Miriam Makeba Interview 1969

mrs. mokuba our people have been in Johannesburg that depends on which people you are talking about when we speak of people in Johannesburg we have to be specific in that in South Africa there are two separate communities and that's the white community and the black community I will speak for my community I think we are happy we dance we sing because for to us sometimes it's better to love to keep from crying mrs. micawber your senior songs in a lot of countries and obviously quite obviously it is not only purely show business actually which is the message you want to give to transmit to your public to your listeners well I always feel that even though one is an artist that we are first human beings and we live in the same world as any other person so that we as artists should never close our eyes to what is happening around us therefore coming from South Africa naturally I my life was affected by my environment there and the songs that I sing are just about my everyday life and the things I say are those things that have affected my life the message I'm trying to give to my audience is not one I am just trying to make them understand me as a person and understand my country and my people do you see some principle difference between the struggle of the Africans in countries like South Africa Mozambique Angola on the one hand and on the other hand in countries like Brazil and the United States they are in minority there is really no difference in in in that the struggle between the people you have mentioned because we are all Africans we were just put in different countries by white people who took the people from Africa and spread them out and it is true that our problems are the same now saying that they are a minority this really means nothing because the white man wherever he is whether he is in the majority or the minority he rules it just shows you if - it just proves to everyone that we just have to keep fighting we just have to fight that much more because it doesn't matter whether he is majority or minority he's always on top which status are you aiming to between the whites and the Africans at the end when you have all that will depend on them we are not worried about them we are just worried about ourselves it is our country they came from Europe to invade our country they took it they have made us suffer so we don't have to worry about thinking what will we do to them or what will happen to them it will be up to them to see fit what they can do when we have one just like they see fit what to do right now while they are on top so it's something that we don't worry about all we are worried about is to fight and liberate ourselves what will happen after that will depend again on the invaders they could have come to our country and live side by side with us we didn't mind that in fact when they came we said come in sit down and they sat down and said get out and now it is it will it will be up to them it is known that Africa only had black people Europe had white people Asia had yellow people now it is absurd to say that we Africans were not in Africa when white people first came and secondly the Conqueror writes history they came they conquered and they wrote now you don't expect people who came to invade us to write the truth about us they will always write negative things about us and they have to do that because they have to justify their invasion in all the countries it's like saying when they you know the Europeans went to America there were no Indians there it's ridiculous because they were there I know that my people were they we don't write our history it has always been handed down to us orally by our elders of course the white man came came and he writes history in fact you don't know anything about any place until the white man gets there like my husband always says it's like saying well whenever the until the white man comes to any place nothing lives it's only when he comes and say booth I've discovered you now you exist which is ridiculous and that is why I have to say the things I say in my performances because I know again that I am right and because I am right I know I will win because the truth shall never be covered by life I have difficulties in many different places and not only me I think if you're black you you have difficulties everywhere there are white people and most white people always say that we should not generalize and so on and so forth and in fact there are some countries even take Sweden in Sweden people say they are not there's no racial problem there but it is only because they are not that many black people in Sweden so you don't really see it as clearly as you see it in countries like United States or even South Africa but there is prejudice everywhere for instance in Sweden we were performing there and my guitarist who isn't really white he is Brazilian and he's he looks white because he is an albino but some people approached him on four occasions and told him why does he have to play with [ __ ] and this was in Sweden where people really often say they have no problem and take his country Brazil we were there last June and people white people in Brazil denied the fact that there were racial problems in Brazil but it exists we saw it every day everywhere I performed in Brazil I never saw black people I only performed to white people and they said well it's because they can't afford to come here it's too expensive which is another form I mean that is another form of keeping them from coming to where they can enjoy themselves together with white people they keep them poor so that we have problems everywhere sometimes people send us threatening letters and some send very vulgar letters and tell us [ __ ] get out of here and go there's nowhere to run we just have to stay wherever we are and and fight to liberate ourselves

Channel: cosmicrat

Views: 120,354

Rating: 4.9574037 out of 5

Keywords: Pata, Makeba, FInland, Suomi, Africa

Id: wONkMpbl7N8

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2010