ADDRESS BY ANC PRESIDENT CYRIL RAMAPHOSA AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR COMRADE ZINDZISWA NOBUTHO MANDELA
16 JULY 2020
Members of the Mandela Family, Fellow mourners, Comrades and Friend,
Today is the saddest of days — for our glorious movement, the African National Congress, and for the people of South Africa.
Just days before we commemorate the birthday of the father of our nation, President Nelson Mandela, we have lost his youngest daughter, Cde Zindzi Mandela.
Though it is always sad to lose a loved one, that her passing was so unexpected, and while she was in the prime of her life, has come as a great shock to us all.
The leaders and members of the African National Congress are in deep mourning.
We offer our profound and deepest condolences to the Mandela family on their great loss.
We have lost a devoted activist, a patriot and a fearless freedom fighter whose life was committed to the liberation of this country.
She was a much-loved sister, a caring mother and a devoted grandmother.
At the same time we pay tribute to a life dedicated to the cause of the people of South Africa.
She was born to parents who were icons of our struggle, lzithwalandwe Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
She was born in 1960, the year of the Sharpeville Massacre.
Hers was a childhood lived under the harshest of conditions, as the apartheid regime intensified its repressive laws in a bid to break the fighting spirit of our people.
She was just over a year old when her father was arrested, and witnessed her mother being harassed and intimidated by the apartheid police.
From her very earliest days she developed an insatiable thirst for freedom, justice and equality and was propelled into a life of resistance.
During the long and dark years of her father's imprisonment, Zindzi stood with her mother and sister to keep the flame of his memory alive.
Who can forget the moment at the Jabulani Amphitheatre in 1985 when she read out a letter from her father rejecting PW Botha's conditional offer of release.
In this letter, Madiba was unequivocal — freedom meant dismantling apartheid, introducing universal voting rights, freeing political prisoners and removing bans on political parties, artists and politicians who lived in exile, allowing them to return to the country of their birth.
Zindzi captured the hearts and minds of all freedom-loving South Africans as the message was broadcast to the world.
As a young woman, she stood as a symbol of hope and strength to a traumatised nation.
It was in the same year that, despite the difficulties of her life, she managed to obtain her law degree, inspiring young women everywhere to further their education despite the harsh conditions under which they lived.
It was her dream to pursue a career as a writer.
In 1978, she published a volume of her poems, "Black As I am", which opened with this poem about her father:
A tree is chopped down And the fruit was scattered I cried...
On account of being a Mandela, Zindzi did not have a choice but to be associated with the liberation struggle.
But it was her own choice to immerse herself in that struggle. She was a fearless activist and a leader in her own right.
She served as the deputy president of the Soweto Youth Congress and was a member of the Release Mandela Campaign.
She was recruited as an underground operative of Umkhonto we Sizwe, and worked with the communities of Weilers and Orange Farm to launch the first ANC branch with lsithwalandwe Walter Sisulu in the 1990s.
Zindzi was her father's pride.
In a letter Madiba wrote to her in 1987 he noted that, "he heard from an acquaintance that she was as strong as a rock".
He went on: "That is just the kind of remark a father would like to hear about his beloved child. I literally swelled with pride and satisfaction."
Zindzi's activism did not end when democracy came.
She remained committed to realising a South Africa founded on equality and human dignity, and did not hesitate to speak forthrightly about the many challenges our country faced.
She believed true reconciliation could only come about when the formerly advantaged acknowledged their privilege, and made amends to the formerly oppressed.
She repeatedly called for a shift of mindset on the part of all South Africans to be conscious of the plight of the disadvantaged and to play their part building a society in which all people are free from want and hunger.
We draw many lessons from her life.
On the role of sacrifice, empathy and compassion.
We learn of the necessity of commitment to a noble cause, difficult though the road may be.
We understand that though the harsh days of apartheid are behind us, many challenges remain.
We still face the momentous task of overcoming poverty, underdevelopment and the scourge of inequality.
We share a common and collective duty to expend our every effort in realising the promise of an equal society to which liberation fighters like Zindzi Mandela devoted their lives.
Today we face a new enemy in the form of coronavirus.
Its effects have been devastating on lives, livelihoods and communities.
It has left none of us unaffected.
Just yesterday we received the news that Zindzi too had tested positive for the virus.
I would like to thank the Mandela family for the very important gesture of sharing this information with the nation.
This is a virus that affects us all, and there should never be any stigma around people who become infected.
In doing so you are helping to encourage social acceptance for sufferers. At such a time what they need most is our love and care.
This gesture is a final act of solidarity in the life of a woman who devoted her life to the cause of her fellow South Africans.
Zindzi has departed this life, but her legacy lives on in our minds and in our hearts.
History will record her great contribution and her great sacrifices.
And, for these, we shall forever be grateful.
Lala ngoxolo Madiba.
Nqolomsila.
Yemyem.
I thank you.
Issued by the ANC, 16 July 2020
