The beautyful ones
A personal reflection, by the daughter of a fighter in Zimbabwe’s Second Chiumurenga, on the death of President Robert Mugabe.
6428 Article(s) by:
Paul Milchick
Paul Milchik is a pseudonym for the author of this piece. His name has been changed due to his status as an international student in the US during the second Trump administration, in a context where foreign students have been targeted for detention and deportation as a result of expressing pro-Palestinian views.
South African rugby’s race problems
What does the divergent fates of Springbok Eben Etzebeth and former coach Peter de Villiers say about the state of South African rugby?
Is the nation state the best we got?
What lessons can we draw from 1960s and 1970s anticolonialism and pan-Africanism to rethink the nation state today?
Mugabe and the tradition to not speak ill of the dead
What is the proper way for young Zimbabweans to remember Robert Mugabe’s legacy?
Why are we only learning to cook French food in Africa?
It’s easier to find African restaurants in New York City than it is in Cape Town, and culinary schools on the continent aren’t helping.
Moon people
In the 50th year since humans first landed on the moon, we take you back to Zambia’s attempt to achieve that feat.
Beyoncé and the Heart of Darkness
Few black thinkers and creatives in the United States seem able to grapple with the implications of their Americocentrism in relation to Africa.
Chester Williams and the making of modern South African rugby
Williams, the only black South African player in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, was a complex figure in complex times. He deserves to be remembered as such.
Now is our time to tell our own stories
The celebrated Mozambican writer, Mia Cuoto, argues, among others, that it is essential that governments think in terms of the nation, not its elites.
The white hunter
Outrage against arrogant hunters is not enough. Wildlife conservation requires rethinking.
The making of Mugabe’s intolerance
How an autocratic strain of pan-Africanism of the early 1960s shaped Robert Mugabe.
How Africa shaped Immanuel Wallerstein
Africa and its peoples were central to the great Immanuel Wallerstein’s intellectual development and political activism.
Do we really need prisons and police?
Can policing deliver justice in South Africa? The short answer to that question has been, decidedly, no.
The problem with microcredit in Africa
The microcredit industry is not a driver of development and poverty reduction, but quite the opposite: it is an “anti-developmental” intervention.
We all the way live
Live TV broadcasts of political rallies, funerals and press conferences, may be more decisive than social media in shaping mass debate in South Africa.
The emptiness of an ending
With Mugabe’s death, might there be space for a new self-definition as a nation in Zimbabwe, as a broad family of nationals, with a shared national project?
Nativism and narrow nationalism in South African politics
The question of who belongs in South Africa, stains any project that aims to build a more equal and inclusive society.
A trap nomad finds a home
The Somali artist and DJ, Hibotep, is one of the many pushing electronic hybrid sounds from East Africa through the epicenter of the movement, Kampala.
Getting the story right
13 years after Binyavanga Wainaina’s satirical essay, many “experts” on Africa continue to fail to comprehend the need for African voices in stories about the continent.
Hendrik Witbooi’s Bible
Restitution and the responsibility of addressing Europe’s colonial legacy – in this case Namibia – via artifacts left behind.