Africa Is a Country

Blood on the chair

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Blood on the chair

By
Sean Jacobs

Platon, the New Yorker staff photographer got many of the world's leaders to sit for portraits. A number of African leaders obliged.

Platon described Rwanda's longtime President, Paul Kagame, as "my favorite picture."

In September this year over five days, Platon, the New Yorker staff photographer got many of the world’s leaders to sit for him while they were here for a meeting of the United Nations. You can check out all the portraits on the New Yorker’s website. Each photograph come with audio commentary by Platon. Here are some of the African leaders.

About Robert Mugabe, the longtime leader of Zimbabwe, Platon says: “… His skin was so stretched. It wasn’t oily, but it looks oily, shiny … made of wax of glass or something … ” As Mugabe walked away, another leader (who remains nameless) refused to sit in the same chair. When asked what’s wrong with the chair, the leader responded: “There’s blood on it.”

Then there’s Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa, who Platon describes as “warm” “look[ing] wicked” and “definitely laughing at me”

Rupiah Banda of Zambia, whose face is “carved in stone”:

And, Raila Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya, who appeared distracted:

View the rest here.

Further Reading

The sound of revolt

On his third album, Afro-Portuguese artist Scúru Fitchádu fuses ancestral wisdom with urban revolt, turning memory and militancy into a soundtrack for resistance.

O som da revolta

No seu terceiro álbum, o artista afro-português Scúru Fitchádu funde a sabedoria ancestral com a revolta urbana, transformando memória e militância em uma trilha sonora para a resistência.

Biya forever

As Cameroon nears its presidential elections, a disintegrated opposition paves the way for the world’s oldest leader to claim a fresh mandate.

From Cornell to conscience

Hounded out of the United States for his pro-Palestine activism, Momodou Taal insists that the struggle is global, drawing strength from Malcolm X, faith, and solidarity across borders.

After the uprising

Following two years of mass protest, Kenya stands at a crossroads. A new generation of organizers is confronting an old question: how do you turn revolt into lasting change? Sungu Oyoo joins the AIAC podcast to discuss the vision of Kenya’s radical left.

Redrawing liberation

From Gaza to Africa, colonial cartography has turned land into property and people into populations to be managed. True liberation means dismantling this order, not redrawing its lines.

Who deserves the city?

Colonial urbanism cast African neighborhoods as chaotic, unplanned, and undesirable. In postcolonial Dar es Salaam, that legacy still shapes who builds, who belongs, and what the middle class fears the city becoming.

Djinns in Berlin

At the 13th Berlin Biennale, works from Zambia and beyond summon unseen forces to ask whether solidarity can withstand the gaze of surveillance.

Colonize then, deport now

Trump’s deportation regime revives a colonial blueprint first drafted by the American Colonization Society, when Black lives were exiled to Africa to safeguard a white republic.