Owei Lakemfa
14 November 2008
opinion
Miriam Zenzile Makeba came to Nigeria in 1977. She was scheduled for a concert at the Tafawa Balewa Square. If tickets had been sold for the concert, I was too young to have money to buy.
Worse still, it was strictly by invitation as even then Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo was scheduled to attend. By chance, I raised the concert issue at home regretting that the venue was a walking distance, yet I had no chance of watching this famous songstress whose music blared from many speakers in my neighbourhood.
An uncle revealed he had an invitation card but it "Admits one only". He suggested that I put on my Christmas best so as to appear at least like the child of a middle class civil servant not the working class son I was.
He said he would introduce me at the gate as his son, and if we were lucky we might be admitted, otherwise, I was to find my way home. The guards were strict and would listen to no pleadings. Eventually, I found my way in and sat transfixed as Makeba mounted the stage.
I recall the main theme of her song was unity. She sang repeatedly calling on African leaders like Obasanjo to "Unify us".
The audience clapped, danced and cheered. At the concert end we returned to our different homes. But not so Makeba; she was on exile deprived of her home by apostles of one of the most devious systems ever witnessed by humanity; the Apartheid system.
At this time she was 45, and had been deprived of her citizenship for seventeen years. But she was a citizen of the world, conscientizing humanity to the evils of apartheid, singing songs of hope and inspiring youths across the globe.
But her cry for unity was not a mere slogan; it was a philosophy of African unity she lived by. Her horizon far transcended her South Africa homeland. She did not see freedom and liberation in that part of Africa as the ultimate goal. Neither did she see the unity of Africa as that goal.
Having been deprived of her right to return home in 1960, one year after starring in the Anti-Apartheid documentary, Come Back, Africa, she turned to the world and made it her stage.
In the United States where she became musically, quite successful, she was influenced by the Pan-Africanist Movement, especially its radical Malcolm X/Black Panthers variant.
To the Americans, she committed the ultimate musical suicide by marrying the radical African-American Stokely Carmichael in 1968. For this marriage to a man regarded as an enemy of the State, Makeba's tours and record deals in US were cancelled.
Rather than buckle or beg, she stuck to her marriage and beliefs. Carmichael, who invented the "Black Power" salute, belonged to a movement that believed that blacks cannot get justice in America and that the best option open was for African-Americans to migrate to Africa and be part of a unified continent of the black people.
After being victimized, the couple migrated to Africa settling in Guinea where another Pan Africanist, Ahmed Sekou Toure was president. Makeba's political relationship with Sekou Toure further reinforced her belief in the need to unify Africa.
Then there was the legendary Kwame Nkrumah, the Prophet of a unified Africa who lived in Guinea. Nkrumah had been overthrown by pro-Western forces and was in Guinea as honorary co-president with Sekou Toure.
Makeba's husband, Carmichael changed his "slave" names for African ones. He adopted Nkrumah's first name and Toure's surname and became known as Kwame Toure. So when Makeba sang soulfully and compassionately about the need for African Leaders to "Unify Us" she sang out of conviction.
Twice, she was Guinea's delegate to the United Nations whose platform she used to further expose apartheid and rally support for the struggle to liberate her homeland.
In the cause of this and her music, the internationalist met various world leaders including American President John F. Kennedy, French President Francois Mitterrand, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II.
With over thirty albums, her songs like Malaika and Pata Pata were international anthems. She featured in films, musicals and documentaries like King Kong (1959) Come Back, Africa (1959) Sarafina (1992) and Amandla! A Revolution in Four - Part Harmony.
Her 1965 album with Harry Belafonte titled "An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba" earned both musicians the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording. Her international awards include the 1986 Dag Hammarskjold Peace Prize.
Things were not really smooth sailing for the African warrior; she also had personal fights and tragedies to contend with. She survived a plane crash, car crashes and a battle against cancer. In 1973, she divorced Kwame Toure before marrying the famous musician and fellow South African, Hugh Masekela with whom she had performed in the 1959 musical King Kong. Perhaps the most devastating blow was the death in 1985 of her only daughter Bongi Makeba.
She returned triumphant to South Africa in December 1990 after three decades in exile. That did not slow her down as she embarked on sold out concerts both in South Africa and outside.
She picked up the challenge of attacks on women in post-Apartheid South Africa by establishing a charity fund. In 2005 she held farewell concerts in all countries she had visited in her exile years.
But there was a challenge in Italy. An anti-Mafia writer Roberto Saviano was under attack. Makeba came out of retirement, traveling to Italy to participate in a concert in support of the writer. Shortly after the concert she had an heart attack and died in the early hours of Sunday November 10, 2008. Mama Africa has taken a final rest as an international warrior for which the world was her stage. Makeba's struggles and songs will continue to bee sung in the lyrics of history.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
