The lessons of the Indian farmers’ protests
The latest COVID-19 crisis in India is overshadowing a farmers’ revolt over land and agriculture. That revolt holds lessons for Africans.
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Paul Milchick
Paul Milchik is a pseudonym for the author of this piece. His name has been changed due to his status as an international student in the US during the second Trump administration, in a context where foreign students have been targeted for detention and deportation as a result of expressing pro-Palestinian views.
Machine wars
What does the expansion of artificial intelligence in warfare look like in West Africa and other US military outposts?
If you want to get the West’s attention, talk about the Holocaust
The intimate connection between the horror unleashed on Europe’s Jews and the preceding centuries of atrocities perpetrated by the “Enlightened” West on those they colonized and enslaved.
The new movement against apartheid
There is a lesson in the struggle for South African freedom: South Africans seeking solidarity understood they were speaking to specific audiences, not to an undifferentiated global community, and they strove to meet people where they were.
The demobilization of the South African masses
What do we know about the potential for new kinds of social movements in South Africa?
Dispossession in the name of democracy
South Africans fight for “adequate housing,” freedom from eviction, and a government that will progressively realize both of these goals.
Liberation after independence
On AIAC Talk this week, we mark Independence Day in Sierra Leone, and Freedom Day in South Africa—but what does freedom really mean on the ground in these countries? Watch the show live Tuesday on YouTube.
A mal interpretation of Cape Flats nightlife
Amy Jephta and Ephraim Gordon have written and directed a noir TV series that evokes nostalgia and the tension and violence of Cape Town’s nightlife.
Songs of freedom
This month on Africa Is a Country Radio we wrap up our seasonal theme of port cities, and make a stop in Dakar, Senegal. Listen on Worldwide FM or Mixcloud.
The many lives of Nawal El Saadawi
El Sadaawi died on March 21, 2021. Her complex and evolving positions mean there is more than one version of her to commemorate.
The decline of Liberia in black internationalism
Historically, Liberia ignited the imagination of black people across the globe. Then it stopped. What happened, and can it be reversed?
WhatsApp and anti-capitalism: should you stay or should you go?
Facebook and its “family” of services are a one-way street towards greater integration, data exploitation, and erosions of privacy by an increasingly monopolistic company.
Capitalism is a disease
Anyone who lives in fear of getting sick exists in a state of unfreedom.
More widespread than we think
Today’s social movements rely on tech collectives to organize safely. But few know the history of other technologies used by earlier liberation movements.
The hustlers of Nairobi
Why is Nairobi’s government terrorizing hawkers and hustlers around the city? An anthropological perspective.
Exit the bulldozer, enter Mama Samia
Has the recent death of Tanzania’s president John Magufuli created new political possibilities?
Football and empire
AIAC Talk this week: the historical entanglement of South African football with English football, and what that tells us about politics and sport. Watch it on our YouTube channel.
A disturbing story
In this interview with Rasna Warah, journalist Michela Wrong debunks the myth of Rwanda as a model developmental state and a poster child for Western aid.
Geographies of war-making in East Africa
African states are involved in the War on Terror more than we think. They’re surrounded by an eco-system of the war industry.
The Black Man with the Bible in his Hand
An encounter on a Cape Town bus forces the writer to think about religion, especially Christianity, and queerness.