‘Don’t call me Mrs Mandela!’
In an exclusive interview, young reporters from Children's Express caught up with Africa's First Lady.
| Women will always have to prove themselves more than anyone else to be accepted. That’s the way the games goes... |
They say Graca Machel has a legendary love of children. They also say she doesn't suffer fools gladly, and that you'd be well advised not to call her "Mrs Nelson Mandela." Not that you can blame the woman known as the "First Lady of Africa" for that.
Long before she married her world-famous husband, Graca Machel, as she still likes to be known, was an important and formidable woman in her own right. Meeting her recently, as she prepared to deliver this year's Commonwealth Lecture on women's equality, only proved to reinforce this reputation.
Although she is small in stature she commands authority and respect. And despite her international standing, her greeting, delivered in an austere backroom in London's Commonwealth Institute, lacked the usual stiff formality of politicians.
Dressed in a traditional outfit with her hair in short braids, she gives a traditional African welcome; showering us more hugs and kisses than a long lost auntie. Seemingly no less enthusiastic for having just stepped off a plane that day, let alone a spell stuck in the building's lift.
 South Africa's First Lady, Graca Michel | |
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Her many international roles have included chairing a United Nation's study into the impact of armed conflict on children. But when asked to what extend war still impinges on the lives of young Africans, she's eager to stress that it's not just a one-continent phenomenon.
"The impact of conflict on children is a phenomenon you find in almost every continent, even here in Europe," she explains.
Fixing her gaze firmly on one of our reporters, she tries to explain to a teenager of the first world what it must be like to become a child soldier. "Imagine, you have a brother who at the age of eight, nine or 10, is forced to pick up a gun and be trained, sometimes drugged to go and kill?", she asks.
"You're at home, as you are with your parents and suddenly, in a violent manner, somebody comes in and kills your parents in your presence. You're kidnapped: as a girl you could be transformed into someone's wife."
But she's resolute that the voices of children can make a can real difference in campaigning for peace. "First of all you should demand peace", she declares. "For example, I visited Columbia in 1996 and spoke to a group of around 500 children and encouraged them to speak loudly about peace. I said, 'there's no limit you can go and speak to your president.'
"Secondly, in situations of conflict - a toy is so important and many of you will have things you don't need anymore. That means a lot to them, any gesture of solidarity has to be heard, has to be loud and if it's possible has to be visible. That sends messages not only to the children concerned but also to the adults."
Born in 1945 to a rural family in the coastal town of Gaza, Mozambique, Graca's peasant relatives were intent that she should get an education. As a young girl she excelled in her schoolwork and eventually secured a place to study Germanic languages in Lisbon.
It was then she began working as an underground agent for Frelimo, the revolutionary movement who overthrew Portuguese colonial rule of Mozambique. Fearing she was being watched by the Portuguese secret police she was ordered to Tanzania where she trained as a guerrilla fighter. She didn't fight during this time, but instead worked in a Fremilo school and taught her drill instructor how to read and write.
Guerilla training
Being trained as a guerrilla fighter was no big deal she asserts, in fact she was just like other young women in those days. "There are situations where you have no choice", she says of her revolutionary past. "We were a liberation movement and all of us had to know how to protect ourselves in case there was a crisis.
"We had to be trained because we had to know how to protect ourselves and to protect those around us. It was also a way of liberating our nation. It was a patriotic duty to do it and no one could say no because all of us wanted to be free."
With Mozambique's independence won in 1975, at the tender age of 29 Graca was appointed minister for education and became the only woman in the cabinet. It was the beginning of her journey as a long-standing campaigner for women and children's rights. Earlier that year she had made another life-changing move and married Samora Machal, the handsome hero of Mozambique's independence movement and the county's first president.
Yet despite her obviously independent spirit, as an African woman involved in the man's world of politics she did face resistance. "Oh yes definitely", she recalls, "and woman still face this today. Women will always have to prove themselves more than any one else to be accepted as competent. That's the way the game goes. Nobody will tell you exactly that they resist you, but you know, you feel it, you sense it. So it puts a lot of pressure on you and it's a huge responsibility."
As a young minister her portfolio must have seemed overwhelming. In the immediate post-independence era roughly 93 percent of the population was illiterate. "The biggest challenge was to expand the primary education network, to try to increase opportunities for girls and boys to go to school", she explains.
"It was really one of my biggest ambitions to see every child going to school. Today, one of the things that saddens me most is to see that, despite all out efforts this has not been possible yet."
During Graca's term as a minister one of the main barriers to Mozambique's development was the efforts of Renamo, a terrorist organisation funded in part by the apartheid regime in South Africa and the CIA. Their efforts to destabilise the Marxist government lasted two decades and had a devastating effect on the economy and in turn, efforts to expand education and healthcare.
The young ideologically driven government had their critics, and among other things stood accused of exerting too much revolutionary prowess, demonstrated in their efforts at social engineering. Mozambique, meanwhile, became another battleground of the Cold War with the Marxist government receiving Soviet backing and the US supporting Remano.
As the war effort diverted funds, Graca herself was criticised in for her perceived failure to stop the massive cuts to education, yet she maintained her legendary spunkiness, demonstrated in 1984 at a women's conference when she publicly rebuked her late husband for interfering in women's business and being patronising.
"Women are acknowledged as custodians of culture traditions and because of that they are respected," she says when asked about opinions of African men attitudes to women's rights today. "But the other dynamic, sometimes used in tradition, means women can be influential but they don't hold power. They can influence decisions but they rarely have the right to make them.
"So men are playing with these two things. Sometimes they will tell you, 'oh, it's wonderful we never make decisions without them giving an opinion.' But they will also repress their opinions whenever it's not in their interests."
She believes the biggest barriers African women today is the lack of educational opportunities. "We haven't managed to make sure every woman has access to education and information because that's when people will have an opportunity to make choices about what they want to do in life. "Education is key. I don't believe we can get equality without making sure that every single woman can get an education."
Bereavement
Personal tragedy struck her in 1986 when her husband's plane crashed in mysterious circumstances just inside the South African border. Graca always maintained it was the work of Renamo. Bereaved, she wrote to Winnie Mandela: "Those who have locked up your husband are the same who have killed mine. They think that by cutting down the tallest trees they can destroy a forest."
She was left with eight children, two she had with Samora and six stepchildren. After spending five years in mourning she finally returned to public life, setting up a foundation to help Mozambican women and children. She met Nelson after he took over the role of Godfather to her children from the late ANC activist, Oliver Tambo.
Considering their mutual suffering, the couple's long and discreet courtship warmed many hearts. They were married in 1998 and now live in South Africa. In breaking with traditional African reserve, a romantic Nelson loves to hold her hand when they are out together.
"As with Machel, Nelson and I were together some time before love came. It wasn't love at first sight", she once said in a rare comment about their relationship. On this occasion she offers a further tiny insight into her marriage. Having earlier declared herself a feminist ("depending on how you define feminism") we were interested to know about Nelson's qualifications. For example, does he help with the housework at home?
"He is very helpful in many aspects", comes the reply. "For his background and also his age, just the fact that he allows me to be myself and continue to do the work; I think that is a great achievement. It shows how much he respects me and how much he respects women.
"But I don't expect him to go to the kitchen and cook for me. In fact many times I also don't go the kitchen. I have no time; I'm busy doing different things. So, to be a good partner and to respect women doesn't mean necessarily that you have to tell your partner to go and cook for you."
Later as the evening's lecture drew to a close, host for the night, Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon joked: "My mother used to say that when God made men, he was just practising." Graca's response was to give a broad smile. Who would have argued?
About the team
This article was produced by Della Hicks-Wilson, 15; Sekai Makoni, 14; Loretta Omari-Asor, and Kreshia Harvey, 13. It was published in New Nation.
