African contributions to the globalized world cannot be celebrated while the place occupied by African peoples remains on the periphery.
Latest
Integrity should be integral
Samthing Soweto and DJ Maphorisa’s clash over a song credit raises the question of whether numbers trump respect in the Amapiano music scene.
When justice means impunity
Twenty-one years after Liberia’s political elite acquiesced to “negative peace,” the US now champions the fight against impunity. Except when their own companies are involved.
The mine dumps of Silicon Valley
While it might be cathartic to compare Elon Musk’s tech firms to apartheid-era mines, the connection between ex-South Africans and American capitalism is complicated.
What does Africa want?
To navigate multipolarity, the continent needs a common narrative that strategically mediates its conversations with China and other world powers.
Fuel’s errand
When Africa’s richest man announced the construction of the continent’s largest crude oil refinery, many were hopeful. But Aliko Dangote has not saved Nigeria. The Nigerian Scam returns to the Africa Is a Country Podcast to explain why.
PODCASTS
This week on the AIAC podcast we’re talking about #RejectFinanceBill2024 and #RutoMustGo, the youth-led movements against Kenya’s out-of-touch elites.
Culture
Coming home
In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.
Sudan’s cultural devastation
How the UAE-backed RSF looted Sudan’s National Museum.
The pitfalls of return
While many diasporans speculate romantically about the people we were or could have been, is that speculation mutual?
Imaginary homelands
A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.
Animating the oral tradition
A new Disney short film series dramatizes traditional African storytelling for the big screen. Does it succeed?
Palestine
Warring with impunity
Without an immediate halt to US arms to Israel, it’s hard to see why Israel should stop slaughtering civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.
Imperialism does not localize
In 1973, Josie Fanon interviewed then-ANC president Oliver Tambo about Israel and apartheid South Africa. Originally printed in French, it is now available in English for the first time.
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.
The psychology of oppression and liberation
What would Fanon say about the ongoing genocide in Palestine?
Politics
Fragile state
Without an immediate change in approach, Somalia will remain a fragmented country populated by self-serving elites seeking foreign patrons.
Africa’s first children problem
No matter where they are, the children of African heads-of-state live lives comically far-removed from those of the average citizen in their home countries.
Beyond humanitarian aid
The war in Sudan shows how during conflict, the internet is as critical as food or medicine.
Shadowy interventions
The EU’s military involvement in West Africa, the Gulf of Guinea, South Sudan, and East Africa is well-known. But one mission on the continent has gone relatively unnoticed.
Marketplace of failure
South Africa’s pivot to electricity markets will be socially regressive, whether green or not.
Revolutionary Papers
A year long series on the archival remnants of African and black diaspora anti-colonial movement materials to retrieve a politics and pedagogy that challenge the contemporary cooptation of radical histories. Guest editors: Mahvish Ahmad, Koni Benson, and Hana Morgenstern from the Revolutionary Papers project (revolutionarypapers.org)
Nigeria's archives of revolutionary printmaking offers us insights into the dissident voices of the country's old left, which are surprisingly relevant today.
Christian theology was appropriated to play an integral role in the justifying apartheid’s racist ideology. Black theologians resisted through a theology of the oppressed.