The Dame Shirley Bassey Message Board: South African cultural boycott in the 80's when Miss Bassey performed

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South African cultural boycott in the 80's when Miss Bassey performed

Posted by Pat (Veronica) on July 1, 2008, 4:36 am
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Hello everybody ! For the first time in a long time a real debate about our lovely Dame who we all adore for the right reasons, but would like more of her old material. I am attaching some very interesting links below about The South African boycott when Shirley performed and would like to know what you all think. I was not at all impressed with the line-up for Mandela's concert. Where was Elton John - oops he also performed during the Boycott. I am beginning to wonder whether the Dame pulled out for all these reasons because she was determined to perform. Did someone whispear something and remind her it would probably not be a good idea. After all Queen who also performed during the boycott was slammered in the press so I think the Dame would have also been hammered. What do you all think ? Let's all have a meaninful debate - over to you.

http://afrobella.com:80/2006/11/16/beautifully-aging-afrobella-shirley-bassey/

http://www.ub40.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1225581&sid=0ec596343760ed136a11d8079caf507f

How ironic that both Queen and Shirley Bassey performed at Sun City in the 80s, yet were asked to perform at Nelson Mandelas Birthday party...
They both played Sun City at the height of the apartheid regime, in the face of the wordwide cultural boycott, whilst UB40 received an award for their refusal to break the boycott.
They certainly dont seem to have put a lot of thought into who they asked to do it, do they?
At the time the concert was being put together, the concept was that Queen would be onstage the entire evening, and artists would come on to perform with them.. obviously UB40 would not want to be backed by the "Sun City Rockers', so communication about the event broke down..

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aowvjFQod9IC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=Shirley+Bassey+cultural+boycott+of+South+Africa+in+the+1980s&source=web&ots=f9y0Deea50&sig=x1eIXccfWWzDakX9GU_9GWoLlEE&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA24,M1

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/22/magazine/22SAFR.html

Whites need blacks to validate their belief that apartheid has now ceased to matter. The casino resort called Sun City, I was told, was ready to pay a black superstar, a Diana Ross or Sammy Davis Jr. or Lena Horne, as much as the $1 million it supposedly showered on Frank Sinatra in order to get that cachet. (The bait wasn't taken, but Shirley Bassey and George Benson, two black stars of lesser magnitude, came for less.) For much the same reason, I think, blacks have their place in the cosmopolitan fantasy that is constantly being marketed to whites. A variation on this theme that first grabbed my attention was a fashion spread in a women's magazine that showed a black South African model in what was described as a gold boucle jacket. She also wore gold slacks, gold shoes, gold gloves and a feathered gold beanie, and she was reclining on a parapet above El Greco's Toledo in order to display these garments from South Africa to the mainly white readers of Fair Lady. ''Lady in Spain,'' the article was called.