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

The cost of care

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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.

From Nkrumah to neoliberalism

On the podcast, we explore: How did Ghana go from Nkrumah’s radical vision to neoliberal entrenchment? Gyekye Tanoh unpacks the forces behind its political stability, deepening inequality, and the fractures shaping its future.

The Visa farce

The South African government’s rush to clear visa applications has led to mass rejections, bureaucratic chaos, and an overloaded appeals system—leaving thousands in limbo.