Miriam Makeba Quotes
Everybody now admits that apartheid was wrong, and all I did was tell the people who wanted to know where I come from how we lived in South Africa. I just told the world the truth. And if my truth then becomes political, I can't do anything about that.
Makeba, Miriam, and Nomsa Mwamuka. Makeba: The Miriam Makeba Story. STE Publishers, 2004, p. 116.
The upper socioeconomic classes are generally less rascist then the lower classes in the United States as well as England and South Africa. The counter argument given by the lower classes are that the upper classes have the money to insulate themselves from the negative aspects of desegregation and the lower class whites have to bear the brunt of desegregation. However, in South Africa, the English of all socioeconomic classes were far less enthusiastic about apartheid then were the Boers. The latter were farmers who wanted the land; the former were traders who could succeed even of the Blacks had their land and were given political rights.
Description of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa in the 1730’s
Gahdhi’s early career was in South Africa. What makes this quotation very interesting is that it shows Ghandi---one of the great disciples of brotherhood and equality of all men---had a period when he was outraged that Indians would have Blacks (Kaffirs) located in their neighborhood. It illustrates the personal transition that he made from prejudiced, parochial advocate for a particular ethnic group to an advocate and spokesman for all mankind.
This is an excellent example of the twisted, self-fulfilling logic of the Afrikaners in justifying apartheid. Many Afrikaners were inveterate racists, and were also usually armed which was a rural tradition of their early immigration and the Zulu and Boer Wars. Those whites would cause a riot if a black was allowed into a white audience performance. That in turn would cause chaos. Therefore mixed audiences could not be allowed. It never occurred to Botha and his colleagues that the government’s responsibility was to control and restrict the white rioters and instigators. This was not unique Afrikaner thinking; the same logic prevailed throughout the American South in the Jim Crowe segregation era.
Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, United Nations goodwill ambassador, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.
