More than 30 years after the 1994 democratic breakthrough, South Africa is running out of a window of opportunity to truthfully reckon with its apartheid past, denying future generations an opportunity of genuine reconciliation, the executive director on the Netflix series on the life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has warned.
Ivor Ichikowitz, who together with his team, spent 11 years interviewing her and other key role players in her life, said South Africa is struggling to have an honest conversation about its ugly history, arguing too many of the main actors of the past are dying without having accounted for atrocities.
“The biggest challenge is that as generous as Winnie was in telling her story, there were people I would have loved to have featured in the series who didn’t want to tell their side of the story. Thirty plus years on, the time has come for South Africans to be able to be honest with each other and celebrate our successes and acknowledge our failures,” Ichikowitz told Business Day.
“If we are going to move forward and achieve the nirvana we were all hoping for, we have to look at our failures and ensure we don’t repeat the things that led to them. One of the biggest challenges for me is that I would have loved to have had more honest reflection on what had gone wrong.
“There is a sentiment in South Africa that certain things should remain buried. We have had an ugly past. There are no saints and no absolute sinners in the story of South Africa. The only way we can deal with the past is to be honest about it. The window is closing because not everyone is prepared to be honest.”
The Trials of Winnie Mandela, which began airing on Netflix last month, has thrust her back into the national psyche, with her life dividing public opinion in death as it did when she was alive.
The release of The Trials of Winnie Mandela, which has shot up the Netflix charts, comes as South Africa continues to grapple with its polarising past.
A year ago President Cyril Ramaphosa established a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate alleged political interference and delays in prosecuting apartheid-era crimes referred by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
The inquiry is chaired by retired Constitutional Court judge Sisi Khampepe. One of the tasks of the commission is to establish whether attempts were made to influence members of the South African Police Service or National Prosecuting Authority not to investigate or prosecute cases identified by the TRC.
Former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma have launched a legal bid to have Khampepe removed as chair of the inquiry over allegations of bias.
Madikizela-Mandela was one of the main protagonists at the TRC, where she was questioned about the murder of teenage activist Stompie Seipei in the late 1980s and other criminal activities allegedly perpetrated by the Mandela Football Club.
The club’s coach Jerry Richardson testified at the TRC that his orders to torture Seipei came from Madikizela-Mandela, an allegation she denied.
Ichikowitz said she was a convenient villain for those who refuse to own up to the atrocities of the apartheid regime.
“Everyone knows her as a villain, but the truth is that she was a very complex individual. When we went through the journey of carving out the series, we realised there weren’t absolutes. There was a very soft centre to this very hard woman,” Ichikowitz said.
“But there was also tremendous hardness to this sensitive woman. My conclusion, to be honest, is that she was human, like the rest of us.”
The seven-part documentary series is structured around a lunchtime conversation between Madikizela-Mandela and her two granddaughters, Swati Dlamini-Mandela and Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway (daughters of Zenani Mandela).
“They were the perfect partners to go on this journey with. They too were exposed to their grandmother through the media and through other people’s eyes,” Ichikowitz said.
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