FastWater Dispensers

I watched this concert video not long after it was made. There was a lot of great music in it, but this is the song that really made an impression on me. At that time, South Africa was still under the iron fist of the racist Apartheid government, and Nelson Mandela, the leader of the black resistance movement, had been imprisoned for over twenty years as a political prisoner. Hugh Masekela and his band sang:

Bring back
Nelson Mandela!
Bring him back home to Soweto!
I wanna see him walkin' down the street
of South Africa!
Tomorrow!

At the time, it seemed almost certain that Mandela would never be released, and that he would die in prison.
But a few years later the Apartheid government gave up power, and Nelson Mandela was released! He went on to become President of South Africa in the first truly fair election in the country. He presided of a period of joy and renewal in his nation. It was one of the times when the good guys won, and gave us all hope that justice and good people really could triumph over crime and corruption and evil. Mandela lived a long life after he retired, and died among his family when he was 95.
Unfortunately, the South African government fell into corruption, and they misgoverned and mismanaged the place pretty badly. Right now crime is out of control and most of the country is rapidly falling back into the stone age because criminals and gangs have stolen almost all of the cables in the electric grid and sold them as scrap-metal, and as soon as the utilities replace them the criminals steal them again, so no one has any electricity. Some major cities are completely out of water, and the crisis is spreading.
I bet a lot of them wish they really could bring back Nelson Mandela.

miriam makeba, Zimbabwe concert (paul simon - graceland land miriam makeba, Graceland live concert in Zimbabwe, with Paul Simon

Happy New Year Everyone!