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?
Latest
Reading the present as history
In his debut novel, Thaer Husien remixes genre and takes readers on a psychedelic ride through a dystopian yet disturbingly familiar future Palestine.
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.
Why are African artifacts everywhere but Africa?
The countless African artifacts that continue to be held in Western institutions after being obtained illegally send a violent message that makes efforts toward reconciliation inconsequential.
Liberation is not propaganda
At Africa Energy Week, the language of resource sovereignty disguised a new form of climate denial that appropriates progressive rhetoric in service of fossil fuel companies.
Not exactly at arm’s length
Despite South Africa’s ban on arms exports to Israel and its condemnation of Israel’s actions in Palestine, local arms companies continue to send weapons to Israel’s allies and its major arms suppliers.
PODCASTS
2024 has been the ultimate election year. Just Us Under A Tree rejoins the Africa Is a Country Podcast to reflect on South Africa’s May poll and what it reveals about contemporary democratic politics.
Culture
More French than Algerian
This week, Kamel Daoud became the first Algerian to receive France’s most prestigious literary honor. Yet, in Algeria, no one seems to care.
Between Harlem and home
African postcolonial cinema serves as a mirror, revealing the limits of escape—whether through migration or personal defiance—and exposing the tensions between dreams and reality.
The aftertaste of the ocean
Mati Diop’s ‘Dahomey’ isn’t solely concerned with the subject of repatriating Beninese artifacts, but with returning the debate to the Beninese themselves.
Museum of memory
An eye-opening documentary on African literary titan Wole Soyinka wants us to laud his “politics” without ever having Soyinka himself talk about them.
Writers for a new world
The debacle around Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest book shows us that no matter a writer’s individual acclaim, the liberal media establishment will never tolerate anything that fundamentally challenges its racist edifice.
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.
Politics
Ruto’s Kenya
Since June’s anti-finance bill protests, dozens of people remain unaccounted for—a stark reminder of the Kenyan state’s long history of abductions and assassinations.
Mozambique and the politics of popular uprising
Join us on November 21st as we discuss the politics underlying the popular uprising in Mozambique with António Bai, Anne Pitcher, and José Jaime Macuane.
Hopium kills but hope seeds
Reflections on Trump’s 2024 US presidential victory.
No justice, no peace in Mozambique
A decade ago, the kind of protest movement gripping Mozambique over the last few weeks would have been difficult to fathom.
When you get under Antony Blinken’s skin
On the deplatforming of ‘African Stream.’
Donald Trump
Hopium kills but hope seeds
Reflections on Trump’s 2024 US presidential victory.
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.
The dangers of white totalitarianism
Why is the US ultra-right turning to Rhodesia as their model for a white supremacist state?
On Safari
On our annual publishing break, we ask: if the opposite of “weird” is normal, what if normal is equally problematic?