Saved by memory
A new Brazilian film shows the role memory plays in African spirituality and dreams of liberation.
6357 Article(s) by:
Sheila Adufutse
Sheila Adufutse is a feminist activist and trained as a project manager.
The meanings of Heath Streak
Zimbabwean cricketing legend Heath Streak’s career mirrors many of the unresolved tensions of race and class in Zimbabwe. Yet few white Zimbabwean sporting figures are able to stir interest and conversation across the nation’s many divides.
Victorious
After winning Italy’s Serie A with Napoli, Victor Osimhen has cemented his claim to being Africa’s biggest footballing icon. But is the trend of individual stardom good for sports and politics?
Breaking the chains of indifference
The significance of ending the ongoing war in Sudan cannot be overstated, and represents more than just an end to violence. It provides a critical moment for the international community to follow the lead of the Sudanese people.
The future of Angolan knowledge
Academics in Angola’s public universities are on strike. But instead of only being concerned with the decay of higher education, they are connecting with the struggles of Angola’s working class.
The revolution will not be posted
Is a Facebook-led social media movement enough to change a country? The case of Angola.
The magic man
Chris Blackwell’s long-awaited autobiography shows him as a romantic rogue; a risk taker whose life compass has been an open mind and gift to hear and see slightly into the future.
How to think about colonialism
Contemporary approaches to the legacy of colonialism tend to narrowly emphasize political agency as the solution to Africa’s problems. But agency is configured through historically particular relations of which we are not sole authors.
More than just a flag
South Africa’s apartheid flag has been declared hate speech by a top court. But while courts are important and their judgments matter, racism is a long and internationally entrenched social phenomenon that cannot be undone via judicial processes.
Anti-imperialism for the ruling class
Although the material basis for today’s non-alignment movement stems from the constraints imposed on the developing world by American economic primacy, counterbalancing Western encirclement need not mean a pivot East.
Resistance is a continuous endeavor
For more than 75 years, Palestinians have organized for a liberated future. Today, as resistance against Israeli apartheid intensifies, unity and revolutionary optimism has become the main infrastructure of struggle.
Paradise forgotten
While there is much to mourn about the passing of legendary American singer and actor Harry Belafonte, we should hold a place for his bold statement-album against apartheid South Africa.
Sudan’s counter-revolution
Since 2019’s revolution, the Sudanese elite and its international backers suppressed popular democratic energies. Although military in-fighting rages on, the accumulated experiences over the past three years has ensured that the resistance cannot be easily broken.
The two Africas
In the latest controversies about race and ancient Egypt, both the warring ‘North Africans as white’ and ‘black Africans as Afrocentrists’ camps find refuge in the empty-yet-powerful discourse of precolonial excellence.
A vote of no confidence
Although calling for the cancellation of Nigeria’s February elections is counterintuitive, the truth is that they were marred by fraud, voter suppression, technical glitches and vote-buying.
Where is Amazigh studies?
It is burgeoning field that intersects with Arabic, Francophone, Middle Eastern and African studies. But why is Amazigh Studies absent in Anglophone academia?
God tax the king
The British royal family has tried to shake off its colonial past. But its long reign over these wrongs was succeeded by a new form of plunder, exacted today by Britain’s tax haven empire.
The lesson of the turtle and the dove
The South African musician known as Madosini passed away in 2022. She was one of the last of a generation who learnt to play traditional Xhosa instruments, in so doing sharing the spirituality, dignity, and joy of Xhosa culture through her inimitable song.
Reading List: Sheila Collins
American civil rights activist George Houser was also active in Africa’s anti-colonial struggle. To write his biography, Sheila Collins widely read 20th century African political history.
The empire of words
The fiction of Senegalese writer and filmmaker Khady Sylla not only used speech to create worlds and ways of being in the world, but used speech as a world and a character in its own right.