Yes, the BBC sent the snooty John Simpson to South Africa to do a bit of parachute journalism and be led around by the white “rights” group Afriforum (since when are they are a credible source?) to come up with this insulting question: “Do white people have a future in South Africa?” Read it here. The […]
Given South Africa’s stated commitment to multilingualism, you might not think that a requirement from one of the country’s universities that its students learn an indigenous African language would raise much alarm. Yet alarm has nonetheless been the reaction from a few unexpected quarters to the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s announcement that all first-year students enrolled […]
Memory Gumbo is a mother, an “ordinary woman”, living in Harare, Zimbabwe. Tsitsi Dangarembga is an internationally recognized writer and filmmaker, living in Harare as well. Both agree on at least one thing: That “No to loitering,” sold to the public as a ‘crackdown’ on sex workers, has nothing to do with sex workers. In […]
*By Jimmy Kainja* Last week we had a public holiday in Malawi. May 14 is “Kamuzu Day,” when the nation celebrates the life of its founding president, Hastings Kamuzu Banda whose autocratic rule lasted between 1964 and 1994. The day has been there since Kamuzu’s reign, during which it was celebrated as his birthday. This despite […]
“There are no foreclosed destinies, only deserted responsabilities” has become one of the mottos of the collective of Senegalese singers and journalists known as Y’En A Marre (“Enough is enough” in French). In the wake of the 2012 presidential elections, the group gained international recognition for leading the charge against then President Abdoulaye Wade, who […]
