Sierra Leone Independence Day
Freedom Day in South Africa. Togo Independence Day. And Sierra Leone's 51st Independence Day. That's all
6439 Article(s) by:
Miguna Miguna
Miguna Miguna is a Kenyan activist and lawyer.
The verdict on Charles Taylor
A comment on the enigmatic, and ambivalent, presence of rebel leader and former president, Charles Taylor, ten years after he left Liberia.
African Men
The video, “African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes,” made by an American NGO, is part of the “Brand Africa” discourse that’s all the rage now.
The value of a people and their social structure
Djibril Diop Mambéty’s film “Touki Bouki” is an excellent example of how the contemporary can be read through the (re)construction of myths and narratives from a collective memory.
An unusual sensitivity
One of the striking facts of Nabil Ayouch’s film is that Israelis love the land and the Palestinians love it too.
Yinka Shonibare’s National Treasure
The ever-well-informed African Art in London announced this week that Yinka Shonibare's contribution to the fourth plinth of
Guggenheim’s map–Where is the rest of Africa?
The recent announcement of the Guggenheim Foundation’s new “Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative” bears all
Shameless Self-Promotion: Chief Boima’s Many Identities
http://youtu.be/q88JPrlhzh4 If you're unfamiliar with my musical work, OkayAfrica.com recently did a profile on me for their web
The ‘Swedish Cake’ artist explains himself
Makode Linde calls his approach Afromantics: it use the blackface to show the connection between stereotypes, part of the same system of oppression.
Shell brought me here
A BBC reporter visits the old fields of southeast Nigeria, the site of massive exploitation by Shell Oil–in a helicopter provided by Shell.
We are not all Senegalese
Senegal’s scandal: Thousands of local boys or trafficked from neighboring countries (known as talibés) are forced into begging by religious teachers.
Parisian Africa
Younger generations of artists, many immigrants of African origin, are reconfiguring the arts in France on their own terms.
Photographer Gregory Chris: Shooting Nneka, Meta and Just a Band
Photographer Gregory Chris shot African music stars Nneka, Meta (of Meta and the Cornerstones) and Just a Band in and around New York City. Here he talks about how he came to chose these artists and what he tried to convey. "I wanted to shoot the artists in the streets of the city, in the neighborhoods where they live, their favorite places, inside their homes, in a place they feel comfortable. Basically, I wanted to shoot them as they are."
Uganda, now you have touched the women
In October 2011, the Ugandan government sent Ingrid Turinawe to the infamous Luzira Prison--Uganda’s Guantánamo--for the treasonable act of walking to work. This week, the State, again, attacked Turinawe and other women activists for the “crime” of standing, speaking out, driving, and generally being. Big mistake.
The Other African election: France’s First Round
Both of the front-runners, incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist François Hollande, have run against FrançAfrique. Easier said than done.
Mahesh Shantaram’s Addis Ababa Diary
Images of Ethiopia by Indian photographer Mahesh Shantaram
In Praise of Jeffrey Gettleman’s Pulitzer
Pulitzer awarded Gettleman $10,000 for “his vivid reports, often at personal peril, on famine and conflict in East Africa.”
Goldman Sachs’s Angolan interests
When the Financial Times commits an entire article to topics Angolan, it fills my Google news alert for a week.
Friday Bonus Music Break, N°7
Nowadays we're doing multiple #musicbreaks on Twitter and Facebook when the spirits move us. We figured we'd
Soviet cinema and African filmmaking
Abderrahmane Sissako’s oblique suggestion of what a ‘socialist friendship’ might be in his first film, “October” (1993) set in a then-declining Soviet Union.