Africa Is a Country

This is democracy

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

This is democracy

By
Sean Jacobs

In Durban, South Africa, “shackdwellers are taking their municipality to court. The government evicted poor residents from their homes … [in order to allow the construction of a road] … and threw them into transit camps, where they live ‘like a fish in a tin’, waiting for more permanent housing that never comes. [One of the conditions of the eviction order was that the occupiers would be provided with permanent housing within a year. The deadline for doing so expired almost two years ago and nothing has been done to comply with the order.] It’s not easy to make the state behave in ways that aren’t like a state. But this is shackdweller statecraft” (from Dear Mandela and Raj Patel).

Further Reading

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahelian States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?

The road to Rafah

The ‘Sumud’ convoy from Tunis to Gaza is reviving the radical promise of pan-African solidarity and reclaiming an anticolonial tactic lost to history.

Sinners and ancestors

Ryan Coogler’s latest film is more than a vampire fable—it’s a bridge between Black American history and African audiences hungry for connection, investment, and storytelling rooted in shared struggle.