Goodbye, Piassa
The demolition of an historic district in Addis Ababa shows a central contradiction of modernization: the desire to improve the country while devaluing its people and culture.
Ethiopia
Landscapes of ambition and neglect
While Ethiopia’s leaders chase shiny new projects that are grand monuments to themselves and modernity, they ignore the country’s rich, natural heritage.
Who is Addis Ababa for?
The planned demolition of one of Ethiopia’s most vibrant cultural centers forms part of an urban planning trend where African cities are re-designed to serve elites.
The dust, towers and false promises of modern Ethiopia
Successive Ethiopian governments have continued a 'modernizing' project that not only offers people false dreams, but actively dislocates them from the things that gave them purpose in the past.
Crossing the Red Sea
Salafism is across Ethiopia. While Saudi Arabia has played a role, Ethiopian Muslims themselves are playing a bigger one.
How we tell the story of African film history
For most outsiders, modern Ethiopian cinema means Haile Gerima and Salem Mekuria. But others, in addition to these, made its rich cinema history.
The psychological pains of Ethiopian intellectuals
The desire to be absorbed into and consumed by the West, to find solace in its seductive promises, animates Robin Dimet’s film, “Sami’s Odysseys.”
This is appropriation that’s acceptable
The French Ethio-groove group Akalé Wubé has dissolved. For over a decade they have shown how cultural outsiders can considerately engage in music that is not theirs.
Turning the camera back home
The women filmmakers in the Ethiopian diaspora who have taken the risk of dedicating their lives to documenting their homeland.
Music makes the past alive
Africa Is a Country Radio is back with a new season. Each show will be inspired by the work of a different African author. First up, we explore the Ethiopian Tizita with Mukoma Wa Ngugi.
The war in Ethiopia
Will Ethiopia’s civil war blow up its dream of a single state, and in the process, blow up Western notions of statebuilding?
A journey to Harar
In Mexican-Ethiopian filmmaker Jessica Beshir’s Faya Dayi, khat is more than an important export product in a capitalist economy; she captures khat’s roles and meanings in everyday Harari life.
A legacy beyond the vintage records
The late Alemayehu Eshete, and musical contemporaries like Mulatu Astatke and Girma Beyene worked around huge obstacles to create a unique Ethiopian sound and make it global.
What happened to Ethiopia?
The ongoing displacement and killings of minorities and the ongoing war in Tigray—labeled by the federal government as enforcing law and order—are disturbing. It can't go on.
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.
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.
Geographies of war-making in East Africa
African states are involved in the War on Terror more than we think. They're surrounded by an eco-system of the war industry.
In search of Ethiopia’s past and present
The film "Finding Sally" grapples with Ethiopia's past, but may romanticize its present.
Holding living bodies in graveyards
The violence of keeping Ethiopian manuscripts in Western institutions.
