Africa Is a Country

This is the sound of Cecil John Rhodes falling

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

This is the sound of Cecil John Rhodes falling

By
Sophie Woolley

Historic moments get a lot of phone camera coverage these days, but I wondered if radio could better capture the atmosphere at the rally to celebrate the removal of the Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town. As the #RhodesMustFall movement said repeatedly, it’s not just about a statue. So I recorded what people were saying and singing.

I took a portable digital recorder to the mass rally outside the Azania House (the renamed administration building occupied by the student activists). The rally featured powerful speeches from students, academics, workers and school children. There was poetry, song, and then the mass surge to upper campus to see old Cecil the statue being taken down and driven off on the back of a lorry.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/200596879″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

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.