On failed states and the pitfalls of Western commentary
The tendency of Western commentators to dress up African tragedies in the patronizing logic of relativism.
6426 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.
Mobilizing in disorder
Post the looting and failed insurrection, what would it mean for the South African left to undertake a populist political strategy? And should it look to South America for inspiration? A long read.
When the spirits of the ancestors call you back
A homage to a true pan-African athlete-activist, Lee Evans, who at the Olympics Games in 1968 broke the 400-meter world record and embarked on a life of political activism.
Abnormal rugby in an abnormal society
The British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa, in the middle of a pandemic, exposes the professional sports system for what it is.
Decolonize this
To undo the misrepresentation of women of color in global media, we need a historically grounded solidarity.
In the company of coronavirus
What literature can teach us about what happens when the chain that connects human beings to nature is broken.
The most humanistic socialist of our generation
The mathematician Edwin Madunagu, 75 years old in 2021, is one of Nigeria’s foremost socialist intellectuals. Here, his friend Biodun Jeyifo, the literary scholar, pays tribute to him.
What is the value of pan-Africanism for psychology?
How psychologists can and should become advocates for African and African feminist critiques of academia and of society.
South Africa’s gaping wounds
If there is no material justice and investment in healing the generations of harm enacted onto South Africans, the rot in the country’s wounds will overcome them.
Rage as love under duress
To riff off James Baldwin, there will be a fire next time in South Africa. The embers and kindling are in place. What matters is what South Africans do between this fire and the next.
Another hero falls
Eric “Bucs” Damons existed beyond the frame of the narrow scope of the elite South African sporting narrative.
Unions in crisis
Has the trade union form outlived its usefulness for workers?
Makeshift modernity
The rise of African Speculative Fiction and other exciting cultural production indicates that modernity is not an exercise in “catching up” with Europe, but an entirely new condition.
IRL: In Real Life
For the first time ever, Sean and Will broadcast live in person together, from Cape Town, South Africa.
The mother of all failures
In Angola, President Lourenço’s government failed to address COVID-19 due to corruption and incompetence.
The lessons of history
Three years on, the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), initiated by Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta, with former opposition leader, Raila Odinga, feels like an elite pact with no popular support.
Can we reclaim football from below?
The mafia-style control of South African football, from the Premier Soccer League on down, means a dearth of development and enduring loss for the national team.
One Zambia, one nation
How Kenneth Kaunda was instrumental in guiding Zambia through its formative years in the absence of war or mass atrocities that blighted many of its neighbors.
Life as young black men in Johannesburg
The South African rap duo, Stiff Pap’s art is of the internet age: Their debut, TUFF TIME$, is at once unmistakably authentic, and entirely new.
KK and the USA
The less well-known, and complicated, story of Kenneth Kaunda’s central role in relations between Zambia and the United States.