Cold War

Monday, February 10th, 2014

Enough of the liberal pieties on Sochi and gay rights

The Guardian‘s website decided to have a rainbow “G” in its title during the past few days in order to support LGBT rights, and to thumb its nose at Russia (a few other news broadcasters/outlets did, too), just as Google did last week with its rainbow doodle. I’m sure they feel very pleased with themselves.

Monday, January 13th, 2014

Nelson Mandela and how we talk about the state in Africa

The first point to recognize is that most states in Africa were formed as a consequence of independence struggles. State power followed long and bitter anti-colonial struggles, with the promise not only of building a nation, but...

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Music Break. Dengue Fever

A lot of music we like don’t come from Africa. Like this one from Dengue Fever, the California-Cambodia combo: an Indonesian protest song “Gendjer Gendjer.”

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

Afro-Russians

Photographer Liz Johnson-Artur‘s images illustrates a piece by Sarah Bentley in the latest issue of Nigerian magazine, ARISE, on Russian nationals of mixed Russian and African descent. Those profiled in the piece mostly know each from the...

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

America has ‘blood on our hands’ in Congo

Author Adam Hochschild interviewed by PBS program, Need to Know, on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. A conspiracy of American, Belgian and Congolese military and diplomatic operatives played a...

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

‘Boers and Bantus’

This is a find. A while back the “History” page of the Dutch TV channel, VPRO–one of my favorite sites–posted some classic video from a show, “Boeren en Bantoes” (Boers and Bantus) from a 1960 program by...