Masekela Hopes for Anti-Apartheid Concert to Benefit ANC : Democracy: After meeting music executives, the ANC’s arts and culture director believes a star-studded fund-raiser may be held in the States.

The director of arts and culture for the African National Congress was having trouble remembering her New York fax number. She thumbed through her phone directory trying to find it, smiled when she thought she had it, then frowned when she lost it again.

“I’m sorry,” Barbara Masekela sighed as she apologized to a visitor in her Santa Monica hotel room. “It’s been a long, rough trip.”

For the last three weeks, the 48-year-old Masekela has been on a whirlwind tour of the United States, speaking to arts groups, politicians and students in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. She has been rallying support and trying to raise funds for the ANC, the primary anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

The organization, which has been legalized by South Africa President Frederick W. de Klerk after being outlawed since 1960, got a major boost this year with the release of imprisoned black nationalist Nelson Mandela, the ANC’s deputy president.

But Masekela was especially excited about her meetings this last week with music industry executives and artists. She felt the talks could very well lead to a future star-studded benefit concert for the ANC in the United States that would rival the London charity concert held Monday in Mandela’s honor.

“This concert can help us to release the South Africa we deserve, the South Africa that people have fought and died for,” said Masekela, who bears an eerie resemblance to her older brother, jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela.

“We want it to be for the benefit of the ANC, not just a futile exercise.”

Masekela has been in exile from South Africa, where she was born, for 27 years. She has served on the ANC’s executive board since 1982 and makes her home at the ANC’s home base in Lusaka, Zambia, more than 1,000 miles from South Africa. Previously, she was an English professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

During a short interview, Masekela spoke briefly of her home, her family and her two sons, 24 and 6. But she appeared most excited about the preparations for the ANC American concert.

“This would be a very important event,” she said. “Concerts like this have taken place in London and other places, but never in America. It’s time.”

Masekela, who wore a simple long blue dress and colorful necklaces, said her schedule had been so crammed with planning and speaking that she had not even heard of her brother’s denouncement of the London show.

Although he was scheduled to appear at the Wembley Stadium show along with Peter Gabriel, Neil Young, Tracy Chapman and Bonnie Raitt, the South-African-born musician didn’t show up. He reportedly complained that the event was just being used by white artists as a showcase to promote records.

Hugh Masekela, who toured with Paul Simon on his worldwide “Graceland” tour, had also complained about a 1988 concert at Wembley celebrating Mandela’s 70th birthday. He was quoted as saying that show failed to give prominence to South African artists such as himself and singer Miriam Makeba.

Doubts also arose in the London press before the concert about whether overhead costs would prevent the anti-apartheid movement and other charities from receiving any money. Organizers said part of the proceeds will go to charities, but gave no estimate, saying the sale of television rights had not been completed.

“I know little of all of that,” Masekela said when asked about her brother’s criticisms and the controversy. “I’m surprised that there are problems with the show. I don’t know why it wouldn’t raise funds for South Africa.”

Masekela praised the Live Aid efforts and the Sun City anti-apartheid project that brought together such stars as Run-DMC and Bruce Springsteen. “I’m sure the American concert can be just as effective as those were,” she said.

As for the American rock tribute to Mandela, Masekela gave few specifics on the plans or artists who might appear. But she stressed that the concert would not be organized by the ANC.

“We will depend on show-business people who know about putting on these kinds of things,” she said.

She already has an offer from “a well-known producer. If he were associated, everyone would want to be involved. And, of course, if this concert were to take place, we would want Mr. Mandela to attend.”

Much of the proceeds, Masekela said, would go toward financing an “enormous public education program” that would be instituted if or when the hoped-for re-establishment of the ANC’s headquarters in South Africa comes about.

“We need to establish programs where people can make choices, understand what they read,” she said, punctuating her comments with pointed gestures. “To be effective opponents of apartheid, we need an official newspaper, an official radio station, an official television station. There needs to be an effective opposition to the apartheid regime.”

The strengthening of cultural programs and exchanges will be a pivotal part of that change, she said. “We want to have exchanges with other countries on all levels,” Masekela said. “We need to open a new era as soon as possible. Liberation does not occur overnight. It’s a process.”

Masekela’s duties in recent years have included promoting art in ANC schools, and overseeing ANC workshops in theater, dance and video arts. She has helped set up the teaching of such crafts as glass-blowing and weaving. And she has helped persuade other countries to participate in a cultural boycott of South Africa.

She also had harsh words for television broadcasts of “Shaka Zulu” and the just-released film “The Gods Must Be Crazy II.” “I haven’t seen it. I don’t think I could stand it. I know it’s derogatory. It was made with the blessing of the apartheid regime, so it’s their vehicle. It glorifies the simplicity of the Sen people.”

After leaving Los Angeles, Masekela said she was on her way back to Lusaka after a short visit to New York. Her voice became softer as she talked of what she would find if and when she returned to her native South Africa. She has never seen the grave of her mother, who died in 1978.

“It’s very emotional, and I’m apprehensive,” she said. “There’s a great joy I feel, but also a great sadness when I think of others who have died in death squads or of natural causes. They will never see South Africa again. Many of us will go back and see our homes no longer exist.”

But, for now, the anticipation of an American concert for the ANC helps her deal with some of the pain: “I think it will really happen, and there will be an overwhelming response.”