while her body went into spasms. To prevent her from harming herself, her distressed family had to tie her to the bed.
Columbus, not knowing how to deal with his daughter’s affliction, went to fetch the inyanga [witch doctor] Flathela, who was known to see and talk to witches, and could exorcise evil spirits. Flathela said Irene’s problem was linked to the entire family. He put muti [protective charms] around the house, burned strange objects in Irene’s room and ordered everyone to shave their heads. Placing the family in a semicircle formation, he made incisions on their cheeks and rubbed a black substance into the cuts. He pressed on Irene’s head with the palm of his hand and spoke in a strange language. From the tone of his voice, he seemed to be pleading and scolding in turn. Then he beat Irene, who cried in a voice that was not her own until she collapsed and lay still, fast asleep. Flathela said he had exorcised the witches – and when Irene awoke, she was well.
Irene’s affliction led to an unexpected reversal of Winnie’s fortune. Columbus arranged for her to take her sister’s place at the school in Ndunge, which was also where Granny lived, and during the school terms she stayed with her maternal grandparents.
In September, almost six months after her education had come to an abrupt halt, Winnie was back in the classroom, facing new challenges. She had fallen behind the other children, and was shocked to learn that her class was about to write revision tests in preparation for the year-end examinations. But she was not too disappointed by her results. There were 200 Standard 6 pupils at Ndunge, divided into three classes, and Winnie was placed fifty-eighth in her group of seventy-two. For the rest of the year she worked even more diligently, and two months later was one of only twenty-two pupils in her group to pass the final examinations. Winnie was overjoyed, as was Columbus, who knew better than most what odds she had overcome, and he slaughtered a sheep in her honour – something he had never done for any of his daughters before. Ever conscious of her mother’s rejection, Winnie was deeply grateful for her father’s recognition.
Now it was time for her to go to boarding school at Emfundisweni in Flagstaff, a hundred miles from home. Winnie packed two steel trunks that she would take with her, one containing her clothes, the other a considerable amount of food, which Makhulu said was a waste of money, but Columbus seemed deaf to her criticism.
It was the start of a new and exciting period in Winnie’s life. For the first time she would have to wear shoes, and her father took her to Bizana to buy them, along with the black and white uniform she would wear at school. As she tried her shoes on for the first time, Winnie embarked on a lifelong fascination with clothes, even though wearing the new footwear was unexpectedly painful. Her feet, toughened by years of going barefoot in the veld, rebelled against confinement. For quite some time she experienced acute discomfort, discarding the shoes whenever she could to spare her aching feet. As a reward for her good marks, Columbus also bought her an overcoat. At home, the children wrapped themselves in blankets to keep warm.
The coat was far too large for her, but like most of the children she knew, she was used to wearing clothes that didn’t fit properly. Limited resources forced parents to pass clothes down from one child to the next, and when they did buy something new, it was usually a few sizes too big to allow the child to grow into the garment and make it last as long as possible. Winnie treasured her coat and wore it for the next few winters, studiously ignoring other children’s sniggers at her oversized apparel.
Inevitably, venturing into the outside world meant exposure to the racial discrimination that was the reality of life in South Africa. It was impossible to ignore and touched every facet of black people’s lives. All the shops in Bizana, even those catering exclusively to the black population, were owned and run by whites, and customers from the outlying areas might walk for a day or more to reach them. Some of the Pondo tribesmen rode into Bizana on horseback, proud and erect; while others made the long journey on foot, walking for a day or more, their wives often toting a baby nestled snugly on their backs, other children in tow. They arrived tired, hungry and covered in dust, but there was nowhere in Bizana for them to refresh themselves, nowhere they could sit down and have a meal, not even an outdoors area where the exhausted travellers could rest their feet. White arrogance made no allowances for the dignity, wisdom and practical experience of people from other cultures. It took many decades before whites even began to grasp that some of the blacks they treated with such disdain were people of stature in their own communities, where they were respected, even revered. The tribesmen were dignified people, and when they went to town the men tended to their business, met in small groups in the street to exchange news and share views; while their wives talked and gossiped with one another before setting out, once more, on the long journey home.
After shopping for her new clothes, Winnie and her father went to buy food at one of the stores. It was crowded with Pondo tribesmen wrapped in colourful traditional blankets. As Winnie waited for Columbus to be served, she noticed a tribesman buying a loaf of bread, some sugar and a cold drink, which he took to share with his wife, who was trying in vain to soothe her wailing baby. Clearly exhausted, the woman sat down on the floor in a corner of the store and put the baby to her breast. The man squatted on his haunches next to her and broke off pieces of bread for them to eat. Without warning, the white youth who was serving Columbus started shouting and charged at the man and his wife in the corner. He yelled at them to get out, that he wouldn’t have kaffirs making a mess in his shop, and kicked at them and their food.
Winnie was appalled. She fully expected the shop owners, apparently the boy’s parents, to intervene, but they just laughed. The buzz of conversation died abruptly, and no one uttered a word. Winnie looked expectantly at her father, who always spoke out strongly against any wrongdoing. Surely he would say something?
But Columbus, too, was silent. He had taught all his children to respect others and to have pride in their race, and Winnie could see that he was deeply disturbed at the humiliation meted out to his kinsman, so she could not understand why he said nothing. Only in later years, once she understood the complex dynamics of the relationship between the races, did she realise that had her father spoken, he might have made the situation worse.
The incident left an indelible impression on Winnie and made her aware, for the first time, that her father was fallible. In time, she would recognise that one of apartheid’s by-products was that from an early age, black children saw their parents and families humiliated without making any attempt to protest or defend themselves. For children from families who taught them respect and compassion for fellow human beings, this was confusing. They could not understand why their parents were so often treated so shabbily by whites, and parents were at a loss to explain that they had done nothing to deserve such treatment, meted out on no other basis but the colour of their skin. It was an injustice that created an entire nation of people who expected to be victimised and brutalised, and in the long term cowered and did almost anything to avoid situations that might lead to humiliation and punishment, accepting servility as the norm. The pent-up frustration of generations would reach breaking point in Soweto in 1976 – but that was a long way off, and twelve-year-old Winnie Madikizela could not even begin to imagine her role in the future South Africa.
In January, with beating heart, she boarded a bus in the company of other children on their way to Flagstaff. She spent three years at Emfundisweni, where the only diversion from her studies was a flirtation with the idea of having a boyfriend. All the girls in her class wrote notes to the boys they liked, but there was no physical contact, and the relationships were confined to furtive glances exchanged in church.
Bit by bit, Winnie’s character was taking shape. Outwardly, she was still an unsophisticated country girl, but her parents had laid a solid ground for her development: Gertrude, with her strict religious morality and uncompromising discipline; Columbus, by sharing his passion for acquiring knowledge and skills, through his pride in his people, and by his example of compassion and assistance for those in their community who were in need.
Not surprisingly, she passed her junior certificate (Standard 8) with distinction, and when she went home for the holidays Columbus surprised her with news of his ambitious plans for her. It had been clear to him for some time that Winnie possessed both the ability and motivation for further study, and he was pondering the best route for her to follow. Initially, he wanted her to go to Fort Hare University, but a nephew who had studied there warned against it. He said there were too few female students, with the result that the young men were always pursuing them, and it was not the right place for Winnie. So, mindful of her natural compassion for others, Columbus decided on the Hofmeyr School of Social Work in Johannesburg, the only institution that trained black social workers. But Winnie had two more years of school to complete, and she would have to do even better than before in order to be accepted as a student.
Those years would be spent further afield at Shawbury, a Methodist mission school at Qumbu. Like many of the other pupils, Winnie would become politicised there. The teachers were all Fort Hare graduates and members of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), and Winnie was strongly influenced by their philosophy. She had also read about the ANC in Zonk magazine.
Not surprisingly, her favourite teacher was a lot like Columbus, and taught his pupils about the struggle for equality in much the same way that Columbus had taught history. The two men shared a high regard for the Germans, and Winnie’s teacher venerated Bismarck. He would make his way down the long corridor to the senior classroom bellowing: ‘The unification of Germany, Bismarck believed, could not be attained through parliamentary speeches and debates, but by means of b-l-o-o-d and iron.’1 He always reached the classroom as he got to ‘b-l-o-o-d’, and entered to gales of laughter from the pupils.
The struggle in South Africa, he taught, was no different. Winnie left Shawbury convinced that her people would win their freedom only by means of blood and iron. While she hated the name Winifred, she thought the diminutive, Winnie, would serve as a constant reminder of her people’s oppression, and spur her to action for change.
Shawbury also saw the start of Winnie’s development into the striking woman who would capture the heart of more than one of South Africa’s most prominent men. Sometimes, however, her blossoming beauty drew unwelcome attention. The first time this happened was on a school outing to Tsolo. The bus stopped at Flagstaff, and the pupils were stretching their legs when one of Winnie’s friends pointed out that a dwarf was staring at her. He approached her and asked if she knew how pretty she was. Winnie was dumbstruck and had no idea how to react, but when he gave her a 10-shilling note and said it was the first instalment for her lobola [bride price], she was near panic. Before he left, he told her she would be his wife as soon as she was fully grown. Afterwards, her friends told her the man was called Khotso, that he was wealthy and something of a legend in the district, and already had many wives. Winnie was mortified but her friends laughed, and then helped her spend the money.
The next such encounter was far more serious, and affected her schoolwork so badly that she slipped from the top of her class to thirteenth place, something that had never happened before. Her distress was exacerbated when Columbus issued a reprimand for her poor performance, and threatened that his plans for her would have to be abandoned if she didn’t pull up her socks. She ached to tell him the root of her problem, but was too ashamed. The trouble was that she looked older than her fifteen years, and was sometimes even mistaken for a teacher. The assistant principal had noticed the tall, slender young woman, and began making advances to her. As head prefect, it was Winnie’s job to fetch the keys to the bookcases from him, and one day he pressed a tightly rolled cash note into her hand. She felt so humiliated that she burst into tears. When he continued giving her money, she decided to confide in her fellow head prefect, Ezra Malizo Ndamase, who was also supposed to be her boyfriend, though this meant little more than working together on some school projects and sharing their duties as prefects. When Winnie told Ezra what had happened, she started crying, and a bewildered Ezra was too embarrassed to comfort her. He never said a word about the matter, and Winnie regretted having told him.
The assistant principal taught three subjects to Winnie’s class, and she found it impossible to concentrate on any of them. Disappointed by Ezra’s reaction, she did not want to tell any of her other classmates, and dared not confide in her father or the matron, Mrs Mtshali. The matron was something of a martinet who regularly inspected the girls, and if she found anything untoward, would make the offender lie naked on the floor and beat her with a whip. Winnie was forced to help her strip the girls and found the duty mortifying, thinking it a shameful way to treat a girl. She had no doubt that if she told Mrs Mtshali about the money she would be accused of encouraging the teacher, and be beaten, naked, on the floor as well. The disgrace would be harder to bear than the pain, so she kept the awful secret to herself.
Generally, though, life at Shawbury was stimulating and challenging. Winnie was popular with her peers, partly because she was always willing to help them where she could. One of her school friends, Nomawethu Mbere, would later recall how Winnie, having abandoned her youthful rebellion against religion, took the lead in organising their church attendance on Sundays. Nomawethu looked up to Winnie, whom she saw as reserved, even introvert, but with obvious leadership qualities and a remarkable talent for disciplining other pupils. Winnie was two classes ahead of Nomawethu but regularly helped the younger girls with their assignments, so much so that one teacher admonished Nomawethu for being too far ahead in the curriculum, thanks to Winnie’s coaching.
Shawbury was one of a number of mission schools in the Transkei run by various religious denominations. When the National Party government introduced its Bantu Education programme, most of these schools closed down rather than apply the lower standards. But many of the young blacks of Winnie’s generation emerged from the mission schools well equipped to make their mark in both South African society and the liberation struggle.
Had there been any scholarships for blacks, Winnie would undoubtedly have been an excellent candidate for one, but Columbus had to pay all her tuition fees from his sparse income. It was a huge financial burden, but he was determined that she would get a decent education. His daughter Nancy noticed that he was struggling, and made a personal sacrifice on Winnie’s behalf. The two sisters had always been close, and after their mother’s death the bond between them deepened even more. Nancy shared their father’s confidence in Winnie, and she left school and began to take casual jobs that brought in a small amount of money. Most of it went to Winnie for pocket money, and as soon as she was able, Winnie repaid Nancy’s generosity by sending her the fare to Johannesburg and arranging for her to train as a nurse at the Bridgeman Memorial Hospital.
After the National Party came to power in 1948, South Africa found itself increasingly in the stranglehold of Afrikaner nationalism. Laws drafted with the sole intent of segregating black and white were rushed through parliament, provoking an inevitable backlash from an outraged black community. The early 1950s were momentous years in South African politics, and Winnie was at Shawbury in 1951 and 1952. It was not her marriage to Nelson Mandela that made Winnie an activist, but the germination of seeds planted many years earlier by her father and teachers.
At Shawbury, she made her first acquaintance with political debate. Some of the teachers belonged to the Society of Young Africa, the so-called Conventionists, a theoretical, academic organisation that held no appeal for ordinary people, but was greatly admired by the senior pupils, who had no contact with any other political movement.
Their political awareness shifted into higher gear in 1952, when a young lawyer named Nelson Mandela – who was rapidly emerging as a leader in the liberation struggle – orchestrated what became known as the Defiance Campaign. Winnie and her friends knew all about this legend in the making, and about other ANC leaders whom they idolised, sang songs and talked about for hours. The campaign was to be a non-violent protest against the ‘Europeans Only’ signs in public areas such as post offices and railway stations, and against the newly introduced pass laws and urban curfews for blacks. Anyone taking part was inviting arrest, and many chose imprisonment over bail or an admission of guilt fine.
At Shawbury, the pupils gushed with pride and excitement when they read in Zonk and Drum, popular magazines among blacks, that 8 500 people were prepared to flout the discriminatory laws. Of those, 8 000 were arrested. Some of the Shawbury pupils decided that they, too, wanted to defy authority by boycotting their classes, citing inadequate facilities and unsatisfactory hostel conditions.
Winnie found herself in a predicament. Her final examinations were looming, and mindful of the sacrifices Columbus and Nancy had made on her behalf, she knew her first obligation was to complete her education. As head prefect she was also expected to help maintain discipline, and although her sympathies lay with her fellow pupils, she showed a wisdom and maturity way beyond her years, and decided she would not take part in the boycott.
The Shawbury ‘uprising’ made news throughout the country, with newspapers carrying front-page pictures of protesting girls in school uniforms. The fact that schoolchildren had become involved in the protests sparked an outcry from whites, and caused outrage and consternation among the authorities, who were already uneasy about the Defiance Campaign. The Education Department acted ruthlessly and expelled a large number of pupils. Only those due to write the matriculation exams, and who were not among the agitators, were allowed to remain at school. The rest were told to reapply for admission in the new year.
Winnie left Shawbury with a first-class pass, and when she arrived home for the holidays learned the happy news that after six years as a widower, Columbus had decided to marry again. Winnie’s new stepmother was an unmarried schoolmistress, Hilda Nophikela, who was warm and kind and welcomed into the family by all the Madikizela children. A special bond developed between Winnie and Hilda, but Makhulu was far from impressed. She refused to go and meet her son’s bride-to-be, insisting that Hilda should come to her – clearly intending to slight the newcomer. She told the children bitingly that Hilda was interested only in Columbus’s money, and would take what was rightfully their inheritance. Hilda refused to be drawn into the conflict and went to Makhulu’s house as ordered, wearing her veil. It was tradition to slaughter a beast in honour of the meeting, but Makhulu shocked the family by halting the ceremony, declaring that this union did not warrant the ritual slaughter of an animal.
For the first time, Winnie and her siblings realised that their strong-willed grandmother’s troubled relationship with their mother had little or nothing to do with Gertrude, and everything to do with Makhulu’s prejudices and preconceptions.
Fortunately, the unpleasantness was soon pushed into the background as Winnie and her family became caught up in planning for her further studies in Johannesburg. She adored and trusted her father, accepting without question that he had made the right choices for her, and was confident that she was ready to step into the adult world.
She was, in fact, already a quite remarkable young woman. Columbus had sown the seeds of political awareness and concern for others, but it was the female members of her family that had shaped her other traits. From Makhulu she inherited an imperious dignity, and from Granny, her strict adherence to hygiene and love of beautiful clothes. Gertrude had moulded the basis of her faith, tenacity and strength of character, and her Aunt Phyllis, a teacher who had studied at Fort Hare, would play an important role in her future.
Her mother’s sister was the first secretary of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and while Winnie saw little of her during childhood, they would form a strong bond once Winnie went to Johannesburg. She even lived with Aunt Phyllis on the East Rand for a time.
By the age of eighteen, Winnie had been exposed to controversy, conflict and tragedy, and already understood the need to be both tough and caring. As an adult, those qualities would expand into grace, empathy, charisma and great courage.