Is Heineken brewing a better Africa?
Multinational corporations are considered motors for development in Africa and the Dutch beer giant Heineken is often cited as one of the best examples. The reality is different and distressing.
Politics
Colonial revisionism; German edition
The German far right party AfD has extended its revisionism of German history to the colonial era. It amplifies global far-right discourses on colonialism’s “balance sheet.”
Laundering Isabel dos Santos
“African corruption” is only African as regards its victims. Its perpetrators are institutions and individuals from across the globe.
Where will neoliberalism end?
The question is not how, or where, or when neoliberalism will end, but if it will, and what the left will do about it. The case of South Africa is instructive.
Who was the woman behind Lumumba?
The life of Lumumba advisor, Andree Blouin, offers lessons about the historically racialized and sexualized representations of women of color in politics.
Finding a way through the deluge in Zimbabwe
The ongoing socio-political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe requires an unprecedented national dialogue for transition—a “coming together” that appears to be as challenging as the country’s history of struggle is long.
On conspiracy theories
A resurgent conspiracy theory that Nelson Mandela died in 1985 reveals the growing hopelessness in South Africa that rampant inequality is irreversible.
‘Crazy Rich Nigerians’
Nigerians’ anger and frustration are deservedly directed to their government. But few point to the special breed of Nigerians: the "Crazy Rich Nigerians."
On Safari
We are not just marking the end of 2019, but also the end of a momentous, if frustrating decade for building a more humane, caring future for Africans.
Skewing sexuality
The use of Evangelical Christianity to oppose progressive policies on sexuality education in schools is another example of Ghana’s march to the right.
I only have eyes for Bobi Wine
Is western media’s mostly individualized focus on the Ugandan opposition figure Bobi Wine helpful to his movement?
On meeting Pastor Evan
Evan Mawarire became a leader against Mugabe and ZANU-PF’s oppression in Zimbabwe, but at what personal cost?
The fight for the future of food
Centering African voices in a discussion so often dominated by non-African observers.
Zimbabwe’s food security in crisis—but not for reasons you might think
A response to the latest United Nations report on Zimbabwe’s food emergency.
Between democracy and despotism
South Africa introduces a new law which allows traditional leaders along with third parties to decide for communities, without their consent.
#Metoo in Nigeria
In Nigeria, survivors of sexual violence and workplace sexual harassment know that facts are not enough.
The agrarian question in Egypt and Tunisia
It is time discuss food sovereignty in the Middle East and North Africa, again.
Carceral colonialism
On the United Kingdom’s attempts to finance the construction of large-scale prison facilities in former colonies, to where it wants to deport undocumented migrants.
Bottom-up hustling in Nairobi’s slums
Prevailing thoughts on slums stress their transitory character, but the complexity of everyday life in slums, including how people manage survival, is lost in the way they are understood from the outside.
Mauritania’s past doesn’t want to go away
The so-called “peaceful transition” in Mauritania, from colonialism to political independence, isn’t unanimously understood as such inside the country, and it reflects older rivalries.