A living monument of the struggle
The passing of American economist Ann Seidman has again spotlighted the impacts of committed scholarship on Africa.
Search Result(s) for: “apartheid”
Desmond Tutu embarks on a life of well-earned dotage
The 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town is one of South Africa's great moral leaders.
Who speaks for Iran?
Between imperial narratives and state propaganda, debates about the war on Iran often erase the diversity of Iranian society and the voices of its marginalized communities.
The class contradictions of scholar activism
The radical politics of the professional middle classes — too often found full of rhetoric, but short on action — are explored in Leo Zeilig’s new novel, The World Turned Upside Down.
The Lord’s Chief Justice
Mogoeng Mogoeng, South Africa’s chief justice from 2011 to 2021, is midwifing the conservative turn in South Africa’s public life. From retirement, he may also eye public office.
Bring Patrice Lumumba home
The return of Patrice Lumumba’s remains must not be an occasion for Belgium to congratulate itself, but for a full accounting of the colonial violence that led to the assassination and coverup.
A dedicated teacher of the working class
Oupa Lehulere, revolutionary teacher and mentor, died on November 29. His approach to theoretical study and struggle was the same: there are no shortcuts.
Ignorance, denial and insurgency in Mozambique
A new and different state is necessary to manage the complex problems in the region, but is it possible under the current regime that has fed the conflict?
The longing to belong
Why would African Christians in the West, discriminated against in Europe and the United States, embrace views that marginalize not only others but also themselves?
The Russians are here
Russia’s war with Ukraine has inaugurated the new Cold War most feared, and some wanted. Which side are you on?
The humanization of public monsters
Charles Njonjo's legacy is as member of a powerful group of Kikuyu chauvinists who surrounded Jomo Kenyatta and corrupted the state.
Israel and the geopolitics of a South African dairy strike
On The Africa Is a Country Podcast: Israel's entanglement in a strike by South African dairy workers, and its campaign to acquire accreditation at the African Union.
The Dar es Salaam years
In the early 1970s, Walter Rodney, expelled from Jamaica, took a post in Tanzania. In Leo Zeilig’s new book, he captures those exciting, but also difficult years and how it formed Rodney.
Countering the narrative
If committed filmmakers want to reach and influence more people, and counter fake news, impact producing may help get us there.
Inhabiting the shapes and sounds and patterns of other people
May 21 marks the anniversary of the writer and commentator Binyavanga Wainaina’s untimely death in 2019. He was 48.
Colonial Vice at the Venice Biennale
At the world’s most prestigious art exhibition, all is not well when it comes to relative newcomers from the African continent.
Africa’s last philosopher king
Although Nelson Mandela lacked the oratory of Nkrumah and the theory of Senghor, his contribution to the world of ideas was something rarer: pragmatism.
Reading List: Nicky Falkof
What happens to the contemporary explosion of moral panics, urban legends, and other paranoid narratives when they manifest in a place like South Africa?
What does it have to do with Marikana?
The Marikana Massacre changed democratic South Africa forever. It can also catalyze resistance to the current order.
Africa holds up a mirror to India
Shobana Shankar's new book, 'Africa, India and the Spectre of Race' (Hurst/Oxford, 2021) explores this complicated history.