Africa Is a Country

‘The West is no longer the Motor of History’

‘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.

Further Reading

The way we tell stories

Raoul Peck’s ‘Exterminate All the Brutes’ missed the opportunity to engage with the history of colonialism in a way that empowers viewers to imagine a future in which whiteness is not the locus of power and authority.

العدمية كحالة أفريقية خاصة

تكمن فرادة حالة العدمية في أفريقيا كتاريخ وحضارة وشعوب في ارتباطها المتشعب بواقع دموي عنيف من جهة وصيرورة رؤى طوباوية من جهة أخرى، كما يعبر عنه كل من رواية “ذوي الجمال لم يولدوا بعد” للكاتب الغاني ايي كواي أرما وفيلم “آخر أيام المدينة” للمخرج المصري تامر سعيد.

Trapped by history

Mexican American director John Gutierrez new film, set in Cape Town, South Africa, touches on colonialism, displacement, and man’s complicated relationship with nature.