Nelson Mandela and the Dutch
The mainstream view is that the Netherlands was a staunch supporter of South Africa's liberation movement? The story is a bit more complicated.
Search Result(s) for: “apartheid”
Israel and Palestine: The South African alternative
Combating Zionism requires a vision that pays no credence to ethno-nationalism. As the world reconsiders the one-state solution, South Africa should lead the way.
A man of the people
Robert Vinson's biography of Albert Luthuli hints at how liberation histories might be reframed to better address the problems of the present.
Flight of the Boers
South Africa's lead anti-land reform organization is cultivating its relationship with the international far right.
Why I’m no longer talking to Nigerians about race.
On writers, empathy and (black) solidarity politics.
Forty-Four Years of Walking Past Rhodes’ Statue
The life and times of Mr Peter Buckton, a worker at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, which is currently the focus of student protests.
Struggles over memory in South Africa
Revisionism pervades popular culture in South Africa now, coloring our perception of the past.
The problem with South African football
South Africa failed to qualify for the 2022 African Cup of Nations in Cameroon and has failed to qualify for the World Cup since 2002. What else can their long suffering fans endure?
What’s a national anthem got to do with anything?
Next time 'Die Stem' part of the South African anthem plays, the appropriate reaction is to sit down or take a knee.
Mobilizing in disorder
Post the looting and failed insurrection, what would it mean for the South African left to undertake a populist political strategy? And should it look to South America for inspiration? A long read.
“Converting Eviction”
A reflection — by one of the group’s artists — on a Swiss-South African art project exploring eviction and extraction.
Bua Komanisi
Despite its proud history, the South African Communist Party has recently taken a backseat in South African politics. Understanding its roots helps us understand how it got here and what it will take to be rejuvenated.
With what are you apologizing?
If slavery is the material and metaphysical womb of the modern world, reparations will require nothing less than the end of this world.
Race, power, and the politics of distraction
As economic crises deepen, right-wing fearmongering and racial scapegoating thrive — masking the real struggle for economic justice.
Searching for white genocide in South Africa
The plight of white South Africans has clearly become the flavor of the month on the far-right.
Mandela’s dreams
Media studies scholar Sharon Sliwinski asks whether dreaming can be recast as a vital form of resistance to political violence. A review of her book.
This brand of non-racialism is no better than denial
A review of a documentary film about the life of Albie Sachs, a noted antiapartheid activist and later Supreme Court Judge in postapartheid South Africa.
Another hero falls
Eric “Bucs” Damons existed beyond the frame of the narrow scope of the elite South African sporting narrative.
Mandela Day
The writer, an American graduate student at the time, goes in search of Nelson Mandela to tell the story of Mandela's alma mater, the University of Fort Hare.