Winnie Mandela was the leader of the international feminist movement. Her white sisters will not say it, but when they saw the strength of Winnie they became infatuated with it. They were so amazed they wanted to emulate her.
Fortunately, Winnie Mandela did not engaged in open rebellion against her husband, the principle on which modern day feminism was started on; however and contrary, she fought side by side with her husband, for the liberation of a people. She showed the world by her actions that a women's voice is just as important, just as loud and just as powerful as her male counterparts in the struggle. At the time she did not know it, but to the world at that era she being a woman her arrest and beatings was seen as a travesty against common decency. Her arrest was just as important as the men arrest were, in some case in that era, it may have been even more important than the arrest of men. For Winnie being a female; she was responsible for invoking more sympathy and compassion form the outside world than the abuse of the men in the struggle did.
Winnie Mandela make the world ashamed; when they see that the Apartheid system, was so wicked that a dignified, educated woman had to put down her grace and become a ruffian clench her teeth and endure the abuses of a system that though it nothing to abuse women and children and hid their abuses. She took the abuse like everyone else; today we watch some of her clip that make it out of South.
However once out of South Africa, there was no guarantee that a news producer will see the value in that clip and therefore expose to the world the evil that resides/hides behind the Lilly white smile of the wicked system of apartheid. A system that was responsible for the oppression of the majority black population in that country.
A system Winnie Mandela spent the grater part of her life, alongside her husband, with a hammer in hand; pounding away at it. Like a strongly built wall the constant pounding seems hopeless, but they continue to hammer away each day, ignoring the lack of change in the structure they pound, ignoring the exhaustion that hopelessness brings; they pound, ignoring abuse from a government who was to rich and well organized to fall they kept pounding. Although tired, discouraged and broken they kept pounding away; until the system begin to crack give way under the constant pounding. It was the tears of the Innocent and the blood of the just that flow at the hand of the wicked that erode its foundation and saw the infallible fell.
Winnie Mandela was there to see it. Her tears was not shed in vain, her efforts was rewarded by the fact that another generation will not have to spent their life changing a system that she could have change and was to afraid to act. She acted and she changes the system, and now she rest knowing that she was one of the people who pound at the indestructible system and she saw it fall.
A system Winnie Mandela spent the grater part of her life, alongside her husband, with a hammer in hand; pounding away at it. Like a strongly built wall the constant pounding seems hopeless, but they continue to hammer away each day, ignoring the lack of change in the structure they pound, ignoring the exhaustion that hopelessness brings; they pound, ignoring abuse from a government who was to rich and well organized to fall they kept pounding. Although tired, discouraged and broken they kept pounding away; until the system begin to crack give way under the constant pounding. It was the tears of the Innocent and the blood of the just that flow at the hand of the wicked that erode its foundation and saw the infallible fell.
Winnie Mandela was there to see it. Her tears was not shed in vain, her efforts was rewarded by the fact that another generation will not have to spent their life changing a system that she could have change and was to afraid to act. She acted and she changes the system, and now she rest knowing that she was one of the people who pound at the indestructible system and she saw it fall.
Not even the fall of the evil apartheid system, was enough to heal the pain, to restore the lost, to mend the wounds and to restore the traumatized. for the damage have already been done. But more than the destructiveness that apartheid cause, we must not fail to see the positive side of the struggle against evil. Characters have been cemented, strength have been gain and a new breath of people have been born. A breath of people who have learn what it is like and how to fight for justice, and Winnie Mandela was one of their teachers.
Winnie Mandela's work, her contribution can not be measured, a value can not be place on her efforts and neither can her contribution can be compared with or to anyone else's. for Winnie Mandela give her all to the struggle and she fought on the side of right against evil. She did it all, not just to make south Africa a better place, but to make the world a better place, a place where equal rights and Justice will always prevailed regardless of; a place where we are put to shame, if we as a community, or a people, ever sit back and helplessly or with harden heart watch the exploitation and or the oppression of even one person. I proudly look to the future and I say: God bless and long live the memory of Winnie Mandela.
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