Miriam Makeba

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.

It is very much the theme of our President, President Thabo Mbeki, whose passion is for Africa to work together, and for Africans to get up and do things for us. We are trying as women to do things for ourselves.

Be careful, think about the effect of what you say. Your words should be constructive, bring people together, not pull them apart.

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.

In the mind, in the heart, I was always home. I always imagined, really, going back home.

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.

Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way so you won't get run over.

Everybody now admits that apartheid was wrong, and all I did was tell the people who wanted to know where I come from how we lived in South Africa. I just told the world the truth. And if my truth then becomes political, I can't do anything about that.

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.