ANC CAUCUS MOURNS SAD PASSING OF MAMA WINNIE
Picture sourced from zbc.co.zw
The African National Congress (ANC) in Parliament joins South Africans in mourning the sad passing of ANC stalwart and liberation icon, comrade Mama Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela-Mandela.
The Mother of Our Nation, as she was affectionately known, sacrificed her life for the liberation of our people. At the time of her passing, she was serving the people of South Africa as an ANC Member of Parliament. She had previously served as South Africa’s first Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture, Science and Technology in 1994 in the first democratic government under the leadership of Tata Nelson Mandela.
As the ANC in Parliament, though we submitted numerous motions for leave of absence on her behalf owing to her ill-health, which parliament gladly granted; we remained hopeful and optimistic that she would come back and continue to lead us in Parliament.
The ANC and the people of South Africa have greatly imbibed from her leadership & wisdom, her selfless sacrifice and her tenacity against all odds that the Apartheid regime threw at her. She defied Apartheid banishment, detentions without trial and the pain of being a mother and father to her children because of her husband’s incarceration.
It is her undying love for her people, her commitment to the freedom of our nation, and her sacrifices in the struggle that endeared her to all South Africans, black and white.
Even though, she was an ANC MP, she remained a leader in her own right. She served the ANC and her nation until the very end. We owe our freedom to her and many other heroines and heroes like her.
We dip our revolutionary flag in celebration of one of the greatest and most cherished daughters of the soil.
Parliament will honour her with a condolence motion that will be debated in the National Assembly as it is customary. Lala ngoxolo Mama Winnie, mother of the nation.
