White eyes
Pressure on African writers to avoid the criticism of poverty porn limits the imagination of the writer and the ability to speak truth to power.
Blog
The state of Lake Chad
Political solutions to confront Boko Haram’s violence around Lake Chad, need to include regional integration; solving the problem of colonial borders.
The second lives of zombie monuments
How do we deal with the unfinished business of the past? Cape Town has a surprisingly poetic answer.
Journalism: The essential non-essential
COVID-19 re-affirmed journalism is a public good, yet as newsrooms collapse, journalism is in danger.
The soul is dialectic
Drummer Asher Gamedze’s new album is a groundbreaking body of work in the musical trajectory of South African jazz.
Revisiting the Brixton struggle
Leila Hassan and Farouk Dhondy worked at the UK publication Race Today that chronicled the early 1980s struggles against racism there.
Essential workers
When a young Ethiopian, Haile Gerima, made a film about the exploitative nature of American college sports and the role of Black athletes in society.
The mark of the former colonizer
What explains this reluctance to discuss the permanence of symbols honoring slave traders and colonialists in the public spaces in both France and its former colonies?
Gangs and activists
What does it mean when a community takes justice into its own hands? Revisiting the case of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) in Cape Town.
Mali: Les dieux sont tombés sur la tête
As the death toll from political unrest rises in Mali, what's behind the conflict and how is it likely to end?
Kenya’s electoral authoritarianism
The former Chief Justice of Kenya on why only a popular movement to defend the constitution can counter corruption and inequality.
Law and disorder
France’s history of violence policing left a legacy of law and disorder, targeting dissidents, in its former colonies.