The poetics of protest
From rooftop beginnings to open mics that echo on the streets, Kenya’s newest literary collective shows how art can archive struggle and energize dissent.
protest
Nepal’s Gen Z reckoning
On the AIAC podcast, we speak with Feyzi Ismail about Nepal’s Gen Z uprising that toppled the ruling establishment.
Nepal’s new reality
The youth-led uprising in Nepal has toppled the old guard, but its endurance depends on whether anger at corruption and inequality can be translated into lasting political change.
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.
The anticolonial roots of Kenya’s student strikes
From the colonial classroom to today’s exam halls, student strikes in Kenya are less outbursts than acts of political imagination—insisting that schools live up to their promise of justice and transformation.
Gen Z and the spirit of Mau Mau
Kenya’s largest-ever protests have drawn striking comparisons to the Mau Mau uprising. But for today’s movement to endure, it must move beyond the streets and invest in political education.
All pull together
The 2025 Kenyan protests once again declared themselves “tribeless, leaderless, partyless.” But what does the idiom of unity hide?
When the crowds go home
The first print edition of Africa Is a Country asks: Fifteen years after the mass protest decade began, what happens when the crisis endures?
Zambia’s quiet diplomacy
Long seen as a neutral player in global affairs, Zambia’s foreign policy is shifting under new pressures—from Western donors, Chinese investment, and its own strategic ambitions.
Good revolutions talk back
As political discontent rises in Kenya, silencing women’s and queer rights in the pursuit of economic justice risks compromising the movement entirely.
The crisis of African liberators
As Mozambique nears 50 years of independence, its ruling party clings to power amid political turmoil, contested elections, and growing public discontent. Is this the beginning of a new struggle for liberation?
A crise dos libertadores Africanos
À medida que Moçambique se aproxima dos 50 anos de independência, seu partido no poder se agarra ao poder em meio à turbulência política, eleições contestadas e crescente descontentamento público.
Enter the Povo
Mozambique’s disputed elections triggered a deadly uprising, as citizens resisted Frelimo’s rule and exposed the cracks in neoliberal policies.
We have the right to political anger
As students face repression for protesting genocide, universities must decide: will they defend freedom or enforce silence?
The inheritance of hope
Through political turmoil and broken promises, Kenyans hold fast to hope—an enduring force that fuels resilience and dreams of a brighter future.
Gen Z, Riggy G, and the Kenyan pornocracy
In a political landscape defined by opportunism, spectacle, and betrayal, Kenya’s youth-led protests offered a fleeting glimpse of change—only to be ensnared by the same system they sought to challenge.
Beats of defiance
From the streets of Khartoum to exile abroad, Sudanese hip-hop artists have turned music into a powerful tool for protest, resilience, and the preservation of collective memory.
No more business as usual
What can the complete civil disobedience of the Sudanese Professionals Association teach us at a moment when belief in the efficacy of nonviolent protest is in decline?
The Nigerian people must own their resistance
When rising against ruling-class corruption, Nigerians must reject the hero culture that has historically undermined genuine activism.
Mozambique and the politics of popular uprising
On November 21st, 2024, we discussed the politics underlying the popular uprising in Mozambique with António Bai, Anne Pitcher, and José Jaime Macuane.