Managing the city like the military
Nairobi is already witnessing the sidelining of democratic institutions. Now a new city management agency is further excluding the public.
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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.
Don’t be fooled by a catchy tune
How the international soundtrack to Black Lives Matter critiques the present by reworking the past.
Excavating Kazi Mataani
In the second video from our Capitalism In My City project, Dennis Esikuri talks to everyday Nairobians about the current employment opportunities in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Farther on from Zion
To consider Bob Marley today demands we look back across distance to the place and age that brought him to us.
Movement of Jah people
This week on AIAC Talk, we reflect on Bob Marley, the “last rock star” and the first artist of world music on the anniversary of his death. Watch it Tuesday on Youtube.
The problem with South African football
South Africa failed to qualify for the 2022 African Cup of Nations in Cameroon and has failed to qualify for the World Cup since 2002. What else can their long suffering fans endure?
Ethiopian women making movies
The presence of successful female writers, directors, and producers set Ethiopia’s film industry apart from Hollywood, Bollywood, and the rest of world cinema.
Decolonizing humanity
The political philosopher Achille Mbembe’s latest book asks us to emerge from the enclosure of race.
History and the politicians
The historically fraught relationship of metropole and colony persists between France and Algeria, as a recent “symbolic” gesture reveals.
Ethiopia’s murderous new era
The writer’s brother died in the political violence that has become part of how political power is being contested in Ethiopia.
The impossibility of the black intellectual
Stuart Hall, the British-Jamaican cultural theorist, would have been open to and pragmatic about the ideas of the younger generations of anti-racists now in the making.
The strongman’s vision of democracy
Former South African President Jacob Zuma’s various rationalizations and obstructions for his crimes make for good drama. But they also reveal Zuma’s aversion to the rule of law.
Kenya’s 42 (+) tribes
The vagueness around who is and isn’t a “tribe of Kenya” is a double-edged sword. The persistence of ethnic classification and counting can be pernicious.
Beyond violence and militarism
In Nigeria, we should train and empower communities to participate in security measures, rather than arming militias.
Gikuyu in Catalonia
The loss of African languages, their link with identity, and their role in forging decolonial futures.
Do Africans need Karl Marx?
AIAC talk considers Karl Marx’s legacy and we debate whether his ideas are still relevant. Our guests are two thinkers: Annie Olaloku-Teriba and Zeyad el Nabolsy.
A forsaken people
The Indigenous people of the Tibesti mountain range that straddles northern Chad and Libya have been neglected and stigmatized by the elites who control and favor development of the south.
Shoprite’s attack on workers’ rights
The Southern Africa retail chain boasts massive profits, but its workers in Namibia are shortchanged.
A history of resource plunder
Since European colonialism first arrived, Africa has provided its best raw materials to the global North. Can African countries finally break out of this pattern?
The lessons of the Indian farmers’ protests
The latest COVID-19 crisis in India is overshadowing a farmers’ revolt over land and agriculture. That revolt holds lessons for Africans.