Esther Mahlangu Quotes

African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West.

[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

The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed. Poverty is the reason HIV/AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums. Poverty is the real killer.

I look at an ant and see myself: a native South African, endowed with a strength much greater than my size, so I might cope with the weight of racism that crushes my spirit.

The kind of painting which I find exciting is not necessarily representational or non-representational, but it is musical and architectural... Whether this visual relationship is slightly more or slightly less abstract is, for me, beside the point.

In New York I heard A Piece of Ground, written by a white South African, Jeremy Taylor. I modified it a little and sang it myself. That song is very special to me because it deals with the land question in southern Africa. We were dispossessed of our land.

But African languages refused to die. They would not simply go to the way of Latin to become the fossils for linguistic archaeology to dig up, classify, and argue about the international conferences.

[Bai Juyi] utilized Confucianism to order his conduct, utilized Buddhism to cleanse his mind, and then utilized history, paintings, mountains, rivers, wine, music and song to soothe his spirit.

I’ve been drawing since childhood but I studied economics instead of art, I was really interested in political news and geopolitics. My favourite topic is political drawing/cartoon. It is a perfect way to combine my 2 passions: my interest for the news and my drawing skills.

A Current Affair

The European view point of exploitation of women in Europe compared to the African American women shows an inaccurate judgment.

A news item from Dhaka says that "A radical Muslim priest has offered love and marriage to Bangladesh's most controversial feminist writer, Taslima Nasreen, in order to bring her to the faith". "She will be my third wife," said Mr. Rahim Baksh, an Islamic cleric in Cox's Bazar town in southeastern Bangladesh.

Looking at the new generation of African artists, many of them get trapped early on in styles that aren’t theirs, and that limits them. At this rate, I worry about the future of African music, and that in the future, there won’t be many singers who represent the African woman.

When the Messenger of God conquered Hunayn, he desired to march to al-Ta if. He sent al-Tufayl b. “Amr to Dhū l-Kaffayn the idol of Amr b. Humama to destroy it. He commanded him to ask his people to help him and join him in al-Ta’if.

Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?

[https://m.rediff.com/news/varsha.htm Archive of Articles by Varsha]