South Africa in history’s struggle
Kevin Cox’s NLR essay on South Africa claims to correct liberal and culturalist accounts through historical materialism. But it reproduces the very epistemic and analytical failures it sets out to overcome.
South Africa
No shortcuts
The Conference of the Left was not a solution to the crisis of the South African left, but an opening. What follows must be built differently from what came before.
Celebrating from a divided country
Bafana Bafana’s World Cup exploits has South Africans chanting “No DNA, just RSA!” But against a rising tide of xenophobia, what South Africa are we actually rooting for?
Caught offside
Some African football fans have been hate-watching Bafana Bafana at the World Cup because of South Africa’s anti-migrant politics. The team’s apolitical stance has left them without a defense.
Always searching
Abdullah Ibrahim was difficult, suspicious, and brilliant. And beneath all of it, he was searching for home.
The distance between
The Cape Town Marathon has become Africa’s first World Marathon Major. But can a city that sees itself as an exception to the continent be its marathon capital?
Kicking out migrants won’t create jobs
The leaders of South Africa’s anti-migrant movement claim that Black African migrants are primarily responsible for unemployment, crime, and failing public services. None of these claims is supported by evidence.
South African journalists have a choice to make
Across South African radio and television, anti-immigration framing has become the norm.
What Bafana Bafana teaches South Africa about itself
For decades, Bafana Bafana embodied the disappointments of the democratic era. As the team recovers, South Africans are once again projecting their political aspirations and fears onto the national side.
The left does not need priests of purity
If the South African left cannot engage the messy, contradictory spaces where working class politics are actually happening, then it cannot lead.
Nothing left
A much-anticipated “Conference of the Left” was supposed to unite South Africa’s progressive forces. Instead, it confirmed the harder truth: the left doesn’t need unity, it needs rebuilding.
The right to belong imperfectly
In South Africa, one of xenophobia’s quieter moral mechanisms is the way foreign wrongdoing is made to carry more meaning than citizen wrongdoing.
The price of survival
South Africa’s municipalities are collapsing under a neoliberal model that treats water, electricity, and sanitation as commodities to be sold rather than rights to be guaranteed.
The heart of the South African film industry
A debut feature set on the Cape Flats turns a familiar crime premise into a quiet study of fatherhood, masculinity, and survival. But its limited reach reveals the deeper problems facing South African film.
More commerce than chaos
In Johannesburg’s Jeppe precinct, what looks like disorder is in fact a dense, transnational system of trade, labor, and survival at the heart of the global economy.
Where are the politics of Bafana Bafana?
While most sports in South Africa are inseparable from the national political imagination, men's football manages to stay relatively removed.
The boys are back in town
Bafana Bafana’s resurgence has been forged where South African football always lives — between brilliance and the bizarre.
Mapping Johannesburg’s wounds
In his latest exhibition, Khanya Zibaya charts the psychic and spatial terrain of a city where homelessness, decay, and human resilience sit uneasily together.
The golden light of Pops Mohamed
From Actonville to global stages, Pops Mohamed blended tradition, futurism, and faith — leaving behind a musical archive as luminous as the spirit he carried.
Davido’s jacket
Davido’s appearance at 'Amapiano’s biggest concert' turned a night of celebration into a study in Afrophobia, fandom, and the fragile borders of South African cultural nationalism.