{"id":56332,"date":"2026-04-17T04:39:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/?p=56332"},"modified":"2026-04-17T04:39:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:39:21","slug":"winnie-madikizela-mandelas-unforgettable-legacy-told-at-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/2026\/04\/17\/winnie-madikizela-mandelas-unforgettable-legacy-told-at-last\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela&#8217;s unforgettable legacy told at last"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p><h2>Winnie Madikizela-Mandela&#8217;s life story revealed in a 7-part Netflix series, 12 years in the making.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Winnie Madikizela-Mandela comes back to life next Thursday in a seven-part series on Netflix \u2013 that has taken 12 years to produce. <\/p>\n<p><em>The Trials of Winnie Mandela<\/em> has been a passion project for her granddaughters Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway and Swati Dlamini-Mandela, good and bad, with tears, laughter and joy along the way. <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-granddaughters-share-their-grandmother-s-story\">Granddaughters share their grandmother\u2019s story<\/h2>\n<p>No part of the \u201cMother of the Nation\u2019s\u201d life has been left unexamined, which is precisely what she wanted, they say. But, at the same time, it is also a personal journey for the women to whom Madikizela-Mandela was first and foremost their grandmother. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like to remember her as the best person I ever knew. She was my confidant, the person that I could rely on. I wish when I have my own grandchildren, that I adore them and love them as much as I did,\u201d says Dlamini-Manaway. <\/p>\n<p>But Madikizela-Mandela was also owned by the rest of the country, which Swati understands. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer legacy is the love of her people and the love of her community. Our grandmother was the last politician who lived and stayed in Soweto. She insisted on staying among her people.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Madikizela-Mandela insisted, says Dlamini-Mandela, that her whole story be told, irrespective of how difficult it was. <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-madikizela-mandela-s-story-must-be-told-no-matter-how-difficult-it-was\">Madikizela-Mandela\u2019s story must be told, no matter how difficult it was<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cMy grandmother gave us permission to go there. She wasn\u2019t afraid. Everything that you see in this series was there at her insistence. She was the one who said, \u2018go, get this person, go and interview this person\u2019. We had her approval and we had her input every step of the way. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe told her we were not going to do this project unless she signed off on every single thing that we do. And she did.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The project had its genesis in a prison diary. David Soggot, the lawyer who represented Madikizela-Mandela during her detention and trials, had encouraged her to keep a journal and when he died in 2011, his widow Greta returned it to Madikizela-Mandela. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was the day of my niece\u2019s unveiling of her tombstone,\u201d says Dlamini-Mandela, \u201cand my grandmother came to me and she said: \u2018Sweetie, I have this piece of work that\u2019s been returned to me. I don\u2019t know what to do with it. I\u2019m giving it to you for you to decide what you do.&#8217;\u201d Two years later, it was published as <em>491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323\/69. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Ichikowitz Family Foundation approached Madikizela-Mandela to turn it into a documentary as part of the foundation\u2019s African Oral History Archive project, which has been recording the stories of South Africa\u2019s leading figures who were instrumental in the country\u2019s journey to democracy, since the early 1990s. <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-her-story-in-her-own-words\">Her story in her own words<\/h3>\n<p>The importance of the project for the sisters is that it is their grandmother telling her life story in her own words. They have no doubt Madikizela-Mandela, who died in 2018, would be proud. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s never been done before. She told us that in telling this story we would be ensuring that the women also have a say in the history of this country,\u201d says Dlamini-Manaway. <\/p>\n<p>Her sister agrees: \u201cWe\u2019ve done a disservice to the youth of this country and the people of this country by not telling our stories enough. Our grandfather said that if we don\u2019t tell the stories and if we don\u2019t remember, we run the risk of going back there, and that\u2019s not what we want.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The title of the series <em>The Trials of Winnie Mandela<\/em> replaced the working title of <em>In Her Own Words<\/em>, because it plays on both Madikizela-Mandela\u2019s given name Nomzamo and reflects the life she lived. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur grandmother spent her life on trial and there are many women today who are on trial in different trials in their lives. This documentary will be a beacon of hope for them,\u201d says Dlamini-Manaway. <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-lessons-apply\">Lessons apply <\/h3>\n<p>The sisters believe the lessons of their grandmother\u2019s life apply as easily to a young girl in Soweto to a woman in Ghana, or even a CEO in a Manhattan office. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you watch the documentary she talks about the meaning of her name, she says, \u2018Why would my parents give me such a name when it means trials and I\u2019m on trial, and then I\u2019ve spent most of my life on trial\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>They believe her story is even more relevant today than it\u2019s ever been, but it must be protected. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s the mother of this nation. We don\u2019t want it to be lost because she sacrificed so much of her life to give to this country. There would be no Nelson without Winnie.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n#Winnie #MadikizelaMandelas #unforgettable #legacy #told<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Winnie Madikizela-Mandela&#8217;s life story revealed in a 7-part Netflix series, 12 years in the making. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela comes back to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mzansi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56334,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56332\/revisions\/56334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}