Dehai News

Zionism Vs. Mama Africa; The Persecution and Blacklisting of Mariam Makeba

Back in the 1960’s Mariam Makeba aka Mama Africa played an important role in bringing apartheid in South Africa to the attention of the world. A singer with a voice seasoned by living under a brutal system of settler colonial racism known as “apartheid”, correctly pronounced exactly as it means, “apart-hate”, Mama Africa was exiled from her motherland by the fascist South African government and left to drift in the purgatory of exile with no where to set her roots down.

The fact that she could sing so emotively, express the soulful blues that represented her people caught the attention of those in the west who were looking for something real, meaningful and what it came down to, beautiful.

As the civil rights movement in the US began to take hold, and liberals and even those not so liberal began to face how the times they were a changin’ Mariam Makeba allowed such controversial, radical even, ideas to be come acceptable in “polite company”. Teaming up with a established star of the entertainment industry like Harry Belafonte and Hugh Masakela allowed her star to shine and she earned the name Mama Africa. Mariam was black and beautiful and Apartheid was white and evil and never the two should mix.

Then Mariam Makeba met a handsome, fiery revolutionary still going by his “slave name” of Stokely Carmichael who was about to become an exile from the US himself, avoiding the death squads of the FBI for daring to speak out against apartheid in the USA as the Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party. Bro. Stokely was a survivor of the fascist assassination campaign directed by J.Edgar Hoover himself, Godfather of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that saw the murder of over 250 Black Panther Party cadre stretching from the mid 1960’s to the early 1970’s, until there really wasn't any black revolutionaries of any significance left in the US. Stokely left the US and found sanctuary in the African country of Guinea, jointly headed by Africa’s first two independence leaders after WW2, Sekou Toure and Kwame Nkrumah. There he and Mama Africa, Mariam Makeba found refuge, safety from the US empire and its colony in South Africa apartheid and its various other minions. 

Stokely was given the new name of Kwame Ture by his mentors, Sekou Toure and Kwame Nkrumah and he and Mama Africa, who was a decade older, made a powerful couple. Dynamic Black revolutionary and inspiring African songstress, together they could reach out to a much broader audience that just political or cultural.

The problem for Mariam Makeba was that being in the Zionist, pro-Israel controlled entertainment industry Stokely/Kwame’s fiery denunciations of the racist, colonial settler Zionist regime in Israel was not to be tolerated by the “white zionists” in show biz and Mama Africa very quickly found out just who ruled the roost when it came to the music business.

The Zionist ruled entertainment industry blacklisted Mama Africa, denying her any concert venues and even the ability to record her art, persecuting her until she had to choose between her continuing to bringing her art to the world and… her husband.

Left with little choice Mariam Makeba chose her first love, her music, and divorced Kwame Ture. Eventually the Zionists dominating the entertainment industry forgave her and allowed her career to continue. Kwame went on to more brilliance in the world of revolutionary politics, denouncing Apartheid in Palestine and opposing oppression where ever it existed.

These days of “AI”, artificial intelligence, has seen this story “disappeared” from the ethernet, or at least the search engines, actually proclaiming that Mama Africa never opposed Zionism, apartheid in Palestine. One can only hope this chapter of history survives, the persecution and blacklisting of Mama Africa, Mariam Makeba.

For those seeking sources to this vanishing story, my friend and comrade Bro. Kwame Ture told me first hand about this during his speaking tours I produced in my hometown of Honolulu Hawaii in 1985 and 1994 when he spent a week both times as a guest in my home where he spent many, many hours regaling me with his adventures and wisdom. His passing marked one of the very last black revolutionaries in the US, and an African at heart and in action though born and raised in the diaspora.

Thomas C. Mountain is an educator and historian, living and reporting from Eritrea from 2006-2021. At one time he was the most widely distributed independent journalist in Africa with columns running in Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Cameroon, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania amongst others as well as in the Eritrean diaspora. He is best reached at thomascmountain@gmail.com