Solidarity under quarantine
Nelson Mandela’s life teaches us that being quarantined is not the end of politics, but for the regeneration of politics.
6428 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.
A democracy of chameleons
Malawi is experiencing a crisis over the legitimacy of the democratic state itself.
Out of sight
In South Africa, social distancing to bring down COVID-19 infections takes a decidedly local shape. In a racialized society, it manifests primarily as white melancholia and black Afro-pessimism.
Locating African agency in Africa-China relations
Relationships between African countries and China are more complex than they appear in the media and academia.
People Power in the age of COVID-19
Will the coronavirus pandemic extend Museveni’s authoritarianism or the lockdown instead provide openings for Uganda’s opposition?
Reading List: Ronnie Close
The author of a book on football and revolution in Egypt gives us a list of must reads on football in the Middle East and North Africa.
The contested narratives of a dead man’s legacy
Kenyans are split about the legacy of president Daniel Arap Moi, who served from 1978 to 2002 and died on 4 February 2020: Vile and reprehensible vs a benign Baba, history suggests the latter.
To remember selectively
How partisanship distorts the construction and narration of public memory about historical events, especially the resistance against apartheid.
South Africa’s one-sided lockdown: coercing the poor, coddling the rich?
The Ramaphosa Presidency has been praised for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but the compensating measures that accompany it are inadequate to protect much of the population.
Talking about trees
Capturing the absurdity of everyday life in Sudan under, now ousted President, Omar al Bashir.
Will COVID-19 keep out of Africa?
While COVID-19 hasn’t yet hit African cities as hard as those in the global North, it will eventually likely penetrate deep into the countryside where the most vulnerable live and where health facilities are rudimentary.
I mourn in deafening silence
Are the international community and the African Union really powerless to stop the fratricidal war in Cameroon, or are they just indifferent?
Destroying public trust during a pandemic
Few things are going on as normal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, political dysfunction in Lesotho continues, with negative ramifications for Basotho.
Tales of a civilized slavery
Black Brazilians have to fight official and popular narratives hiding the country’s brutal and violent legacy of slavery.
Collective action, “liberation,” and Tanzania’s working poor
How can a fragmented and precarious working class unite against exploitative labor relations and, in the process, transform them?
Praying through the pandemic
Pentecostalism in Nigeria preaches that prayer, not political action, is the solution to COVID-19.
Reading List: Dionne Searcey
The author and journalist shares a reading list from her time as The New York Times’ Bureau Chief for West Africa.
The need for a people-driven response to the coronavirus pandemic
Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, African governments should stop seeing non-governmental actors as a threat to their own legitimacy.
The devil coronavirus
With their government obsessed more with control of information than COVID-19 itself, Tanzanians are bracing for the worst.
The world has lost a giant of development economics
Thandika Mkandawire (1940-2020) bravely stood up for social policies and the developmental state.