The Digital Mandela
Finding ways to deconstruct the legacy from reality when it comes to South Africa's democratic president, Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela
The Bullshit Files: The “Mandela Ray Ban Sculpture”
Public art, the vandalism of Nelson Mandela’s legacy for commerce and the spoiling of public space in Cape Town.
What would Mandela do
The South African struggle suggests that sports boycotts are effective at forcing change. For white South Africans (and their apologists), sporting isolation was a bitter pill to swallow.
The Naked Woman on Mandela Square
Her nudity wakes us up, either in protest or solidarity to the fact that everything is not okay in South Africa.
It’s Time to Stop Laughing
In neoliberal global capitalism, anything can be monetized, even the criminal exploits of a marginal schizophrenic.
The post-1994 power brokers and black liberation
Where does this leave the majority of largely poor, black and unskilled people affected by the competing interests of powerful groups?
Ruud Gullit and the Struggle for South African Freedom
When Gullit won the Ballon d’Or in 1987, he dedicated the award to the imprisoned Nelson Mandela; then made a reggae song about Apartheid.
What it means to be Winnie Mandela
Since she has never really spoken about her feelings on the breakdown of her marriage to Nelson Mandela, except to very close friends, we are obliged to speculate.
Nelson Mandela’s environmentalism
The first African head of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, on how the world could best do justice to Mandela.
When Little Steven got Paul Simon’s name off a hit list
The making of Paul Simon's "Graceland" album was controversial. But it seems we didn't know the half of it if Steven Van Zandt is to be believed.
The Prisoner and his Pin-up Girl
Apartheid's prisons tolerated 'National Geographic; For Nelson Mandela, who knew better, it was porn.
Nelson Mandela and how we talk about the state in Africa
It may be better to ask what Nelson Mandela's leadership means for how we assess the state in Africa.
To Be Young, Angry and Black
The face of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa is young-ish and black. Their
Shake My Head Mandela “Moments”
We collected a ton of odd (including flat out racist and objectionable) media that circulated on social media and by journalists in the last few days about Mandela's passing.
To Come Back from Qunu
Herman Wasserman, at the site of the funeral of postapartheid South Africa's founder, Nelson Mandela, contemplates Mandela's legacy for his children.
Nelson Mandela and the Dutch
The mainstream view is that the Netherlands was a staunch supporter of South Africa's liberation movement? The story is a bit more complicated.
The Last Founding Father of African Decolonization
It is not hard to understand the iconic status of Nelson Mandela and the overflow of emotion his death has provoked in the Pan-African world.
Burying Comrade Nelson Mandela
For some of us, the official celebrations are missing a crucial element: Celebrating Nelson Mandela as a figure of armed struggle and the liberation movement.
The Mandela Legacy
Madiba’s example of forgiveness, reconciliation, and humility are inseparable from his unwavering commitment to combat white
South African Jazz for Nelson Mandela
A playlist of jazz tunes dedicated to South Africa's first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela.