The trouble with South Africa’s middle class
In South Africa, there was more activity in solidarity with Pussy Riot than with the Marikana miners killed by police in August 2012.
Journalism
This sea shall be uprooted
Makoko, in Lagos, with over 100, 000 residents, is viewed as a shantytown. There’s more to it. This is the destruction of a community.
Lesotho gets the Kristof Treatment
Nicholas Kristof believes his journalism must contain a familiar entity from Western society – a white American – to make the content accessible to his readers.
The Legacy of Nat Nakasa
Nat Nakasa was an ambitious journalist who had the cold fortune of being born black in 20th century South Africa.
Africa Express: A Different Breed of Alternative Energy
Guest post by Rosie Spinks Hear the words ‘alternative energy in Africa’ and you might think
A Room Adrift in London
This thing about a boat on The Thames named for the one Joseph Conrad sailed up the River Congo before writing Heart of Darkness.
The New York Times goes to Zimbabwe
American media should focus on the real political struggles in Zimbabwe and not think that the government of national unity has brought Zimbabwe out of a period of violent political conflict.
New Media and Activism in Africa
The limitations of working in the online space, given the small percentages of people with online access (despite the expansion of mobile technology).
Christine Lagarde cares for Niger
Journalists rarely ask the IMF chief technocrat to consider whether or not she gives any kind of a shit about the people who are getting screwed by her "austerity" agenda.
Pieter Hugo on ‘political correctness’
Pieter Hugo, the critically acclaimed South African photographer, has done an interview with Guernica (H/T Glenna Gordon) in which
The New Yorker on violence against lesbians in South Africa
How does an American publication write critically about a country without running the risk of reifying sexual and racial stereotypes?
An ode to Benni McCarthy
Watching a 34 year old Benni McCarthy back in South Africa with Orlando Pirates, leave many observers with a lingering feeling that he could have achieved so much more.
Lesotho votes today
The coverage of Lesotho's 2012 elections don't move beyond superficialities and actually delve into the complexities of local politics.
This is not about art
Between the relentless media coverage, the twitter deluge, the pronouncement by a South African judge (“This
Pinkwashing South Africa
The positive media surrounding ‘Cape Town as a gay paradise’ obscures far more complex realities.
Blackwater’s “Rwanda”
The fantasies of Blackwater, the Michigan firm of mercenaries and as contractor to imperial powers. Also, how it employs Africa as a rhetorical device to get more business.
New public TV series from South Africa: “I am Woman”
Starting on April 1, South Africa’s public TV channel SABC3 has been running a weekly series
First as tragedy, then as farce
What is it with the conviction, held primarily in the West, that you can save yourself and the world (well, usually Africans) by shopping?
The geo-branding war
Geo-branding is a serious thing. It is particularly serious when people from other geographic areas decide
Shell brought me here
A BBC reporter visits the old fields of southeast Nigeria, the site of massive exploitation by Shell Oil--in a helicopter provided by Shell.