I remember the house in Majwemasweu township near Brandfort so vividly. It was a clean, neat house, painted white. There was a green lawn and a small willow tree in the front.
It was Winnie Mandela’s home and tiny clinic that she had established there in exile. I was a young soundman working freelance for Dutch TV and we were there to film a profile on her with director Hennie Serfontein.
It was early 1985 and I was at the beginning of my journalistic career, and awed at the prospect of meeting Winnie. I didn’t say much as we filmed in the clinic and around her home. I was naïve then and didn’t fully realise the extent of the state oppression and surveillance that surrounded both Winnie and Hennie.
I had filmed the brutality of the police shootings in the townships by then, and so I was frightened by their power and cruel determination to maintain the apartheid system at all costs.
The security police must have known all about our visit to Brandfort, but they kept a low profile and we didn’t see them obviously tailing us. Our fear of them also kept us in a mindset of denial: we knew they must be somewhere near, but we pretended as if they were not there. It was somehow the best way not to succumb to their power.
In a News24 essay, Hamilton Wende reflects on his 1985 experience filming Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in Brandfort, highlighting her defiant actions against apartheid and her role in the local community. The piece, spurred by the documentary The Trials of Winnie Mandela, offers a personal account of her resilience and humanity while living under banishment. Read the full essay on News24.
hamilton wende
Hamilton Wende is an author, journalist and TV producer. He has worked all over the world, covering historical events and some 17 different wars and conflicts. He is based in Johannesburg and travels from there. He has worked for a number of international networks including BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera. He has also reported on events in South Africa for the last three decades. He has published many articles in newspapers, magazines and websites around the world. He is the author of 9 books. House of War, Only the Dead and The King’s Shilling are thrillers based on his travels around the world as a journalist. His latest book Red Air is based on his experiences filming with the US Marines in Afghanistan. He has a master’s degree in Creative Writing from Wits University.
He is also the author of the popular children’s books: Arabella, the Moon and the Magic Mongongo Nut and Arabella the Secret King and the Amulet from Timbuktu which are set in Johannesburg and Knysna. He is working on the third volume in the series.
