Africa Is a Country

On the Journalistic Value of Internet Map Memes

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

On the Journalistic Value of Internet Map Memes

By
Africa is a Country

At the Washington Post, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a complex issue, when color-coded in a way that reassured Americans of their innate Superiority over inferior Peoples, could always be relied upon to get way more Hits than any actual Reporting.

Before long, the Washington Post announced that it had abandoned Journalism forever. The following Generations, who liked Reporting but were not so fond of the Study of Supremacist Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that these Maps were Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered them up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of those Maps, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Discipline of The Cartography of Bullshit.

* With sincere apologies to Jorge Luis Borges.

Further Reading

The sound of revolt

On his third album, Afro-Portuguese artist Scúru Fitchádu fuses ancestral wisdom with urban revolt, turning memory and militancy into a soundtrack for resistance.

O som da revolta

No seu terceiro álbum, o artista afro-português Scúru Fitchádu funde a sabedoria ancestral com a revolta urbana, transformando memória e militância em uma trilha sonora para a resistência.

Biya forever

As Cameroon nears its presidential elections, a disintegrated opposition paves the way for the world’s oldest leader to claim a fresh mandate.

From Cornell to conscience

Hounded out of the United States for his pro-Palestine activism, Momodou Taal insists that the struggle is global, drawing strength from Malcolm X, faith, and solidarity across borders.

After the uprising

Following two years of mass protest, Kenya stands at a crossroads. A new generation of organizers is confronting an old question: how do you turn revolt into lasting change? Sungu Oyoo joins the AIAC podcast to discuss the vision of Kenya’s radical left.

Redrawing liberation

From Gaza to Africa, colonial cartography has turned land into property and people into populations to be managed. True liberation means dismantling this order, not redrawing its lines.

Who deserves the city?

Colonial urbanism cast African neighborhoods as chaotic, unplanned, and undesirable. In postcolonial Dar es Salaam, that legacy still shapes who builds, who belongs, and what the middle class fears the city becoming.

Djinns in Berlin

At the 13th Berlin Biennale, works from Zambia and beyond summon unseen forces to ask whether solidarity can withstand the gaze of surveillance.

Colonize then, deport now

Trump’s deportation regime revives a colonial blueprint first drafted by the American Colonization Society, when Black lives were exiled to Africa to safeguard a white republic.