Reading List: Brooks Marmon
The writings of Edson Sithole, Zimbabwe’s forgotten nationalist thinker, reveal both the promise and perils of pan-African politics in the independence era.
ANC
Struggle and archive
The formerly exiled ANC activist and later judge Albie Sachs is archiving his life, including a new film that forms part of a larger project of legacy-making.
Beyond national liberation
A new book issues both an indictment of South Africa’s failed transition and a call to rebuild the left through climate justice, solidarity economies, and radical humanism.
Metal that will bend
Once a beacon of hope for militant trade unionism, Numsa’s descent into corruption and political entanglement reflects the broader struggles facing South Africa’s labor movement.
Marketplace of failure
South Africa’s pivot to electricity markets will be socially regressive, whether green or not.
L’impérialisme ne localise pas
En 1973, Josie Fanon a interviewé Oliver Tambo, alors président de l’ANC, à propos d’Israël et de l’apartheid en Afrique du Sud. Il est désormais disponible pour la première fois depuis sa publication originale.
Between two evils
After losing its parliamentary majority for the first time, the African National Congress is scrambling to form a coalition government. The options are bleak.
Just us voting?
The Just Us Under A Tree podcast returns to analyze all the legal drama building up to South Africa’s general election.
Character assassin
Author RW Johnson's latest aberration is a mix of fiction and lazy research that misrepresents anti-apartheid struggle leaders.
The Bisho March and the Leipzig Option
Revisionist histories of South Africa’s transition to democracy are overdue, like on the deadly march on Bisho in the Ciskei homeland on 7 September 1992.
A man of the people
Robert Vinson's biography of Albert Luthuli hints at how liberation histories might be reframed to better address the problems of the present.
Corruption is a class project
Different factions of South Africa's ruling elite are implicated in looting and profiting from the state. South Africans should take an attitude of a plague on both their houses.
Not much to see here
Don’t get to excited by the local election results in South Africa. The party system is fragmenting, but old apartheid divides persist.
Jennifer Davis: Fearless and visionary
Davis, who died at 84 on October 15th, was a prominent leader of the anti-apartheid movement in the US and an analytical thinker and visionary.
The virtual reality of Walter Sisulu
While Sisulu's political career is less celebrated than Nelson Mandela, it was as remarkable.
Albert Luthuli, MLK and global human rights
Albert Luthuli was ANC President when South Africa's biggest liberation movement turned to armed struggle. He's been the subject of much conjecture. What did he actually think about political violence?
The rise of the gangster state in South Africa
President Jacob Zuma oversaw a rise in political violence across all sectors of South African society.
Three Myths about Mandela Worth Busting
The Nelson Mandela encountered by former antiapartheid activist Tony Karon in American media is so unrecognizable.
The South African Compromise
How did leftist political scientist Adam Habib end up as a South African version of Thomas Friedman?
Little Stan Greenberg is Dead
South African political party, the DA, pivots its election campaign around claiming Nelson Mandela. Who came up with this?