Nairobi is already witnessing the sidelining of democratic institutions. Now a new city management agency is further excluding the public.
Latest
Don’t be fooled by a catchy tune
How the international soundtrack to Black Lives Matter critiques the present by reworking the past.
Farther on from Zion
To consider Bob Marley today demands we look back across distance to the place and age that brought him to us.
Movement of Jah people
This week on AIAC Talk, we reflect on Bob Marley, the “last rock star” and the first artist of world music on the anniversary of his death. Watch it Tuesday on Youtube.
The problem with South African football
South Africa failed to qualify for the 2022 African Cup of Nations in Cameroon and has failed to qualify for the World Cup since 2002. What else can their long suffering fans endure?
Ethiopian women making movies
The presence of successful female writers, directors, and producers set Ethiopia’s film industry apart from Hollywood, Bollywood, and the rest of world cinema.
AIAC RADIO
This month on Africa Is a Country Radio we wrap up our seasonal theme of port cities, and make a stop in Dakar, Senegal. Listen on Worldwide FM or Mixcloud.
Culture
Decolonizing humanity
The political philosopher Achille Mbembe’s latest book asks us to emerge from the enclosure of race.
The impossibility of the black intellectual
Stuart Hall, the British-Jamaican cultural theorist, would have been open to and pragmatic about the ideas of the younger generations of anti-racists now in the making.
Gikuyu in Catalonia
The loss of African languages, their link with identity, and their role in forging decolonial futures.
Do Africans need Karl Marx?
The day before Marx’s birthday, AIAC talk considers his legacy, and debates whether his ideas are still relevant. Watch the show Tuesday on our YouTube channel.
If you want to get the West’s attention, talk about the Holocaust
Then make the intimate connection between the horror unleashed on Europe’s Jews and the preceding centuries of atrocities perpetrated by the “Enlightened” West on those they colonized and enslaved.
Capitalism in My City
The Mathare Social Justice Centre has partnered with Africa Is a Country to produce a series of posts and videos to document everyday capitalism in Nairobi. The project is funded via the Shuttleworth Fellowship awarded to Sean Jacobs.
In the second video from our Capitalism In My City project, Dennis Esikuri talks to everyday Nairobians about the current employment opportunities in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.
In the first video from a series for the Capitalism In My City project, Brian Mathenge decodes what everyday capitalism looks like from the margins of Nairobi.
Politics
History and the politicians
The historically fraught relationship of metropole and colony persists between France and Algeria, as a recent “symbolic” gesture reveals.
Ethiopia’s murderous new era
The writer’s brother died in the political violence that has become part of how political power is being contested in Ethiopia.
The strongman’s vision of democracy
Former South African President Jacob Zuma’s various rationalizations and obstructions for his crimes make for good drama. But they also reveal Zuma’s aversion to the rule of law.
Kenya’s 42 (+) tribes
The vagueness around who is and isn’t a “tribe of Kenya” is a double-edged sword. The persistence of ethnic classification and counting can be pernicious.
Beyond violence and militarism
In Nigeria, we should train and empower communities to participate in security measures, rather than arming militias.
Technology
WhatsApp and anti-capitalism: should you stay or should you go?
Facebook and its “family” of services are a one-way street towards greater integration, data exploitation, and erosions of privacy by an increasingly monopolistic company.
More widespread than we think
Today's social movements rely on tech collectives to organize safely. But few know the history of other technologies used by earlier liberation movements.
What is whiteness to a cyborg?
Tracing the digital contours of the settler colony helps us understand how old inequalities will shape a future with artificial intelligence.
Bill Gates and his technofix dream for the planet
Philanthrocapitalists are driving massively profitable schemes dressed up as eco-friendly, pro-poor solutions to climate disaster.