Monday, 2 April 2018

TRIBUTE TO NOMZAMO WINIFRED MADIKIZELA (WINNIE MANDELA) - Prof. Verene Shepherd



On behalf of the Centre for Reparation Research at the University of the West Indies, I pay tribute to Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela [Winnie] Mandela, this anti-apartheid warrior woman who has now transitioned to be with the ancestors; a woman so loved by the people of Jamaica that when news broke of her divorce from Nelson Mandela, the Mandela Park and Highway were renamed by the Jamaican folk The Winnie Mandela Park and Highway respectively.  So many of us have been inspired by her activism, her passion, her elegance, her eloquence and deep understanding of what a post-colonial society should be. As we in Jamaica continue to pour out our tributes to her, we would do well to remember her words  on economic freedom spoken at a Luncheon in her honour in Douglasville, Georgia, USA in 2010: “Political freedom without economic freedom  is just half way the road…. you cannot say you are totally free until you are economically free”. May her words also resonate with the policy-makers of South Africa who must complete the anti-apartheid struggle by making reparatory justice for those scarred and deprived of resources an economic imperative. May the soul of this Mother of the South African Nation who suffered so much in the cause of Black liberation, rest in power.
        Verene A. Shepherd
        Director, Centre for Reparation Research, UWI
        <centreforreparationresearchuwi@yahoo.com>

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