Paradise forgotten
While there is much to mourn about the passing of legendary American singer and actor Harry Belafonte, we should hold a place for his bold statement-album against apartheid South Africa.
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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.
Sudan’s counter-revolution
Since 2019’s revolution, the Sudanese elite and its international backers suppressed popular democratic energies. Although military in-fighting rages on, the accumulated experiences over the past three years has ensured that the resistance cannot be easily broken.
The two Africas
In the latest controversies about race and ancient Egypt, both the warring ‘North Africans as white’ and ‘black Africans as Afrocentrists’ camps find refuge in the empty-yet-powerful discourse of precolonial excellence.
A vote of no confidence
Although calling for the cancellation of Nigeria’s February elections is counterintuitive, the truth is that they were marred by fraud, voter suppression, technical glitches and vote-buying.
Where is Amazigh studies?
It is burgeoning field that intersects with Arabic, Francophone, Middle Eastern and African studies. But why is Amazigh Studies absent in Anglophone academia?
God tax the king
The British royal family has tried to shake off its colonial past. But its long reign over these wrongs was succeeded by a new form of plunder, exacted today by Britain’s tax haven empire.
The lesson of the turtle and the dove
The South African musician known as Madosini passed away in 2022. She was one of the last of a generation who learnt to play traditional Xhosa instruments, in so doing sharing the spirituality, dignity, and joy of Xhosa culture through her inimitable song.
Reading List: Sheila Collins
American civil rights activist George Houser was also active in Africa’s anti-colonial struggle. To write his biography, Sheila Collins widely read 20th century African political history.
The empire of words
The fiction of Senegalese writer and filmmaker Khady Sylla not only used speech to create worlds and ways of being in the world, but used speech as a world and a character in its own right.
Where everyone can go together
The struggle in Israel-Palestine lacks a sense of inclusivity, like in South Africa, that aims to take over and transform the state into a democracy for all its citizens.
Spirit of a nation
Leila Aboulela’s historical novel of nineteenth century Sudan tells the story of one of Africa’s first successful, anticolonial uprisings.
Pitfalls of the soft life
For black women in particular, the individual pursuit of a soft, consumption-driven life is a fragile approach to securing social justice.
After we wash our hands, what do we do next?
Lest the WHO forget, containing infectious diseases is less about culture than the racist structure of international relations that condemns countries like Haiti to cycles of epidemics.
Chris Hani’s black Marxism
Chris Hani’s legacy is often reduced to debates about his assassination in April 1993, but his significance goes beyond South Africa’s democratic transition.
South Africa’s crisis of representation
South Africa has had formal democracy for 30 years, but more of its citizens are tuned out of the democratic process.
With respect
A new film by French-Senegalese director Alain Gomis uncovers how American jazz giant, Thelonious Monk, was disrespected by French media at the end of his European tour in 1969.
Where are North Africa’s Jews?
A fascinating new graphic novel sets out to describe the effects of Nazi and collaborationist policies on the inhabitants of French-controlled colonies and protectorates of World War Two North Africa.
Dancing the Twist in Bamako
Set in newly independent Mali, ‘Dancing the Twist in Bamako’ is neither propagandistically praiseful of socialism nor does it present it through a wholly negative lens.
The Africanness of North Africa
As xenophobic attacks and anti-black rhetoric ramp up in North Africa, it is useful to highlight (or remember) the fluid, intertwined histories of the Saharan region.
No one should be surprised we exist
The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.