Africa Is a Country

South Africans fought for freedom, but won democracy

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

South Africans fought for freedom, but won democracy

By
Sean Henry Jacobs

The famed South African musician Hugh Masekela has a history of speaking his mind on postapartheid politics.

Image by Jeremy Weate, via Flickr CC.

You can always count on Hugh Masekela to speak frankly. Having turned 70 this year, Masekela still has plenty to say. In London for a concert with the London Symphony Orchestra to celebrate his milestone birthday, he was interviewed by the BBC. Masekela, who spent 30 years in exile before returning to South Africa in 1990, shared his views on various topics. He discussed who truly owns the economy, likened the 1994 formation of a “unity government” with Apartheid’s rulers to Israel forming a government with the Nazis,and pointed out that while South Africans fought for freedom, what they got was merely democracy. On a more personal note, he spoke passionately about his preoccupation with reviving “traditional ethnic cultural performance” and doing so better than the Hawaiians. I’m not sure about that last part, though.

It’s worth listening to. Here.

By the way, Masekela has a history of speaking his mind on postapartheid politics.

For example, in a March 2002 interview he told the Chicago Tribune, “I’m trying to help reconstruct the glorious aspects of who we are as a people … There’s nothing apartheid worked harder for than for us to forget ourselves. We have to reclaim our social and recreational life and define ourselves to the world.”

That same year, he released an album, “Time.” It included the song, “Send Me (Thuma Mina), which, breaks with his pessimism, and is like a manifesto of sorts for how he sees his role in the new South Africa:

I wanna be there when the people start to turn it around
When they triumph over poverty
I wanna be there when the people win the battle against AIDS
I wanna lend a hand
I wanna be there for the alcoholic
I wanna be there for the drug addict
I wanna be there for the victims of violence and abuse
I wanna lend a hand
Send me 

 

Further Reading

Kenya’s vibe shift

From aesthetic cool to political confusion, a new generation in Kenya is navigating broken promises, borrowed styles, and the blurred lines between irony and ideology.

Africa and the AI race

At summits and in speeches, African leaders promise to harness AI for development. But without investment in power, connectivity, and people, the continent risks replaying old failures in new code.

After the uprising

Years into Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, the rebellion faces internal fractures, waning support, and military pressure—raising the question of what future, if any, lies ahead for Ambazonian aspirations.

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.