Zindziswa Zindzi” Mandela-Hlongwane, she was born in December of 1960, in the ‘non-European’ section of a Johannesburg hospital, to illustrious former first black South African to hold the presidency, illustrious Nelson Mandela and his second wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
Zindziswa is the youngest daughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. She was 18 months old when her father was sent to prison, and she was 14 when she first saw him again on Robben Island. Due to the unfortunate conditions of her birth and rough childhood; with both father and mother absent during long period of time she never had, any experience of normal family life. She and her older sister Zenani, were expelled from school after school, simply for being who they were. Can you imagine a child growing up in those conditions, clinging to her mother’s skirt while begging to police not to take her…very traumatic.
Despite the sad reality of having a broken family she was eventually taken to Waterford where her exposure to wealthy children only reinforced her sense of poverty and privation.
In 1985, Zindzi made headlines when she read aloud her father’s response to the government’s conditional release offer. The speech, known as “My Father Says…” in which he emphatically refused the offer, inspired a renewed mass action campaign.
She is mother of four children from four different fathers; Zindzi 52, has become like her mother in at least one respect. She indulges in the habit of buying her lovers the most expensive, ostentatious suits, watches and shoes. Both Dali Mpofo and Zindzi’s former husband Zweli dressed in a manner way beyond their earnings. She tied the knot one more time earlier this year to MK veteran Molapo Motlhajwa, 37.
She and her sister played in the football club’s affairs of her father.
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