Masculinity and its Discontents
An in-depth look at the life and times of Winnie Madizikela-Mandela largely in her own words.
500 Search Result(s) for: “apartheid”
Who gets to define borders?
What will the renewed land debate in South Africa mean for the border woes of neighbors such as Lesotho?
Was Mohandas Gandhi a racist?
Debates about Gandhi represents a deeper crisis about belonging, entitlement and exclusion in postcolonial Africa.
Cape Town’s Inner Ugly
Patricia De Lille, one of South Africa's most popular post-apartheid politicians, claims she tried to redress spatial apartheid in Cape Town, but the legacy of her seven year run as mayor is one of violent forced removals and a refusal to upgrade informal settlements.
Books of 2015
A small corrective to the tide of Big Media book lists that champion a small and predictable group of authors who together give at best a limited Eurocentric view of our world.
The Bill Cosby Show
To make sense of Bill Cosby’s fall from grace requires distinguishing questions of legacy from questions of individual reputation.
George Houser: US ally of African liberation struggles
An ally of a who’s who of revolutionaries like Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, Oliver Tambo, and Kenneth Kaunda.
Rescuing Nelson Mandela from sainthood
There is a lively, angry, often chaotic debate about the role and place of the father of the South African nation.
Durban gets a new literary festival
What happens when ike's, a legendary bookstore in Durban, South Africa, creates a literary festival? For one, synergy.
Long live Ruth First
The great South African writer and activist, Ruth First, was assassinated by a letter bomb sent by the South African Security Police in Maputo, Mozambique on this day, 17 August, in 1982.
Nativism and narrow nationalism in South African politics
The question of who belongs in South Africa, stains any project that aims to build a more equal and inclusive society.
The Assassins of Memory
The South African question is far too important to accommodate an explanation that is simplistic and childish.
The mysterious ways of The Black Jacobins
C.L.R. James' book about the Haitian Revolution, had an impact far beyond the Caribbean.
It’s Not Just About Cecil John Rhodes
Statues of icons of colonialism continue to exist in their visibly unaltered state throughout South Africa’s major cities.
Remembering Slavery in South Africa
People forget that for 176 years, racial slavery was the central institution in a large part of the territories that would come to form South Africa.
Lessons for black South Africa in black America
Many middle-class black South Africans hold poor and working-class blacks in disregard if not disdain, and believe poor blacks hold themselves back.
Impounded sandwiches
One major historical function of the police in South Africa remains: to manage the poor.
Brenda Fassie’s revolution without harmony
Brenda Fassie was a woman who stepped out of line, talked out of turn, wore the pants, pulled up her skirt and loved women and men.
Home is the space
From exile, bassist and composer, Johnny Mbizo Dyani (1945-1986), explored and promoted the folk music traditions of South Africa.
Challenging whiteness in South Africa
White South Africans rarely look in the proverbial mirror to reflect on where they come from and how those histories shape their current realities.