From cholera to corona: The politics of plagues in Africa
What lessons can we learn for today from the 2008-09 cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe?
6442 Article(s) by:
Ladan Osman
Ladan Osman is the author of Exiles of Eden (2019) and The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony (2015). She lives in Brooklyn.
The Green Generation
Why we need to make climate action our daily duty.
Can we end the chocolate industry’s labor abuses?
A new effort to block chocolate imports from Cote d’Ivoire to the US brings attention to cocoa’s problematic supply chain.
Algeria’s forgotten revolutionary history
In the 1960s, Algiers was a beacon for worldwide liberation movements. What happened to its rebellious spirit?
What lies ahead?
The coronavirus pandemic places moral, economic, and political questions before us. Only two answers remain: socialism or barbarism.
Reading List: Jill Kelly
The historian of South Africa on books she is reading for a new project on women and anti-apartheid activities in 1950s rural KwaZulu-Natal.
Letters of resistance
An anthology series, Women Writing Africa, restores women’s writing to the public archive.
Du Bois in Berlin
Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Lines of Descent (2014) argues that W. E. B. Du Bois’s two years as a graduate student in Berlin vitally informed his views on race and politics.
The Blitzboks in America
What the recent World Rugby Sevens Series global championship reveals about national rugby cultures, particularly South Africa’s.
The untold story of the making of South Africa
The quest to understand the real cost of gold in our lives and the fate of those trapped in the mining economy’s cage.
The ‘abnormality’ of Cape Town’s traditional carnival
Breaking with the usual media conversation about the carnival that recalls Cape Town’s slave past.
When things fall apart
The demise of Alassane Ouattara’s presidency in Cote d’Ivoire.
Cameroon in conflict with itself
The use of a singular narrative to explain the divisions within Cameroon belies the reality that both anglophones and francophones are complicit in the conflict.
Democracy needs dissent
In a ruling party-dominated Tanzania, opposition parties are flawed but remain critically important.
Afro football fever
Football historian and broadcaster David Goldblatt’s new, encyclopedic book of football opens with a chapter on Africa. Here we republish an excerpt.
The “China virus”
The coronavirus COVID-19, just like Ebola, reminds us what happens when crisis ignite deep-rooted stereotypes. Yet viruses, or any disease for that matter, do not see color. Nor do they recognize states borders and ethnic enclaves.
Young South Africans are set up for failure
With 7.9 million young South Africans out of work or with very little education or training opportunities, who looks out for their aspirations?
We wear the masks
The TV series “Watchmen” deserves credit for how it put unsung elements of black history into mainstream culture.
Zimbabwe’s forgotten football history
Zimbabwe’s national football was under black control decades before independence—but the colonial legacy of racial segregation still haunts.
Impounded sandwiches
One major historical function of the police in South Africa remains: to manage the poor.