Policing the colony
We have to become more open to the possibility that what our society needs is not better policing, but less. And ultimately no policing at all.
6136 Articles by:
Karen Chalamilla
Karen Chalamilla is a culture writer and researcher based in Dar es Salaam.
Zimbabwe’s second innings
In November 2017, Robert Mugabe was toppled in a coup. Amid this epochal change, life—and cricket—simply went on for Zimbabweans, who are still in search of a better future.
The war in Ethiopia
Will Ethiopia’s civil war blow up its dream of a single state, and in the process, blow up Western notions of statebuilding?
Musically, Congo is the mothership
The documentary, Rumba Kings, offers a commendable and tireless argument for both an intangible cultural heritage case and a centering of the Congolese way.
Haiti’s fire this time
On this week’s AIAC Talk: Haiti is not down on its luck, it is deliberately under-developed by Western powers.
African indigenous religions and queer dignity
Colonialism should take a lot of blame for anti-queer attitudes in Africa. But missing is a frank engagement with how African indigenous cultures also fuel anti-queer attitudes.
Sudanese women on the front lines of the resistance
Sudanese women took part in the revolution in large numbers for the same reasons they are now part of the resistance against this treacherous coup: Their human rights are at stake.
Darra
The writer, from Cape Town, reflects on the life of her working class father, who like her friends’ fathers worked tough jobs for low pay and hid his vulnerabilities.
Criminal justice for the rising middle class
A new book on policing in South Africa wants to go beyond the usual call for reform. But adapting literature tuned for reform to the task of abolition is a difficult needle to thread.
Power to the People
This week’s episode of AIAC Talk is a replay of the launch of the latest issue of Amandla! magazine, a South African publication advancing radical left perspectives for change.
Qu’est-il advenu des accaparements de terres en Afrique?
Plus d’une décennie après la vague mondiale d’acquisitions de terres à grande échelle, elles ont toujours des conséquences néfastes pour ceux qui dépendent de la terre comme fondement de leur vie.
The second Scramble for Africa
How the International Union for Conservation of Nature Congress continues be a farce, and perpetuates a fake conservation in Africa: basically the interests are just commerce.
A journey to Harar
In Mexican-Ethiopian filmmaker Jessica Beshir’s Faya Dayi, khat is more than an important export product in a capitalist economy; she captures khat’s roles and meanings in everyday Harari life.
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.
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.