To Come Back from Qunu
Our correspondent, attending the funeral of Nelson Mandela, the founder of post-apartheid South Africa, reflects on Madiba's legacy for his own children.
Politics
Nelson Mandela and the Dutch
The mainstream view is that the Netherlands was a staunch supporter of South Africa's liberation movement? The story is a bit more complicated.
The Last Founding Father of African Decolonization
It is not hard to understand the iconic status of Nelson Mandela and the overflow of emotion his death has provoked in the Pan-African world.
Burying Comrade Nelson Mandela
For some of us, the official celebrations are missing a crucial element: Celebrating Nelson Mandela as a figure of armed struggle and the liberation movement.
The Mandela Legacy
Madiba’s example of forgiveness, reconciliation, and humility are inseparable from his unwavering commitment to combat white
The two mutually irreconcilable Nelson Mandelas
Both Nelson Mandela’s historical role in the South African transition to democracy and his own management of his legacy paved the way for vacuous treatments of his life.
Why aren’t we discussing Nelson Mandela’s politics?
As much as the world wants to deify Mandela, to do so in the abstract with no reference to his actual politics is absurd.
Poster art that challenged apartheid
The African Activist Archive Project website contains posters from the African solidarity movement from the 1950s to the 1990s.
The day Jacob Zuma lost control of the ANC?
At an event meant to celebrate Nelson Mandela's life, Jacob Zuma was not only embarrassed by the crowd (they booed him multiple times), by those on stage.
Nelson Mandela Did Not Walk Alone
In the early 1990s I was teaching Economics in a fifth floor classroom at Khanya College
Should the Left celebrate Nelson Mandela?
The Mandela who needs celebrating is the Mandela who, if he was not Lenin, never pretended to be something else.
The triumphant end of Africa’s liberation struggle
The one individual the African continent was unanimously proud and infinitely grateful of, was Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela’s Humanity was a Political Education
The author, remembering Mandela, writes how South Africa galvanized progressive energies in the US in the 1980s.
When Nelson Mandela had an Ethiopian Passport
In April 1962, Mandela traveled on an Ethiopian passport in the name of David Motsomayi. He visited Morocco, Algeria, and Mali.
Three Myths about Mandela Worth Busting
The Nelson Mandela encountered by former antiapartheid activist Tony Karon in American media is so unrecognizable.
Tata Mandela
The Mandela Capture Memorial in Howick, Kwazulu Natal speaks eloquently to the essential truth: that in South Africa, some families mattered more than other.
Madiba: I Remember
The writer, originally from Cape Town, remembers Nelson Mandela's impact on his life.
10 excuses Dutch people make for blackface
The Dutch can't hide how racist the "tradition" of the blackface character, Zwarte Piet, is. Here we parody their rationalizations.
Is the Central African Republic on the Verge of Genocide?
Over the last few weeks, the usually unrelenting stream of baby pictures and lose-weight ads in
How much is an African body worth?
An African refugee in Britain seeks assistance. He is thrown behind bars, often shackled. He fasts in protest. He is shackled and shipped out on the next charter flight.