winnie mandela: “the rainbow nation is a total myth”

In the wake of Winnie Mandela’s death, it’s ultra important to remember the real civil right’s icon’s opinions and perspectives and the contradictions held between her and her titan of an ex-husband, Nelson Mandela. Many forget that Nelson’s imprisonment in South Africa wasn’t just a violent time for him, his then-wife Winnie was beaten, tortured, harassed, arrested by the apartheid regime, too. And while they’re experiences with brutality during this period were shared, the two diverged on what was necessary to move South Africa past apartheid. Where Nelson’s priority was reconciliation and peace, Winnie was focused on justice first: redistribution of the land, economic justice, etc. Believing that equal playing fields were necessary to progress before anything else.

And last September, a few days before her 81st birthday, Winnie spoke with JeuneAfrique about the legacy of peace and unity her ex-husband pioneered for, a post-apartheid South Africa that would later be referred to as a “Rainbow Nation”: