The Joe Miller model
Remembering Joe Miller, a historian of eastern Angola and central Africa, who died at 79 on 12 March 2019.
6429 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.
The meaning of party politics in Ghana’s urban neighborhoods
Why do so many of the urban poor support John Mahama and Ghana’s opposition National Democratic Congress?
Voice of the Cape
Rapper YoungstaCPT’s headspace is shaped by Cape Town’s history.
Laboratories for violence
Why a military-only approach against Boko Haram in the countries bordering Lake Chad will always fail: it doesn’t address the root causes of political conflict there.
Bridging visual distance
The photo series Another Way Home captures how migration effects families, communities and individuals—those who travel and those who stay behind.
Frontiers of dystopia
Cameroon claims to be a democracy. Then why are even moderates like Maurice Kamto in jail?
The politics of ethical deception
If in India there has been an investment in myth of Mohandas Gandhi as a non-racial icon, in South Africa Gandhi also has his defenders.
Israel and Palestine: The South African alternative
Combating Zionism requires a vision that pays no credence to ethno-nationalism. As the world reconsiders the one-state solution, South Africa should lead the way.
Rwanda has an opposition problem
If Rwandan support for the RPF and Kagame is so universal and genuine, why the murder, frequent arrest, torture and imprisonment of opposition politicians and investigative journalists?
God don kam
Rapper Jovi has inducted himself into a club of Cameroonian artists who have embraced their own truths in the face of adversity.
The Limpopo School
The popular myth holds that most South African major resistance leaders come from its coastal regions. That’s not been the case since the mid-1970s.
Sudan’s national salvation
Omar al Bashir has fallen in Khartoum. Beyond regime change—managed by the military—there’s a deeper economic crisis.
What if postcolonial regimes use stories of your past to justify their rule?
The post-independence fates of Zimbabwean student activists who fought the Rhodesian regime.
The crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
Judi Rever’s account of the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath challenges the official narrative.
The marginalization of African runners
The international body governing track and field announced that the longest distance race to be held will be the 3000 meters. We know who will benefit least from this change.
Lumumba Lives
Patrice Lumumba became a martyr of African independence. But what are Lumumba’s “political afterlives” nearly sixty years later?
Back to class
The emphasis on identity and difference act to temper the radical potential of South Africa’s youth. They need an education on class politics.
Why I’m no longer talking to Nigerians about race.
On writers, empathy and (black) solidarity politics.
How to film a revolution
The films of Robert Van Lierop and Margaret Dickson chronicled anti-imperial struggles in Mozambique.
Instant Films
The late Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambety once said his films are not based on premeditation or planning.