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ADDRESS BY

THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
MR JACQUES CHIRAC

ON THE OCCASION OF THE CEREMONY
FOR THE AWARD OF THE COMMANDEUR INSIGNIA
OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR
TO MIRIAM MAKEBA

JOHANNESBURG

MONDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 2002

Madame,
Dear Miriam,

I am truly very happy to be with you again tonight, to see you together with your family and all your close friends.

Our previous meeting four years ago during my State visit to South Africa has left a deep impression on me. We were seated next to each other during a luncheon that brought together personalities from the world of culture around Bishop Desmond Tutu, and so I was able to appreciate not only your elegance but also your intelligence, your strength of character and your charisma. I had promised myself at the time, if the opportunity arose, to show you the admiration, respect and friendship that I feel for you, that France and the French people feel for you.

This opportunity is afforded to me today. At the time when the whole of Mankind is meeting in Johannesburg to decide its future, I am deeply happy to pay a tribute she rightly deserves to an exceptional lady who, mustering all her talent, all her passion, all her generosity, is helping to write the history of the world.

In your memoirs, "Makeba - My Story", you tell us: "I was refused a home, we were refused a land. I saw my family killed by soldiers. I was exiled outside the country and my people was exiled within... My life, my career, each song I sing and each concert I give are tied to the fate of my people."

You have, dear Miriam, always pursued your career and your political commitments head-on. And this difficult choice you have fully assumed has made of the world-famous South African singer a symbol and a model of courage and kind-heartedness for Africa as a whole, for humanity as a whole.

Your career was at its height when the Sharpeville massacre occurred in South Africa, during which two of your uncles were killed. Soon afterwards, your mother died. You were refused a visa, and thus denied the right to bid her a last farewell.

This marked the beginning of an exile which lasted over thirty years, while you were to discover segregation in the United States and the impact of the Civil Rights Movement.

The very great black singer – a woman of culture attached to her identity, her roots, her country, and who had always fought apartheid – was now going to see her commitments through. You became Mama Africa, a model for an entire continent.

1991 saw the end of thirty one years of exile and, thanks to a French passport –since you always maintained a close and deep personal tie with France– your return to your country where, despite the fact that the sale of all your records was prohibited, you were a living legend for all South Africans.

The stupendous artist who met with a triumphant welcome took advantage of her aura to call once again for an end to violence. You, who were awarded many distinctions all over the world in recognition of your fight for the oppressed, were going to devote yourself to your country and the future of its children, alongside Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu. You then created the Foundation for the Children of Africa and, to raise funds, organised a concert in Lagos which was a huge success and on which the film "The Children of Africa" is based. You display amazing energy: you, whom President Thabo Mbeki has made his goodwill ambassador worldwide, have just inaugurated a rehabilitation centre for young girls that is named after you, as was named after you last year the French school in Pretoria.

You have accomplished all that with a single weapon, that of your songs, those heavenly "little things" that sing everyday life but each word of which echo those thousands of people whose dignity has been flouted. All your life you have fought against the exploitation of men and women. For all the oppressed, as for the younger generations who are finding out about you and remixing your repertoire with delight, you are the one who restores hope by inviting each and every one of us to look to the future, to set one's "Eyes On Tomorrow" according to one of your albums' title.

By presenting you, dear Miriam, with this insignia of the Legion of Honour today in Johannesburg where the Earth Summit is being held, I too want to look to the future. At a time when I have the delight of honouring a very great lady who has drawn on her incomparable talent and on all the strength of her passion to pursue her commitment, I would like to express a hope: I hope that your example, one of the most stunning examples of courage and generosity there can be, will remain a model for the citizens of the world.

And now I declare Miriam MAKEBA,

Au nom de la République française,

Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur.