‘The West is no longer the Motor of History’

By: Sean Jacobs

UCLA history professor Vinay Lal speaks to the Indian website Newsclick about “the new movements developing in different parts of the world–from West Asia, North Africa to Europe and the United States. He sees the possibility of new politics emerging from this and how it can reconfigure the nation state.” There’s also a Part 2 to the interview with Lal. It may be worth spending a day or two with Newslick interviews with experts to educate yourself on some refreshing, other than Western or non-hegemonic viewpoints on what gets covered as “international news.”

* H/T to the latest edition of Zunguzungu’s regular “Sunday Reading” posts, which I can never finish by the time the next Sunday comes around. Feels like graduate school.

Rethinking the nation state

Paul Emiljanowicz

What lessons can we draw from 1960s and 1970s African anticolonialism and pan-Africanist vision to imagine an alternative to the nation state?

Politics

Sep 18

Mugabe and the tradition of not speaking ill of the death

Ruth Murambadoro

What is the proper way for young Zimbabweans to remember Robert Mugabe’s legacy?

Culture

Sep 17

Why are we only learning to cook French food in Africa?

Mary Fawzy

It’s easier to find African restaurants in New York City than it is in Cape Town, and culinary schools on the continent aren’t helping.

Culture

Sep 16

Moon people

Nuotama Bodomo

On the 50th anniversary of humans landing on the moon, we take you back to Zambia’s attempt to achieve that feat.

Culture

Sep 15

Beyoncé and the Heart of Darkness

Few black thinkers and creatives in the United States seem able to grapple with the implications of their Americocentrism in relation to Africa.

Sports

Sep 14

Chester Williams and the making of modern South African rugby

Derek Catsam

Williams, the only black South African player in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, was a complex figure in complex times. He deserves to be remembered as such.

Culture

Sep 13

It is essential that governments think in terms of nation, not elites

Mia Cuoto

A wide ranging interview with the celebrated Mozambican writer, Mia Cuoto

Culture

Sep 12

The white hunter

Prakash Kashwan

Outrage against arrogant hunters is not enough. Wildlife conservation requires rethinking.

Politics

Sep 12

The making of Mugabe’s intolerance

Brooks Marmon

How an autocratic strain of pan-Africanism of the early 1960s sheds light on Mugabe’s seemingly contradictory roles as freedom fighting anti-colonial nationalist, followed by a dictatorial, repressive presidency.

Culture

Sep 11

How Africa shaped Immanuel Wallerstein

Noah Tsika

Africa and its peoples were central to the great Immanuel Wallerstein’s intellectual development and political activism.

Politics

Sep 11

It’s time to talk prison abolition in South Africa

Paul T. Clarke

Can policing deliver justice in South Africa? For the vast majority of the country’s history, including now, the answer to that question has been, decidedly, no.

Politics

Sep 10

The problem with microcredit in Africa

Milford Bateman

The microcredit industry is not a driver of development and poverty reduction, but quite the opposite: it is an “anti-developmental” intervention.

Politics

Sep 09

We all the way live

Sean Jacobs

Live TV broadcasts of political rallies, funerals and press conferences, may be more decisive than social media in shaping mass debate in South Africa.

Politics

Sep 08

The emptiness of an ending

Amanda Hammar

With Mugabe’s death, might there be space for a new self-definition as a nation in Zimbabwe, as a broad family of nationals, with a shared national project?

Politics

Sep 06

Nativism and narrow nationalism in South African politics

The question of who belongs in South Africa, stains any project that aims to build a more equal and inclusive society.

Culture

Sep 05

A trap nomad finds a home

Endre Dalen

The Somali artist and DJ, Hibotep, is one of the many pushing electronic hybrid sounds from East Africa through the epicenter of the movement, Kampala.

Culture

Sep 04

Getting the story right

Abdou Rahim Lema

13 years after Binyavanga Wainaina’s satirical essay, many “experts” on Africa continue to fail to comprehend the need for African voices in stories about the continent.

Culture

Sep 03

Hendrik Witbooi’s Bible and the Humboldt Forum

Reinhart Kößler

Restitution and the responsibility of addressing Europe’s colonial legacy via the artifacts left behind.

Culture

Sep 02

The Coloured Gangster

Sean Jacobs

This review of the film Noem My Skollie, first published in 2018, is reproduced here following the passing of screen writer John Fredericks in July 2019.

Culture

Aug 29

Beyond White Jesus

David Tonghou Ngong

While many African Christians can only imagine a white Jesus, others have actively promoted a vision of a brown or black Jesus, both in art and in ideology.

Africa is a Country