Race politics in Ghana
Historian Jemima Pierre argues that Whiteness serves as a reference point for Ghanaians’ notions of beauty, Blackness, and power, but Ghanaians remain blind to this.
Politics
When Wikipedia writes Malawi’s national history
John Chilembwe is Malawi's first great anti-colonial hero. Why do our media outlets mainly rely on Wikipedia to give us “facts” about him?
Nigeria’s Super Eagles are back
The writer is cautiously optimistic (for once) that Nigeria will win its third Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa.
Eggs and omelettes
The existence of African billionaires are not positive evidence of “Africa rising,” but testament to the extreme inequality characterizing economic growth on the continent.
France in Mali: The End of the Fairytale
This is not a neo-colonial offensive. The argument that it is might be comfortable and familiar, but it is bogus and ill-informed.
Not an African Christmas
If the image of the starving black child has been deemed obsolete, then so has the Western “we” that claimed so much power for itself in the late 1980s.
Why does the BBC care what FW de Klerk thinks?
It's 2012 and FW de Klerk still thinks Apartheid had been beneficial to its black victims. Yet global media treats him like an analyst on South African politics.
François Hollande went to Algeria
Hollande’s visit coincided with a vote in the UN Security Council authorizing ECOWAS intervention in Mali; something Algeria, Mali's northern neighbor, objected to.
Waiting for Superman
The idea that leadership is the panacea to South Africa's varied troubles, is asserted as an almost axiomatic truth amongst South Africa's monotonous punditry.
Woman of the Year
Alice Nkom, the brave, activist lawyer, harassed and imprisoned by Cameroon's repressive regime on the government's actions: "Threats like these show us that the fight must continue.”
We write what we like about Steve Biko
What does it mean for a dead man to live through us, as we chant his name and claim him?
Rethinking mental illness
The diagnostic parameters need to be completely overhauled as they embody a Western mode of understanding which itself is culturally bound.
All the immigrants’ crimes in Italy
The online work of Italian rightwing websites to establish the idea that immigrants are dangerous for the Italian society
Howls in a hurricane
For South African news media to be ignored is a fate worse than censorship.
Mozambique, the new frontier of global capitalism
What is being cultivated at the new frontier of global capitalism — and for whom?
Renouncing the Rhino
My beef with rhinos is more of a beef with white South Africa as a whole, who are all for saving rhinos but largely silent about inequality, poverty and institutional racism.
Six lessons from Ghana’s 2012 elections
Here's on lesson from Ghana's 2012 election: Not only is Akufo-Addo the Ghanaian Mitt Romney, but the NPP are the Republicans of Ghana