A LIFE OF MANY TALES
AUBREY MATSHIQI: No need to supplant one Winnie story with another
To a certain degree Mama Winnie was a victim of our gullibility
For personal and political reasons I thought it prudent to adopt a vow of silence during the 10 days of mourning. Out of fear, I decided not to write or say anything about the legacy of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. There are many things I found disturbing about elements of the Mama Winnie narrative in the days leading up to her funeral. First, there was an attempt to demonise her through, among others, an attempt to foreground what one of our 24-hour news channels referred to as "difficult moments". Second, and to the extent that there was a need to respond to a single story that sought to reduce her life to that of evil incarnate, this was drowned out by the amplification of another: the single story of courage, bravery, suffering and pain. In the end, what dominated the period of mourning was a clash of single stories.One story seeks to lionise uncritically and the counter-story is about uncritical demonisation. Both are dismal because they ignore the fact that the story of Madikize...
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