The temptation of a simple story
In light of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, Africans again grapple with the histories of Soviet—and then Russian—connections.
History
A picture’s worth
Mabel Cetu is considered South Africa's first Black woman photojournalist and documented the everyday lives of Black communities in the 1950s.
A brief history of five elections in Angola
The specter of Angola's 1992 elections continues to impact the country's democratic process.
The media of the useable past
Revisiting the papers of left, anti-colonial revolt from the continent can remind us of messy, rich alternatives.
Milk in the Upington sun
Fear of the future, longing for the past: the new story in South African politics.
The land doesn’t lie
Safi Faye's 1976 film, 'A Farmer's Love Letter,' exposes the gap between the post-colonial state and the concerns of ordinary people.
Amilcar Cabral and the South Africans
Amilcar Cabral’s influence stretched far beyond the Portuguese colonies, profoundly influencing the political struggle in South Africa, past and present.
The people are our mountains
On the 50th anniversary of his murder, those who fought alongside Amilcar Cabral give a painful reminder of what could have been had he lived to see Guinea Bissau’s independence.
War and no peace in Southern Cameroons
The longue duree of the conflict in the Southern Cameroons, the rise of the current Ambazonian movement, as well as the dismal prospects for conflict resolution.
Reading Fanon in Algeria, reading Algeria beyond Fanon
Fanon Studies has stubbornly failed to consider how Algeria may illuminate Frantz Fanon’s theoretical commitments.
The labor of land
In order to better resist contemporary, neocolonial accumulation, we need to historicize land grabs in Africa.
Selling fencing as freedom
What happens when companies start to sell the idea of a frictionless consumption that helps people at the same time?
Postcolonial cons, scandals, and fraud
Business fraud and illicit financial flows are not a new problem for Africa—the "Drevici Affair" in Nkrumah's Ghana is instructive.
Frantz Fanon unveiled
Although he was a spokesperson for the Algerian National Liberation Front, Frantz Fanon’s ideas often came at odds with that movement’s political demands.
Breakfast at Mobutu’s
Jacques Bongoma was a young Congolese progressive who became a close advisor to Joseph Mobutu after the country’s 1965 coup.
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.
Memories are to be shared
It will have to be the Algerian diaspora inside France who will eventually have to mainstream the truth of France's colonial legacy.
The Bisho March and the Leipzig Option
Revisionist histories of South Africa’s transition to democracy are overdue, like on the deadly march on Bisho in the Ciskei homeland on 7 September 1992.
The new imperialism’s strange bedfellows
Africa's political liberation and economic emancipation can't be one-country affairs, but pan-African combined with international solidarity.
Reading List: Patrice Nganang
The novelist on 3 books he returns to: by Wole Soyinka, Ibn Khaldun, and a third on the history and the system of writing of an early 20th-century Cameroonian king.