The Ship from Cameroon
The fate of Cameroon’s women’s national football team, like much else in the country, is a reflection of the sorry state of its politics.
6420 Article(s) by:
Nathan Chiume
Nathan Chiume is an Africa analyst and consultant.
The Cuban Atlantic
How socialist Cuba’s foreign policy of solidarity with Africans, midwifed a new genre of music on the island.
The place of race in Cuba
Cuba achieved more for Afro-Cubans in 50 odd years than in the 400 years before that. However, socialism did not resolve the question of racism on the island.
No country for poor men
Rwanda is juking its development statistics as the international community turns a blind eye to the human rights abuses of Paul Kagame’s authoritarian rule.
Precolonial Africa had written traditions
Ajami is the centuries-old practice in West Africa of writing other languages using the modified Arabic script. It is also more widely dispersed than we give it credit for.
The poetic revolution will not be anthologized
Black Women’s poetry has been largely ignored or denigrated in the world of South African letters. They have to do it on their own.
Witchcraft studies
The gendered nature of witchcraft accusations aimed at women who deviate from accepted social norms.
Self-devouring growth
In Africa, the consequences of the growth-at-all costs model are starting to reveal themselves, and they’re not pretty.
The long short history of post-apartheid South African rugby
The compromises and conciliations of South African rugby mirror the unfinished transition from apartheid racism in the broader society.
The mysterious ways of The Black Jacobins
C.L.R. James’ book about the Haitian Revolution, had an impact far beyond the Caribbean.
Are you really Global apartheid?
The writer, a “Global” Somali traveler, reflects on borders, airports, and belonging.
Love in the time of war
Director Hajooj Kuka’s first feature film focuses on the contours of masculinity and the contradictions of war in Sudan.
The beautyful ones
A personal reflection, by the daughter of a fighter in Zimbabwe’s Second Chiumurenga, on the death of President Robert Mugabe.
South African rugby’s race problems
What does the divergent fates of Springbok Eben Etzebeth and former coach Peter de Villiers say about the state of South African rugby?
Is the nation state the best we got?
What lessons can we draw from 1960s and 1970s anticolonialism and pan-Africanism to rethink the nation state today?
Mugabe and the tradition to not speak ill of the dead
What is the proper way for young Zimbabweans to remember Robert Mugabe’s legacy?
Why are we only learning to cook French food in Africa?
It’s easier to find African restaurants in New York City than it is in Cape Town, and culinary schools on the continent aren’t helping.
Moon people
In the 50th year since humans first landed on the moon, we take you back to Zambia’s attempt to achieve that feat.
Beyoncé and the Heart of Darkness
Few black thinkers and creatives in the United States seem able to grapple with the implications of their Americocentrism in relation to Africa.
Chester Williams and the making of modern South African rugby
Williams, the only black South African player in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, was a complex figure in complex times. He deserves to be remembered as such.