Africa Is a Country

The Race War

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

The Race War

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGpikgxn-VM&w=480&h=295#13m00s]

Al Jazeera’s media criticism TV program “The Listening Post” has a useful analysis of the South African media’s reporting of the murder of the white supremacist, Eugene Terreblanche, by two farmworkers, one a 15 year old, after a wage dispute. (Not everyone is keeping a cool head; the British tabloids now report the race war narrative–which has little basis in fact–with glee.) The clip also covers the media’s obsession with Julius Malema, the youth leader of the ruling party, as well as how mainstream media covers race. (The insert is about 13 minutes in.)  I have some minor qualms with the insert–for one, Malema is not “far left,” he is more of a racial nationalist, and did they have to interview Nick Broomfield. There’s also nothing about South Africa’s reactionary blogosphere. But generally I thought it was okay.

Further Reading

How to unmake the world

In this wide-ranging conversation, para-disciplinary artist Nolan Oswald Dennis reflects on space, time, Blackness, and the limits of Western knowledge—offering a strategy for imagining grounded in African and anti-colonial traditions.

A migrant’s tale

On his latest EP, Kwame Brenya turns a failed migration into musical testimony—offering a biting critique of ECOWAS, broken borders, and the everyday collapse of pan-African ideals.

What Portugal forgets

In the film ‘Tales of Oblivion,’ Dulce Fernandes excavates the buried history of slavery in Portugal, challenging a national mythology built on sea voyages, silence, and selective memory.

Quando Portugal esquece

Em ‘Contos do Esquecimento,’ Dulce Fernandes desenterrou histórias esquecidas da escravidão em Portugal, desafiando uma mitologia nacional construída sobre viagens marítimas, silêncio e memória seletiva.