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If given a choice, I would have certainly selected to be what I am: one of the oppressed instead of one of the oppressors.

Miriam Makeba

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Miriam Makeba
Age: 76 †
Born: 1932
Born: March 4
Died: 2008
Died: November 9
Actor
Recording Artist
Singer
Johannesburg
Gauteng
South Africa
Mama Africa
Zenzile Miriam Makeba
Miriam Zenzi Makeba
Zensile Makeba Qgwashu Nguvama Yiketheli Nxgowa Bantana Balomzi Xa Ufnu Ubajabulisa Ubaphekeli Mbiza Yotshwala Sithi Xa Saku Qgiba Ukutja Sithathe Izitsha Sizi Khabe Singama Lawu Singama Qgwashu Singama Nqamla Nqgithi
Mirjam Makeba
Certainly
Choice
Instead
Choices
Given
Oppressors
Would
Selected
Oppressed
Oppression

More quotes by Miriam Makeba

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I have to go and say farewell to all the countries that I have been to, if I can. I am 73 now, it is taxing on me.
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Belafonte sent his people to pick me up and I went back and shook his hand, then went back to my little flat. I was very happy to have met a president of the United States - little me!
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I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.
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I'm not a politician I am a singer. Long ago, they said, 'That one, she sings politics.' I don't sing politics I merely sing the truth.
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And why is our music called world music? I think people are being polite. What they want to say is that it's third world music. Like they use to call us under developed countries, now it has changed to developing countries, it's much more polite.
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But if you are going to wear blinders then you do not know the world.
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It was hard to be away from home, but I am glad that I am home now.
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I see other black women imitate my style, which is no style at all, but just letting our hair be itself. They call it the Afro Look.
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I do not sing politics. I merely sing the truth.
Miriam Makeba
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You are damned and praised, or encouraged or discouraged by those who listen to you, and those who come to applaud you. And to me, those people are very important.
Miriam Makeba
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I didn't have much, but I was always happy to share what I did have. It seemed like every African that came to New York City would show up at my apartment door at dinnertime, and I couldn't turn them away. I wasn't much older than any of them, but they started calling me 'Mama Africa' and the name stuck.
Miriam Makeba
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And I believe that it becomes a troubled continent because there are those who must always cause confusion so that we do not keep these natural resources.
Miriam Makeba
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[Belafonte]'d take me to perform for Martin Luther King's cause. But when they were marching I did not take part, because I was not a citizen
Miriam Makeba
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I look at the past and I see myself.
Miriam Makeba
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Age is wisdom if one has lived ones life properly.
Miriam Makeba
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For instance, we're always fighting amongst each other. Who gives us the arms? And then we become indebted to wherever we are buying them from - with what? The very resources we need to keep there.
Miriam Makeba
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It's a really unfair world because life is, where I am all day long we listen to American music. So I don't see why the radios in the U.S. cannot even put aside one hour a day just to play music that is not American.
Miriam Makeba
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In the West the past is like a dead animal. It is a carcass picked at by the flies that call themselves historians and biographers. But in my culture the past lives. My people feel this way in part because death does not separate us from our ancestors.
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I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa and the people without even realising.
Miriam Makeba
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He [Belafonte] was a good teacher and looked after me. He said, 'You have such great talent, you must try not to be a tornado - be like a submarine. It was good advice when I found myself speaking at the UN Committee Against Apartheid and then the UN General Assembly.
Miriam Makeba