Pretoria - The life and journey of the late Dr Miriam “Mama Africa” Makeba not only tells of the significant role she had in the music industry during the apartheid era, but also provides significant clues on how to overcome the challenges faced today.
The music legend, also affectionately referred to as “Mazi”, was described as a talented singer, writer, activist, pioneer, queen and a strong revolutionary during the inaugural Miriam Makeba memorial lecture held at Unisa on Sunday.
The lecture, organised in collaboration with the Miriam Makeba Foundation and the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, comes on the 60th anniversary of the speech she gave at the UN General Assembly appealing to the world to take a stand against apartheid.
Delivering the lecture, Minister in the Presidency Responsible for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, said the lecture commemorating the renowned musician was an important investment, especially for young people who may not have a deep enough appreciation of the very depths to which she was prepared to travel as a revolutionary messenger with unmatched talent and determination.
Dlamini Zuma said through the efforts of “Mazi” and many others, young people today had access to education whether they were poor or rich and shouldn’t squander those hard-earned opportunities.
Although her life began as a domestic servant after circumstances forced her out of school in order to look after her mother, struggles which still exist as the reality for many young women today, Makeba was said to have managed to become one of the most under-celebrated shining examples of African women’s unlimited potential to excel.
“With nearly three decades passed since the advent of democracy, we are called upon to talk less and do more about daily struggles, and remove hindrances that continue to deter the advancement of all women, particularly young women.
“For me, women empowerment is fundamentally about empowering society as a whole and not the individual woman.
“There is no country in the world that has successfully advanced while remaining indifferent or paying lip service to the ongoing structural and physical violence against women and their right to self-determination,” Dlamini Zuma said.
Describing her upbringing, Dlamini Zuma said Makeba’s talent was nurtured in a household that treated her as an equal with respect and dignity. She recalled that Makeba once detailed how her brother so believed in her craft that he did not miss an opportunity to showcase her talent to his friends.
The minister said this was very important as her brother saw what was in her. “Her brother showed her off to visitors and asked her to sing – that is a big lesson that we must learn, how do we raise our children? Do we raise them equally or do we treat young men as princes and young women as Cinderellas?
“Even today we still encounter situations in families where young boys are left to make demands on their sisters and the parents keep quiet. What we forget is that young people bring back to society what society taught them as children.
“If we teach boys to bully girls when they are young, they will become men who bully women.”
Music legends Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse as well as Abigail Kubeka also in attendance, shared their own fond memories of Makeba.
Pretoria News