The mother of all failures
In Angola, President Lourenço’s government failed to address COVID-19 due to corruption and incompetence.
44 Articles by:
Marissa Moorman
Marissa Moorman is on the Editorial Board of Africa is a Country. She is Associate Professor of History at Indiana University.
President João Lourenço’s iron cage
Preoccupied with attracting foreign investment and fighting corruption while managing a split in the ruling party, the Angolan president João Lourenço ignores his strongest ally: youthful civil society.
The art washing of Sindika Dokolo
The art world largely Isabel dos Santos’s husband despite him being caught up in large scale corruption.
The Incredible Hulk
What has Angola’s President João Lourenço, dubbed the “implacable exonerator,” been up to?
The low bar for African elections
Angola is Exhibit 1,000,003 on how and why the West judge some elections “free and fair,” and others not.
Opening Angola’s past to public debate
The stories of those who fought on the frontlines, were imprisoned, or wanted to establish real democracy after independence in Angola.
The long short history of Angola-Israel relations
Hostile at first, in the wake of the Cold War, Israel-Angolan relations have morphed into a friendly and lucrative bond.
The deep economic and political crises in Angola
Most Angolans are preoccupied with finding and affording basic food supplies and medical supplies required for treatment in dilapidated health facilities.
President dos Santos and the ruling MPLA: Afraid of Angolans
if Luaty Beirão dies in jail on their watch, Angola’s state will have a much bigger problem than small protests on their hands.
#Free15Angolans: An update
You’d never know it from reading the US media, but 15 political prisoners in Angola are still in jail.
What you need to know about #free15Angolans
For one, their original crime: Gathering as a book club and reading the books ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy’ and ‘Tools to Destroy a Dictator and Avoid a New Dictatorship.’
Angolan Cinemas: Past and Present Tense
Cultural spaces and historic patrimony have not fared well during Angola’s post-war reconstruction and development.
Nicholas Kristof Discovers Angola
This is now our eleventh piece on Nicholas Kristof. This needs to end. He has to stop somehow.
White settler states and secret police forces
How whites in South Africa, Rhodesia, Angola, and Mozambique acted in unison to thwart independence.
The news from South Africa
…or the constant deferral of reconciliation
Can an algorithm be racist?
Google translators limitations make for sometimes funny, sometimes dangerous results.
Brenda Fassie’s revolution without harmony
Brenda Fassie was a woman who stepped out of line, talked out of turn, wore the pants, pulled up her skirt and loved women and men.
The Politics of the Belly
The bottom line of politics in electoral democracies in 21st century capitalism: Whatever patronage politicians dispense, there’s no free lunch.
The last space of cultural dynamism in Luanda’s baixa is no more
Angolans protest as the state threatens to tear down an historic building.
When Salazar met one of Lumumba’s murderers
António Oliveira Salazar founded Portugal’s New State dictatorship in 1933. Some Portuguese still remember him fondly.