On reading Harry Belafonte: A Melodious Life of Social Activism by Adekeye Adebajo (an initial reaction)
Cornelius Hamelberg
Harry Belafonte: A Melodious Life of Social Activism by
“And the humble suffer
They are my brothers, yeah, in South Africa
One Black represents all, all over the world”
(Steel Pulse: Handsworth Revolution)
On a personal note, always, there was the musical connection - well there was Miles - a South African student in Sierra Leone who I heard a lot about but never met - in those dark days back then, Sierra Leone granted asylum and scholarships to exile South Africans - for example our piano teacher Betty Nokwedi was South African - just as De Beers, the diamond Mining Conglomerate that controlled the diamonds buried in Sierra Leone, was South African.
The glaring wickedness of Apartheid was further brought home to us when through settler-colonisation, in November 1965 Ian Smith , Apartheid South Africa’s partner-in-crime unilaterally declared a White Minority Government in Black Majority Rhodesia , which later on became ZIMBABWE. It was the first demonstration that Yours Truly ever attended - I remember , with, among others, Jasper Jones, an African-American student from Kalamazoo College, Michigan, who gave me the idea that with a marching for Civil Rights background, he was a veteran demonstrator. I myself was hoping that I wouldn’t be hurting Commander Edward’s feelings too badly since just a month earlier, in September of that year I had taken his daughter Susan to our beginning of term dance to listen to a visiting British pop band, The Formula do Yesterday Man .(Naval Commander Edwards was the main point man at the British Embassy in Freetown, Sierra Leone and I had returned his daughter safe and sound to him & his wife shortly after midnight - no worries - she was head-over-heels in love with Baby Paul (Paul McCartney) and of course I expected him ( Naval Commander Edwards) to sympathise and fully understand why we were demonstrating outside the British Embassy. On my part I thought that the UK was being complicit with the scoundrel, Ian Smith, and worse still, on that day of ignominy, was the Sierra Leone Police who viciously dispersed our heroic demonstration outside the British Embassy. Years later I was deeply perturbed to hear that the w-impy Ian Smith had resurfaced in the British House of Commons to continue on the same trajectory - but of course, and to my great relief, I was wrong it was another Smith : Iain Duncan Smith
What did Apartheid mean to all of us ( the whole of humanity including whitey, Africa & Diaspora, Black Skin, White Masks ?
The week that I arrived in Port Harcourt for the first time , a whole year after Wole Soyinka declared theatre war against what he habitually referred to as the “ obscenity - of Apartheid, I listened to a debate on the Radio Rivers FM Stereo between supporters and opposers of Apartheid - in which put to the listeners’ votes, the opposers narrowly won. That such a debate could even legally take place in NIGERIA in 1981, attests to the very low level of awareness about what Apartheid is and was really all about, back then. The criminals who permitted such a discussion to take place must have thought that Apartheid is / was merely a matter of tribal separation, as in Robert Mugabe’s message to Tony Blair: “ So Blair keep your England and lte me keep my Zimbabwe”.
The role of South African music in the fight against apartheid cannot be underestimated. Offhand, we could begin with exiled musicians such as Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba - on the same stage, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dudu Pukwana , Johnny Mbizo Dyani . Mongezi Feza , Bheki Mseleku, Peter Shimmy Radise, Ebrahim "Brian" Isaacs of “Bayete” fame, MaloPoets., fast forward to Paul Simon entering the scene , Ladysmith Black Mambazo and back home , the likes of Mzwakhe Mbuli, and always, always, THE INDESTRUCTIBLE BEAT OF SOWETO
When it comes to eulogising all the resources utilised by the Most Honourable Harry Belafonte in his fight against Apartheid in South Africa , not even the indefatigable Master Eulogist Ojogbon Falola can do him enough justice.
In my view Harry Belafonte’s seminal Paradise in Gazankulu best represents his musical contribution to the fight against Apartheid.
These days, whenever the term “Apartheid” is mentioned some of the scoundrels in Israel start getting nervous. The fact is that anti-Apartheid persons like me are prepared to discuss that kind of issue in so far as it may be said to apply or relate to Israel, in all its dimensions and filthy ramifications
“Injustice somewhere is a threat to justice everywhere !”
Here’s something for them to think about and get sober:
Reflections on the 75th Anniversary of a Nakba That Never Ended