1. Posted on Wednesday 7 May 2008 - 09:22

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   Sam Banda Junior

   

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   Sam Banda Junior, AfricaNews reporter in Blantyre, Malawi, foto: Ilvy Njiokiktjien

   Queen, Leona Lewis, Annie Lennox and the Soweto Gospel Choir are among the acts that will appear at a concert for former South African president Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday in June.

   

   Mandela will travel to London for the June 27 event, which will also feature Dame Shirley Bassey, Simple Minds and Razorlight. Tickets go on public sale on Friday and Hyde Park will host a crowd of 46,664 people, Mandela's old prison number.
   
   It is now the name of his Aids charity, which will get proceeds from the show. Organisers have promised further stars on the bill, with "several major artists keeping silent about their involvement in order to take both Mandela and the audience by surprise", a statement said.
   
   Eminem, U2, Amy Winehouse and the Spice Girls are among the other acts that have been mentioned in the press. The BBC reported Tuesday that the other confirmed performers include Sugababes, Andrea and Sharon Corr, Eddy Grant, Italian star Zucchero and Spanish group Amaral, while Queen will perform with vocalist Paul Rodgers.
   
   African acts
   
   British-born, South African-based pop star Johnny Clegg is on the bill, as are a number of other African acts including Sipho Mabuse, Loyiso, Papa Wemba and Emmanuel Jal. There will also be an appearance by The Children of Agape, a choir of Aids orphans who were the subject of the film We Are Together.
   
   When the concert was announced, the former president who commands respect in the world said: "You all know that I am supposed to be retired. But my friends and the charitable organisations that bear my name want to use my 90th birthday year to raise funds to continue our work and so of course I want to help them. So, we have a bargain - I am going to London and they will host a concert in Hyde Park, which will raise awareness of our continuing work and much needed funds."
   
   The concert comes 20 years after the landmark spectacle at Wembley Stadium to call for his release from prison and to mark his 70th birthday. Eurythmics, Sting, Whitney Houston, Simple Minds and Dire Straits were among the stars who performed at that event on 11 June 1988. Another concert was held at Wembley after Mandela was released two years later.
   
   
   Keywords: south_africa mandela culture

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Reactions

1. Posted on Saturday 10 May 2008 20:54

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   bhukabijumiro

   

   
   31 berichten
   Lid sinds April 2008

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   Humbly wishing our Revered Eldest Statesman and leader Nelson Mandela a happy 90th birthday, I pray that he lives more years after that in accordance with the Divine Will of course. I also want to express gratitude to those froma round the world who are to perform at Hyde Park, London in the celebrations of His auspicious birthday joy.
   
   Let me lao use this rare opportunity to awaken fellow Africans to the fact that there is a concealed side to African culture and tradition; The Oral Tradition which many understand as our ancestral myths, legends, folktales and riddles. What is un-known about about this Oral Tradition is the fact that it was and is an esoteric treasury of Ancient African Divine Spiritual teachings. We need to tap and dig out of it that hidden divine spiritual fiber and bring it out to the light so we and our children and postery may begin learning from it. From the little that I have researched and come to undrstand, the learning and practicing of Africa's Oral Tradition is the diamond rope that will bind us together as one nation, one people and one country with one president, one currency, one paasport and one army. Only then shall we really learn to respect one another and weed out all ethnic and tribal discrimination amongst us.
   
   The cancer of tribal, religious and ethnic as well as social discrimination that plagues Africa is dependent out failture to discover the common divine spiritual denominator that is found in Africa's Oral Tradition. It is in this tradition that we find aphorisms engendered by our Great Wise Men in different triabes and societies across the vast continent that we shall find how we really have a common ancestor known by different names in different African peoples or tribes. That lost divine spirituality shall then unite us as one and we no longer shall see each other Muslim, catholic, Evangelical, Ugandan South African, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Tanzanian, Ethiopian, or Liberian etc. We shall see us as us united by a common denominator which is our Divine Spiritual Origin.
   
   For this reason, I suggest that African Union seek to establish an African Cultural Research Center with basic aims and objectives, the basic one of which should be: To search in the lost civilizations of African Culture, the common spiritual denominator that unites African peoples as one, based on the common premise that "Do unto others as you have them do unto you."

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