Creativity Quote by Miriam Makeba

Makeba’s line lands like a seasoned performer’s aside to the audience: not despair, not naïve hope, but the hard-earned realism of someone who watched policy get applauded on paper while daily life stayed brutal. Coming from a South African musician who lived through apartheid, exile, and the global “freeing” of regimes that still left old power intact, her point is less about cynicism than about the stubbornness of social habit. Laws can outlaw an act; they can’t instantly uproot the reflexes that make the act feel normal, profitable, or invisible.

The intent is quietly corrective. It pushes back against the comforting fantasy that justice is a legislative event: pass the bill, cut the ribbon, announce progress. Makeba insists that culture is not a switch you flip; it’s a tempo you have to keep. The subtext is directed at both sides of the reform story: leaders who use laws as moral alibis, and activists (or outsiders) who expect quick conversion and then blame the people for “not getting better” fast enough. Her phrasing, “people’s ways,” carries the weight of custom, prejudice, and survival strategies - the stuff governments don’t control and often don’t want to confront.

Context matters because Makeba’s life was proof that art can change consciousness faster than institutions can. She’s arguing for patience without passivity: if you “must change them,” you start by understanding them - their fears, incentives, histories - and you commit to the long game. It’s political wisdom delivered in the key of lived experience.