Politics

Women and rural gentrification in Ethiopia
Ethiopia forcibly relocates rural populations, often at gunpoint and never with any consultation, so the land can become "more productive."

Photographing Liberia
The latest entrant to our series where we ask photographers to talk to us about their five favorite images, is Glenna Gordon.

Afrikaner Bloods
Factual media reporting on how South African relationships and attitudes, especially between blacks and whites, evolve are hard to come by.

Martin Luther King Jnr.’s Day
Before he died, most Americans had very negative views of Martin Luther King Jnr., or were ignorant about his aims. They still are.

The West is no longer the motor of history
The possibility of a new politics emerging from the new left social movements to reconfigure the nation state.

The Mbalax President
The legendary Senegalese singer is running for president. Not everyone takes him seriously.

#OccupyNigeria
Most Nigerians don’t trust their government and overpaid public representatives with taxpayers’ money. So, they rose up.

An acute deficiency in generosity
Some journalism and "analysis" about postapartheid South Africa by outsiders amounts to hysteria dressed up as analyses.

Africa’s oldest liberation movement is 100 years old
Does South Africa's ruling ANC still fight for the same values it championed 100 years ago?

The Hall of Shame
We couldn't resist including a post with some of the lowlights of 2011.

The Year of the Woman
2011 was the year of pro-democracy movements and they were largely pushed and pulled by women.

The Year of Frantz Fanon
What gives Fanon's thinking its force and power is the air of indestructibility and the inexhaustible silo of humanity which it houses, argues Achille Mbembe.

Health care for all
The health news - with major implications for Africans living on the continent - that made the headlines in 2011.


Helen Zille’s ‘AIDS Gestapo’
The leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance makes offensive remarks about AIDS, then smears her critics, AIDS activists and journalists, as Nazis.

Swazi Bull
Politics, repression, religion, exile, tradition and mysticism in Swaziland, Southern Africa's last absolute monarchy.

The business of selling beer
SABMiller's new Impala Beer is marketed to poor people who don’t buy other commercially distributed beers because they are too expensive.