Africa Is a Country

"WE FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM, BUT WE WON DEMOCRACY"

"WE FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM, BUT WE WON DEMOCRACY"

By
Sean Jacobs

You can always count on Hugh Masekela to speak frankly. Masekela turned 70 this year. And he still has a lot to say. In London for a concert with the London Symphony Orchestra to mark his birthday, he was interviewed by the BBC.

Masekela talks about who owns the economy; how forming a “unity government” with Apartheid’s rulers in 1994 was “… tantamount to Israel forming a government with the Nazis;” how he can’t affect politics, which is now “an international private club;” and he makes the statement quoted above. He also goes on about his preoccupation with bringing back “traditional ethnic cultural performance” better than the Hawaians. I don’t know what that last thing is.

It’s worth listening to.

Listen to it here.

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.