Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is among South Africa’s most admired and contested figures, celebrated by many as a fearless anti-apartheid activist and reviled by others for her alleged role in violence during the 1980s. In a new Netflix documentary series, The Trials of Winnie Mandela, two of her granddaughters revisit that complicated legacy. The series is currently available only in Africa.
Sisters Princess Swati Dlamini-Mandela and Princess Zaziwe Mandela-Manaway say they set out to present a balanced portrait. In the trailer they pose stark questions to their grandmother’s memory — “How do you ask your grandmother, are you a murderer, are you a kidnapper?” — and try to square devotion with accountability. “I’m so proud of this work, because it is not just a myopic view of a person that we love, but also who is complex, and has had a complex history,” Dlamini-Mandela, 47, says.
Winnie’s public life contrasted sharply with her husband Nelson Mandela’s global-image as a reconciler. Nelson spent 27 years imprisoned for his anti-apartheid struggle and became South Africa’s first Black president. Winnie, who carried the fight at home while he was jailed, endured repeated arrests, solitary confinement and harassment. Filming for the Netflix series began before her death in 2018 at age 81, so she appears and speaks for herself in parts of the documentary.
Her activism came at significant personal cost. In 1969 she was held in solitary confinement for 491 days and was routinely detained and tortured. Authorities repeatedly raided her Soweto home and later banished her to the remote town of Brandfort in an effort to limit her influence. Despite that treatment, she remained combative and visible, and many South Africans remember her as a figure who risked her life for freedom.
At the same time, Winnie’s name became associated with violence in the townships. A group of youths closely linked to her, called the Mandela United Football Club, was implicated in vigilante abductions and killings of people suspected of informing to the apartheid security forces, including some minors. In 1997 she testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated abuses during apartheid. Under questioning by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, she said, “Things went horribly wrong…for that I am deeply sorry.” The commission found her “politically and morally accountable” for crimes committed by associates.
Controversy deepened over speeches and rhetoric that critics say condoned harsh township punishments, notably the 1986 comments interpreted by many as endorsing “necklacing” — a brutal form of execution in which a tire filled with petrol was forced around a victim and set alight. Within the African National Congress there were also concerns about her growing militancy. Her private life drew scrutiny too: alleged affairs while Nelson was imprisoned fed a media narrative that contributed to their marriage’s collapse; the couple divorced in 1996, and Winnie often bore public blame for the split.
In recent years, a younger generation of South Africans has begun to reassess Winnie’s place in history, often through a feminist lens. Theater director Momo Matsunyane, who created a Johannesburg play titled The Cry of Winnie Mandela, argues the treatment of Winnie was gendered. “I wholeheartedly don’t believe that a male comrade would’ve waited 27 years for a wife’s return. The alleged affair feels like something they used against her in order to vilify her,” Matsunyane says. She adds that acknowledging Winnie’s alleged involvement in violent episodes doesn’t erase the fact that Winnie was “fiercely resilient in the face of a greatly violent and inhumane system. She put her life and body on the line for the fight for freedom.”
Winnie’s popular image has experienced a revival since her death. Thousands mourned outside her home in 2018; her likeness now appears on T-shirts, murals, and she has been honored with a major Johannesburg road bearing her name. Social media trended with the hashtag #SheDidn’tDieSheMultiplied, reflecting how many young South Africans identify with her defiance.
For her granddaughters, private memories are more intimate than political headlines. They recall Sunday dinners and hugs, and a grandmother who offered advice and warmth. Growing up, they say, they were children before they were the relatives of famous political figures — often isolated because few people wanted to be associated with them until the family’s cachet turned “cool” later.
The Netflix series aims to explore these tensions: a woman revered as a symbol of resistance, accused of complicity in violence, and remembered as a loving family figure. By combining archival material, testimony and family perspective, the filmmakers and the sisters seek to provoke conversation rather than deliver a neat verdict on a life that remains both inspirational and contentious.