Instead of voting for the bankrupt ANC or DA, South Africans could do better with social movement candidates in upcoming local elections.
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Mission betrayed
The New Apartheid, a new book by Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, seeks to define a generational mission in South Africa. Instead, it shrouds our existing one in complete opacity.
Sankara lives!
This week on AIAC Talk we discuss the start of Thomas Sankara’s assassination trial, which confirms that for many Burkinabes, his spirit very much lives on.
Performing Angolaness
In contemporary Angola, the gap between the public discourse on culture and the on-the-ground reality of the arts and culture sector is deepening.
Beyond the boundary
South African cricket is currently the subject of TRC-style hearings into the racism and nepotism in the game. It makes for riveting TV, but focuses too much on individual instances of racism and discrimination.
Capitalism Mtaani at the Dandora dumpsite
In the third video for our Nairobi edition of Capitalism in My City, Gacheke Gachihi visits a site of environmental injustice.
AIAC RADIO
Africa Is a Country Radio continues its season focused on African club culture. Our next stop is Lagos. Listen here and on Worldwide FM.
Culture
Disentangling memory from truth
In the collective consciousness of global football, Zaire and Haiti—which both qualified for the 1974 World Cup—are remembered for their dismal performance. But is this legacy justified?
Probing the depths of the CIA’s misdeeds in Africa
The CIA committed many crimes in the early days of post-independence Africa. But is it fair to call their interference “recolonization”?
The class contradictions of scholar activism
The radical politics of the professional middle classes—too often found full of rhetoric, but short on action—are explored in Leo Zeilig’s new novel, The World Turned Upside Down.
Some kind of personal comfort
Kyle Shepherd’s new music blooms brightly from out of the shadow of pandemic and considers what it means to be South African, African, and human.
God was everywhere in the street
Renowned Ghanaian highlife musician, Nana Ampadu, died on September 28, 2021. In this interview from 2007, historian Jennifer Hart talks with him about the music that made him famous.
Capitalism in My City
The Mathare Social Justice Centre has partnered with Africa Is a Country to produce a series of posts and videos to document everyday capitalism in Nairobi. The project is funded via the Shuttleworth Fellowship awarded to Sean Jacobs.
In the third video for our Nairobi edition of Capitalism in My City, Gacheke Gachihi visits a site of environmental injustice.
In the second video from our Capitalism In My City project, Dennis Esikuri talks to everyday Nairobians about the current employment opportunities in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Politics
Organized irresponsibility
On this week’s AIAC Talk, a discussion with historian Adam Tooze on the history and future of the COVID-19 crisis.
The United States is not a country
The US federal system is a patchwork of states and territories, municipal and local jurisdictions, each with its own laws and regulations. This complex map provides ample opportunities for shell games of “hide the money.”
Post-apartheid symptoms of morbidity
Ordinary working-class people have been forced to the belief that there can never actually be real solutions; stripped of the confidence that fundamental change can happen.
What happened to land grabs in Africa?
More than a decade since the surge in large-scale land acquisitions worldwide, many land deals remain in limbo. They nonetheless have far-reaching consequences for those who depend on land as foundational to life.
The end of Tunisian democracy?
On this week’s episode of AIAC Talk, Will Shoki speaks with Maha Ben Gadha about the changing political landscape in Tunisia.
Technology
Nigeria’s Twitter ban and the resistance politics of VPNs
Anyone who cares about civil society, free speech, and human rights should find the state’s digital silencing of its citizens deeply troubling.
WhatsApp and anti-capitalism: should you stay or should you go?
Facebook and its “family” of services are a one-way street towards greater integration, data exploitation, and erosions of privacy by an increasingly monopolistic company.
More widespread than we think
Today's social movements rely on tech collectives to organize safely. But few know the history of other technologies used by earlier liberation movements.
What is whiteness to a cyborg?
Tracing the digital contours of the settler colony helps us understand how old inequalities will shape a future with artificial intelligence.