Africa is not a country
We must stop thinking that 'Africa’ must either progress together or stagnate. Each country has its own story, its own sovereignty.
History
An Interactive Study Map of African States
History professsor Laura Mitchell developed this interactive map for her students for a map quiz and for the rest of us dispel the notion that Africa is a country. Go on, do the exercise.
A short film about African migrants in Barcelona
How does one hold on to a deeply rooted sense of self, a cultural identity, and make new paths to adapt and make new forms of home?
To Come Back from Qunu
Our correspondent, attending the funeral of Nelson Mandela, the founder of post-apartheid South Africa, reflects on Madiba's legacy for his own children.
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.
The Last Founding Father of African Decolonization
It is not hard to understand the iconic status of Nelson Mandela and the overflow of emotion his death has provoked in the Pan-African world.
South African Jazz for Nelson Mandela
A playlist of jazz tunes dedicated to South Africa's first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela.
The Woolworths ‘Tribute’ to Nelson Mandela
Are corporate entities really well intentioned in celebrating Mandela the freedom fighter or are they merely using these tributes to position their brands on the right side of history?
Why aren’t we discussing Nelson Mandela’s politics?
As much as the world wants to deify Mandela, to do so in the abstract with no reference to his actual politics is absurd.
Poster art that challenged apartheid
The African Activist Archive Project website contains posters from the African solidarity movement from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Remember to call at my grave
John Langalibalele Dube was the first President-General of the ANC. Nelson Mandela its 11th president. Mandela was a great admirer of Dube, an exceptional figure in his own right.
Nelson Mandela Did Not Walk Alone
In the early 1990s I was teaching Economics in a fifth floor classroom at Khanya College
Nelson Mandela’s Humanity was a Political Education
The author, remembering Mandela, writes how South Africa galvanized progressive energies in the US in the 1980s.
Three Myths about Mandela Worth Busting
The Nelson Mandela encountered by former antiapartheid activist Tony Karon in American media is so unrecognizable.
Tata Mandela
The Mandela Capture Memorial in Howick, Kwazulu Natal speaks eloquently to the essential truth: that in South Africa, some families mattered more than other.
Madiba: I Remember
The writer, originally from Cape Town, remembers Nelson Mandela's impact on his life.
The Book of North African Literature
Pierre Joris and Habib Tengou edit a book about the multiple beginnings, traditions and genealogies in the literatures of the many languages of the region, and the region's diasporas.
Is the Central African Republic on the Verge of Genocide?
Over the last few weeks, the usually unrelenting stream of baby pictures and lose-weight ads in
King of Soukous
An Adieu to Tabu Ley Rochereau, the master rumba singer-songwriter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The loser mentality of white South Africans
On the rather extraordinary claim that white South Africans have been politically and economically marginalized since the inception of majority rule in 1994.