they once released a list of persons that should die in a aircrash and Nicky was included!

Oh no... why did I have to read this thread? :( This isn't going to be pretty, so if you're deeply invested in being a Freddy fan, or have heard my rant before, back-button now.

Actually, Chumbawamba are attacking the way that FM was no cultural hero and essentially spent most of his life in Britain playing up his 'exotic' sounding birth in Zanzibar (a British protectorate) while he never identified with - or stood up for - people who shared his Gujarat/Indian background. They're accusing him of having the advantage of 'passing'.

Freddy 'passed' even to the extent of breaking the United Nations' cultural boycott of South Africa while it retained its apartheid state. In 1984 Queen decided to break the boycott and earn millions by playing a string of dates in Sun City. Freddy took the paycheck while more socially aware, and politically intelligent, musicians stood with Artists United Against Apartheid and refused to play in South Africa. Freddy's defense? "We're not political." Easier to say when your money, fame and geography insulate you to such an extent that you don't even identify with the suffering and oppression of people who share your racial background. If Freddy had been born in South Africa he would have been told where he could live under the Group Areas Act and had his every opportunity governed by his racial profile. It takes a special kind of 'non-political' to ignore that and take Apartheid's paycheck.

I enjoy lots of Queen's music, they were hugely talented - but having 'been there' in the early 80's I get sick of the way people only seem to remember Queen's resurgence after Live Aid (perfectly planned and choreographed to bolster their public image) and not the way they put money over principle. The same goes with HIV. Freddy could have made a huge difference to other sufferers, and public perception. Instead he instructed his management to announce his illness only when he was in the last 24 hours of his life. He didn't leave a bean of his millions to charity. Instead, other musicians raised money for HIV awareness - in his name - after his death.

No cultural hero - but he was *great* at Live Aid, wasn't he? That's what Chumbawamba were getting at.

This explains a lot. Thank you.

That was really enlightening for an eighties baby like myself! I always believed the lie of I Want It All being somewhat of an expression of solidarity with street kids in South Africa - I was brainwashed by my Queen-loving elders! I never knew that they played SA during apartheid, unpolitical indeed. Thanks for clearing things up, even though it's depressing.

Did Chumbawamba know about his background, though?

Yes. They spoke about it the time along with their condemnation of Live aid. But if you don't believe that, please explain how these lyrics make any other sense:

What would be the hypocrisy of a white man playing for a white-power regime?

Sun City, under the Apartheid government, wasn't actually in South Africa. it was in a made up country called Bophuthatswana, a couple created (and not recognized by anyone else) to declare all black people as coming from instead of SA itself.

a chap called Sol Kerzner clocked that this was an opportunity to fuck the Apartheid government with its own cock. as it wasn't in SA, then as long as he had the permission of the theoretical rulers of this, let's call it a "homeland", he could open up a massive casino. Gambling was banned in apartheid SA, you see.

of course they were playing to South Africans when they went there - Queen, Frank Sinatra and a few others - but on paper they weren't in South Africa. in the late 80s something similar happened in Zimbabwe - Springsteen, Dylan and a few others did a concert there and the audience was 99% white South Africans!

i am not saying Queen or anyone else was right to break the "cultural boycott", but you also have to remember that this was a thing made up by Western activists and something that the ANC and others in the struggle against apartheid did not want to happen. with the incredible censorship along with all the other things that the apartheid government did, they feared a cultural isolation would leave the people entirely unaware of the freedoms of the rest of the world and thus eventually you would get to a situation where resistance to the minority white rule would be drained, for they would know no different way of life.

as far as i can tell (i only came here post-apartheid), the cultural boycott made little difference. all films and music made it to this country (see Searching For Sugar Man), but you can understand why the majority of artists were reluctant to do anything that could be made to out as them in some way endorsing the horrid system that was in place here. that said, the likes of U2, Coldplay, Phil Collins, Elton John, Bon Jovi, Metallica, etc have all been here post-apartheid and have played to all white audiences, much as they would have done during the apartheid era. it's not because black people were not allowed to those concerts, it's just that they think white music is shit.

oddly, and not widely reported in the rest of the world, an amazing music event happened in the mid-80s here. basically a whole bunch of musicians and fans from all colours said "fuck you" and held a massive concert to show it.

Oh come on, don't paint the made up state as anything other than a way for entrepreneurs to make a buck out of a government work-around. Please don't make some sort of quasi-freedom fighter out of Sol Kerzner. Sun City was a convenient way to provide access to the casinos and topless revue shows that the National Party government had prohibited in South Africa as being immoral. Sun City et al, allowed a South African elite to both profit and entertain itself without travelling too far, and the acts that played their could kid themselves that they were playing an independent state.
There's zero comparison between Human Rights Now playing in post colonial Zimbabwe and Queen playing in Sun City! The whole point of HRN was to be political. If the audience was 99% white South Africans that's because they had the money and means to travel. At least they got a lecture and unintentionally put some money into Amnesty International's coffers.

As for Concert in the Park, that was a concert of South African bands, wasn't it? I don't really understand what that has to do with breaking an international boycott.

You're conflating a number of very different things.

i am totally baffled as to your interpretation of what i said! did i fuck make Kerzner out to be any sort of hero, he's an opportunistic casino owner who took full advantage of the apartheid government's ways.

Concert In The Park had no international acts, i did not say it was breaking a boycott anywhere? i thought one or two might be interested in seeing a rather remarkable (given the time and circumstances) event of unity from here that was most certainly music related; i can only assume you are not one of those interested.

yes the acts that "broke the boycott" made an awful lot of money. Freddie actually doubled Queen's fee, by informing Kerzner that he seemed to have lost his voice and was pretty sure another cheque would help it come back.

you would imagine the white SAs that travelled to Zim for the likes of Springsteen where the same whites who voted to end apartheid here and thus perhaps not really needed an lecture but all the same got encouragement from the gig, but please don't let me stop your crusade.

either apologies for allowing misinterpretation in what i said or go fuck yourself for insinuating that i believe that band should have supported apartheid, take whichever one you feel to be the most correct.

Then I completely apologise for my misreading of what you meant by "Sol Kerzner clocked that this was an opportunity to fuck the Apartheid government with its own cock". I thought you were gracing him with a political motivation when your second post makes clear that you weren't.

I don't think it's fair to have a go at Freddie for not declaring his illness. That's a totally private matter

as best "black maket entrepreneur", not a million miles away from, say, Abramovich. it's true that if you asked around black people here would say Kerzner was the man to work for because he treated all staff like human beings, but that doesn't mean how he made his money was right and it certainly didn't make him some sort of hero of the struggle.

we shall have a pint or two and discuss further, or just a pint or two.


have to agree with this. just because it's OK for some to does not mean you have to turn your illness into a public crusade, no matter how famous you are. in all honesty you would have thought Freddie would accept that him trying to speak to people about having a "safer, less flamboyant life" would probably been laughed at by the press and most likely done more harm than good.

Brilliant post, thanks for that!

I think you make a very true and fair point. It isn't for everyone, it's not an obligation and he had every right to keep it private. However, his statement said And then he died within 24 hours (as he pretty much knew he was going to) and left butkus to the fight he said everyone should 'join him' in. Either do one thing or the other. Be private, or do something - but don't pay lip service to both. It's the hypocrisy on top of hypocrisy that pisses me off. I still think he could have made a bequest to HIV research after that statement. Plenty of people assume he did. That's my problem, really. I'm getting too involved in venting my frustrations at hearing Queen fans rewrite him as someone who gave a toss for political or social idealism*. He did not found Mercury Phoenix Trust, or play any part in planning The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. Every penny raised for HIV/AIDS has come from others. The real 'fighters' are Jim Beach and Brian May.

*Again, apologies for misreading starstruck's intentions, and venting here. I promise this is the last one!

the second quote was from starstruck not me :)

Freddie was into parties and not much else.