Beyond the boundary
South African cricket is currently the subject of TRC-style hearings into the racism and nepotism in the game. It makes for riveting TV, but focuses too much on individual instances of racism and discrimination.
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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.
Capitalism Mtaani at the Dandora dumpsite
In the third video for our Nairobi edition of Capitalism in My City, Gacheke Gachihi visits a site of environmental injustice.
Disentangling memory from truth
In the collective consciousness of global football, Zaire and Haiti—which both qualified for the 1974 World Cup—are remembered for their dismal performance. But is this legacy justified?
The United States is not a country
The US federal system is a patchwork of states and territories, municipal and local jurisdictions, each with its own laws and regulations. This complex map provides ample opportunities for shell games of “hide the money.”
Organized irresponsibility
On this week’s AIAC Talk, a discussion with historian Adam Tooze on the history and future of the COVID-19 crisis.
Post-apartheid symptoms of morbidity
Ordinary working-class people have been forced to the belief that there can never actually be real solutions; stripped of the confidence that fundamental change can happen.
Probing the depths of the CIA’s misdeeds in Africa
The CIA committed many crimes in the early days of post-independence Africa. But is it fair to call their interference “recolonization”?
God was everywhere in the street
Renowned Ghanaian highlife musician, Nana Ampadu, died on September 28, 2021. In this interview from 2007, historian Jennifer Hart talks with him about the music that made him famous.
Africans and the creation of the modern world
Europe would have been a marginal player in world history without Africa’s natural resources and centuries of cheap African labor.
Growing pains
For all the grief Afropunk gets, including its commercialization and appetite for expansion, it still manages to bring people, mostly black, together over two days for a pretty great party.
Some kind of personal comfort
Kyle Shepherd’s new music blooms brightly from out of the shadow of pandemic and considers what it means to be South African, African, and human.
What happened to land grabs in Africa?
More than a decade since the surge in large-scale land acquisitions worldwide, many land deals remain in limbo. They nonetheless have far-reaching consequences for those who depend on land as foundational to life.
The cry of Black worldlessness
Poet Mongane Wally Serote’s 40-year lament, still haunts Black South Africans: “it is only in our memory that this is our land.” The land haunts our memory, and, in turn, we haunt the land’s memory.
The end of Tunisian democracy?
On this week’s episode of AIAC Talk, Will Shoki speaks with Maha Ben Gadha about the changing political landscape in Tunisia.
Not mere intellectual dissenters
Why is South Africa’s draft Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill contradicting the constitution and proposing to shield academics and scholars who propagate racist and bigoted ideas?
The secret offshore world of the Kenyatta family
The Pandora Papers connects Kenya’s ruling family to secret accounts in offshore companies and tax havens. But, state looting started with Jomo Kenyatta.
Abdulrazak Gurnah’s skepticisms
Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novels offer a skepticism against the cultural politics of packaging African stories for global circulation and consumption.
But, first we’ll take this W
Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Nobel Prize for Literature win raises questions about the role of the LitNobel and how they construct what we think of and buy as African literature.
A matter that defies tears
Wọle Ṣoyinka’s new novel examines a country caught in the crosshairs of unimaginable events.
Bono’s vanity
This #ThrowbackThursday piece from 2007 on Vanity Fair’s famous “Africa” issue, makes for fun, at times depressing, reading of the debates we hopefully left behind.