AfricaIs aCountry

Asking for a friend

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

Asking for a friend

By
Africa is a Country

The The Maribyrnong 6.

The big questions that animated our friend this week:

Facebook, thanks for the ‘Paris Safety Check.’ Can we have one for Baghdad, Beirut and Borno too?

Why is a public execution with a sword worse than an indiscriminate drone attack?

Why weren’t the recent suicide attacks in Baghdad and Beirut and Borno also an attack on humanity?

Are the #Parisattacks really the “worst peacetime attack in France since World War II,” as BBC reported?

Where are the good analyses on the pro-Igbo protests in Nigeria?

Did you know that Angolan transgender kuduru artist Titica won the “African Feather of the Year” award in South Africa for defending the rights of the LGBT community?

Is Yannick Bolasie’s Youtube channel (including clips documenting his arrival at the airport in Kinshasa and from the pitch in Bujumbura right after a 3-2 away win in a World Cup qualifier) the best thing ever?

Does anyone want to doggedly overthrow Paul Theroux’s supposedly self-amassed obstacles to write his biography? I mean, his “writing” is already enough?

Why is France24 taking advice from FW de Klerk (who as recently as 2012 still defended Apartheid) on immigration?

Why does Stellenbosch University (where English will become the only means of instruction) suddenly care about coloured Afrikaans speakers?

What if black people inverted South Africa’s township tours?

How can a non-musician discuss the future of music from anything other than a consumer point of view?

If you’re in San Diego for the annual meeting of the African Studies Association on Friday night, why not come to our book launch?

* That’s The Maribyrnong Six in the image above. BTW, we wish our friend Binyavanga Wainaina a speedy recovery.

Further Reading

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.

Gen Z’s electoral dilemma

Long dismissed as apathetic, Kenya’s youth forced a rupture in 2024. As the 2027 election approaches, their challenge is turning digital rebellion and street protest into political power.

A world reimagined in Black

By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.

Securing Nigeria

Nigeria’s insecurity cannot be solved by foreign airstrikes or a failing state, but by rebuilding democratic, community-rooted systems of collective self-defense.