Why Thabo Bester’s grift worked
South African con-artists Thabo Bester and Nandipha Magudumana are not good people. They’re also an outcome of a system that predisposes individuals to avarice, selfishness and deceit.
6134 Articles by:
Karen Chalamilla
Karen Chalamilla is a culture writer and researcher based in Dar es Salaam.
How to fight for democracy
The events of May Day 1998 in Nigeria and lessons from Ola Oni on fighting for democracy in multi-ethnic societies.
An annual awakening
In the 1980s, the South African arts collective Vakalisa Art Associates reclaimed time as a tool of social control through their subversive calendars.
More than a building
The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.
A worldly Nubian energy
The music and art of Lauryn Hill and Chiwoniso Maraire combined sexiness with political consciousness, offering Black women a way out of rigid categorization.
Buharism is dead, long live Buharism
Buharism, the social and economic outlook of Nigeria’s outgoing president, did not seek an alternative to neoliberal globalization, but sought to consolidate Nigeria’s place in it.
The impossibility of actual politics
After the Arab Spring, the African left was left demoralized and disorganized. However, a recent book argues that the revolution continues in quotidian life.
The new Zimbabwe soundtrack
Zimbabwe is not Mugabe, Nkomo, Mnangagwa or Chamisa. A new Afro-electronic music duo is giving the country’s complexity a soundtrack.
In defense of precolonial Africa
How are we to discuss and deal with colonization in Africa without using language that acknowledges that we were something before colonization?
Defund the police
Policing in postcolonial Kenya is at an impasse. What is needed is disinvestment from this system of repression and reinvestment in communities.
Ms. Harris goes to Africa
For all the coverage about Kamala Harris’ Afrobeats Spotify playlist, or her search for her grandfather’s house in Lusaka, her African trip is about shoring up US positions.
The valley is getting wider and deeper
Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. The question is whether we align AI to promote human rights or to defend private property and exploitation.
Reading List: Joel Marie Cabrita
Instead of listing the books that help her write ‘Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala,’ the author notes five books that shaped Regina Gelana Twala.
This is what they don’t want you to know
A new film on the life of Walter Rodney gives a glimpse of his radical solidarity politics and centers on his family, who struggled and suffered with him.
One of the last remaining pieces of history
Against Mahikeng’s failure to honor and preserve his legacy, a new Setswana biography examines Plaatje’s years in this South African town, once a regional capital.
An invitation to join a pilgrimage
If a better world is possible, let us meditate on its constituent parts—the institutions, communities, and relationships, argues Felwine Sarr.