Agenda
Hotep this is Freedom Now’s agenda for this Tues November 11,2008 Tonight we will address three aspects of Africa. In homage to the Queen of Africa Miriam Zenzi Makeba who cross over Monday November 11 we will play a musical and lyrical tribute and have an presentation by Dedon Kamathi who was an organizer with Kwame Ture and met with Sista Miriam Makeba. Sista Miriam Makeba, a world renowned singer was white-balled by the government of South Africa due to her uncompromising stance for justice against the apartheid system. Subsequently she was White balled in the US by the Zionist controlled record and promotion industry for her marriage to Kwame Ture-Stokely Carmichael a leader in the African anti-Zionist movement. Her principled uncompromising stance is a sterling example for artist today.
We will continue with an interview with Kambale Musavuli from the Congo who is the co-coordinator of the Global Student’s Congo Week.. In addition we will have Maurice Carney of the Friends of the Congo committee for an update on unfolding diplomatic initiative to bring peace and justice to the Congo.
We will also have former Congresswoman and Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney to address the recent arrest of those responsible for the genocide in Rwanda. She has testified worldwide on the truth behind the genocide in direct opposition to the US lead media campaign highlighted by the Film Hotel Rwanda. Clearly the inter-relationship between the European states sponsored anarchy in the Congo and the Paul Gaga me a CIA stooge President of Rwanda will be explored in tonight’s program.
Dedon will present the African Drum Beat Historical Calendar and we will have our music mix including: Zap Mama, Pina Town Allstars Dub, Jah Stick, Chief Ebenezer Obey, Last Poets, and Sundiata.
So stay for a journey in identify the root cause of the mayhem in Africa , solutions that with our without the new administration of Brotha Barak Obama will be resolved by the forward motion of the people.
We stand ready for the Revolution
Contact: Friendsofthecongo.org 818-584-6510
Miram Zensi Makeba A Revolutionary Sista For All Seasons
Mariam Zenzi Makeba at 76 years young has crossed over to the ancestor world. She was performing in a concert in Caserta Italy taking part in a benefit for African immigrants killed by the Camorra a Mafia organization. We at Freedom Now on this the commemoration of the crossing over also of brotha Kwame Ture formerly Stokely Carmichael her former husband would like to pay tribute to Miriam Zenzi Makeba- a Sista Legend for All Seasons. For those of us who knew her, who have seen her, perform in concert or in numerous programs as Africa’s top ambassador we will never forget her grace, charm and dignity that earn her the title Mama Africa. Most importantly her lifelong battle against injustice.
One did not need to understand Zulu or Xhosa to understand the spirit, the message of her songs. She sang simple country folk songs about life in the village, about struggle against racism, apartheid, about the role of women, the peasants, the workers in the gold mines. She starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back Africa in 1959 and when she tried to fly back to South Africa for her mother’s funeral she discovered her passport had been revoked and she was banned.
Yet those lyrics, those themes which were banned by the European racist government of South Africa were in fact her most powerful weapon sensitizing and popularizing the struggle against apartheid and settler colonialism world wide. How ironic Europeans banning and revoking an African citizenship for an African who then uses that 31 year banning as a weapon for the downfall of apartheid. Miriam was the keynote singer at the independence celebrations of Keya, Angola, Mozambique, Ghana, and Guinea for the founding of the Organization of African Unity she was without any challenges the embodiment of African liberation. In 1966 she won a Grammy award the Ist African woman to do for her collaboration with Harry Belafonte on “An Evening with Belafonte and Makeba which dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid.
Though married 5 times her most controversial and political marriage was to Kwame Ture, Stokely Carmichael which according to the Ist Prime Minister of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah signaled the re-unification of Africans in the Diaspora with their motherland for as it is common in African traditions political marriages are evoke to bring about the unification of two Kingdoms.
Yet this marriage was too controversial for the Zionist controlled record labels and concert promoters in the US who immediately cancelled all of her tours and record deals. According to Kwame Ture “I could never have imagine my enemies would be so ruthless or so thorough. And so quick. I mean the day after we got married? How low could you go? I would never affect someone’s wife or family just because I couldn’t get at them. It was industry wide and clearly intended to crush my new wife. Not just her career, but her spirit “ p 653 Ready For The Revolution. How dare she marry anti-Zionist Kwame Ture the father of contemporary Black Power who led together with the Nation of Islam the resistance to Zionist propaganda. So she went into exiled yet though they destroyed her career according to her husband they couldn’t touch her spirit she never complained Yet Mama Africa takes care of our own. The Guinean government of Sekou Toure gave her political asylum as a diplomat of Africa. She was given the honor of addressing the United Nations general assembly on behalf of Guinea to speak out against the evil system of apartheid.
Many world leaders, Jah Haile Selaisse, Fidel Castro, Julius Nyerere, Colonel Quadaffi, John F. Kennedy, the list is long of those who invited her to spend time to discuss and perform her songs of resistance.
Since her divorce from Kwame Ture she has toured and performed worldwide with many great singers, Dizzy Gillepsie, Paul Simon, Hugh Masekala her former husband, Nina Simone etc. Tonight
We will play clips from her album with an explanation of the themes of her songs as our musical tribute to Miriam Zenzi Makeba.
Miriam Zenzi Makeba- A Sista Legend For All Seasons
