Who is the Black man?
The Jamaican born filmmaker, Lebert Bethune, who was close to Malcolm X, made two films that deftly explored Black identity at the end of the 1960s.
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Fatima B. Derby
Fatima B. Derby is a Ghanaian feminist writer and queer activist.
The Lord’s Chief Justice
Mogoeng Mogoeng, South Africa’s chief justice from 2011 to 2021, is midwifing the conservative turn in South Africa’s public life. From retirement, he may also eye public office.
The lives of refugees
Somali refugees in Kenya are held hostage by political disagreements between their governments. Under international law, Kenya has a duty to protect them.
Late nights in Lisboa
In our final episode of “Clubbing on the Continent,” Africa Is a Country Radio heads to Lisbon, Portugal.
Organize or starve!
Instead of voting for the bankrupt ANC or DA, South Africans could do better with social movement candidates in upcoming local elections.
Mission betrayed
The New Apartheid, a new book by Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, seeks to define a generational mission in South Africa. Instead, it shrouds our existing one in complete opacity.
Sankara lives!
This week on AIAC Talk we discuss the start of Thomas Sankara’s assassination trial, which confirms that for many Burkinabes, his spirit very much lives on.
Performing Angolaness
In contemporary Angola, the gap between the public discourse on culture and the on-the-ground reality of the arts and culture sector is deepening.
The class contradictions of scholar activism
The radical politics of the professional middle classes—too often found full of rhetoric, but short on action—are explored in Leo Zeilig’s new novel, The World Turned Upside Down.
Reimagining local government in South Africa
If re-municipalization—returning a privatized service to local public control—is to work in South Africa, we need other forms of social contracting between municipalities and citizens.
Beyond the boundary
South African cricket is currently the subject of TRC-style hearings into the racism and nepotism in the game. It makes for riveting TV, but focuses too much on individual instances of racism and discrimination.
Capitalism Mtaani at the Dandora dumpsite
In the third video for our Nairobi edition of Capitalism in My City, Gacheke Gachihi visits a site of environmental injustice.
Disentangling memory from truth
In the collective consciousness of global football, Zaire and Haiti—which both qualified for the 1974 World Cup—are remembered for their dismal performance. But is this legacy justified?
The United States is not a country
The US federal system is a patchwork of states and territories, municipal and local jurisdictions, each with its own laws and regulations. This complex map provides ample opportunities for shell games of “hide the money.”
Organized irresponsibility
On this week’s AIAC Talk, a discussion with historian Adam Tooze on the history and future of the COVID-19 crisis.
Post-apartheid symptoms of morbidity
Ordinary working-class people have been forced to the belief that there can never actually be real solutions; stripped of the confidence that fundamental change can happen.
Probing the depths of the CIA’s misdeeds in Africa
The CIA committed many crimes in the early days of post-independence Africa. But is it fair to call their interference “recolonization”?
God was everywhere in the street
Renowned Ghanaian highlife musician, Nana Ampadu, died on September 28, 2021. In this interview from 2007, historian Jennifer Hart talks with him about the music that made him famous.
Africans and the creation of the modern world
Europe would have been a marginal player in world history without Africa’s natural resources and centuries of cheap African labor.
Growing pains
For all the grief Afropunk gets, including its commercialization and appetite for expansion, it still manages to bring people, mostly black, together over two days for a pretty great party.