Sembene’s Africa is everyone’s Africa
If someone had to hold the title of father of African cinema, Ousmane Sembéne would be the most compelling candidate.
6134 Articles by:
Karen Chalamilla
Karen Chalamilla is a culture writer and researcher based in Dar es Salaam.
The haunting draw of the West
To be African means at some point to desire to leave. African cinema can provide solace for our tortured relationship to the West and our own continent.
Watching Naija
Nollywood makes more films than Hollywood and Bollywood. What it lacks is strong marketing and promotion.
A city divided
Ethnic enclaves are not unusual in many cities and towns across Sudan, but in Port Sudan, this polarized structure instigated and facilitated communal violence.
Colonialism and the war in Ukraine
What can historians of Eastern Europe learn from Ghanaian responses to the Russian invasion?
The imperial forest
Gregg Mitman’s ‘Empire of Rubber’ is less a historical reading of Liberia than a history of America and racial capitalism through the lens of a US corporate giant.
Africa’s next great war
The international community’s limited attention span is laser-focused on jihadism in the Sahel and the imploding Horn of Africa. But interstate war is potentially brewing in the eastern DRC.
The Cape Colony
The campaign to separate South Africa’s Western Cape from the rest of the country is not only a symptom of white privilege, but also of the myth that the province is better run.
There is a World Cup
The 22nd FIFA Men’s World Cup, held in Qatar, is getting political. This week on the AIAC podcast, we discuss the sport and the politics with Tony Karon and Sean Jacobs.
Between East Africa and the Gulf
Political encounters between the Arab Gulf and Africa span centuries. Mahmud Traouri’s novel ‘Maymuna’ demonstrates the significant role of a woman’s journey from East Africa to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The remarkable revival of Ugandan football
Uganda has never qualified for the World Cup, but at a continental level it is making a comeback. So is its club football.
The arc of the boomerang
More than class solidarity alone, more than a technocratic climate justice, a reckoning with empire is necessary for our collective survival.
Āfrīqāyī
It’s not common knowledge that there is Iran in Africa and there is Africa in Iran. But there are commonplace signs of this connection.
A generation of seeds
While it is clear that food insecurity threatens the life of millions of Kenyans, lifting the ban on GMOs is not the solution.
Through the lens of queer Indian South Africans
Queer Indians are largely invisible in South Africa’s LGBT discourse. But representation is not enough, we need political transformation and multi-racial class solidarity.
Don’t mobilize, organize
To rebuild, the South African left must realize that there are no shortcuts to power.