Zindzi Mandela, a daughter to Nelson Mandela(RIP) and Anti-Arpatheid activist, Winnie Madikizela Mandela has passed on. According to state broadcaster SABC, Zindzi died in a Johannesburg hospital on Sunday Evening. The cause of her death has not been disclosed (yet.)
At the time of her death, she was serving as the South African Ambassador to Denmark. “This is untimely. She still had a role to play in the transformation of our own society and a bigger role to play even in the African National Congress,” said ANC spokesman Pule Mabe.Â
Zindzi Mandela was born on 23 December 1960 in Soweto, in what was then the ‘Union of SouthAfrica’ to Nelson and Winnie Mandela. The year of her birth was also the year that the African National Congress (ANC) launched its armed wing.
In 1985, Zindzi’s father, Nelson was offered a conditional release by the then south african president, P.W. Botha and since her father’s refusal couldn’t be read by any of her parents, she was chosen to read it on his(Nelson Mandela) behalf on 10th February 1985.
Zindzi was into poetry and her works were published in 1978 in the book ‘Black As i Am’ . She studied law at University of cape Town, where she earned her BA in 1985. After Nelson Mandela was elected as president and his divorce from Winnie in 1996, Zindziswa was chosen to accompany her father to his inauguration and become the stand-in First Lady of South Africa. This arrangement continued until her father remarried in 1998.
