Reading List: Lesley Nicole Braun
Anyone who has attempted to describe dance in writing knows how difficult it is. These books on dance on the continent and the diaspora gets close.
Democratic Republic of Congo
Hands off Africa
It is high time that the devastating impact of foreign intervention in Africa be taken as seriously as those in Europe.
Africa’s next great war
The international community's limited attention span is laser-focused on jihadism in the Sahel and the imploding Horn of Africa. But interstate war is potentially brewing in the eastern DRC.
Breakfast at Mobutu’s
Jacques Bongoma was a young Congolese progressive who became a close advisor to Joseph Mobutu after the country’s 1965 coup.
So that the victims do not die a second time
To put an end to general indifference about the 25 years of political violence in DR Congo, filmmaker Thierry Michel chooses to show the worst atrocities and to name the war criminals.
The war that doesn’t say its name
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo conflict, as well as peacemaking, have become ends in themselves, while the fighting is carried forward by its own momentum.
Tram 83, a soundtrack
Fiston Mwanza Mujila's debut novel is painted by the music of a nightclub in a fictional central African city-state. On this month's AIAC Radio we imagined what it might sound like.
The politics of elegance
German historian Daniel Tödt wrote a history of the Congolese évolués. In this interview, he talks about the historiographical interventions of his book and the role of Patrice Lumumba in the history of évolués.
Bring Patrice Lumumba home
The return of Patrice Lumumba’s remains must not be an occasion for Belgium to congratulate itself, but for a full accounting of the colonial violence that led to the assassination and coverup.
Musically, Congo is the mothership
The documentary, Rumba Kings, offers a commendable and tireless argument for both an intangible cultural heritage case and a centering of the Congolese way.
Disentangling memory from truth
In the collective consciousness of global football, Zaire and Haiti—which both qualified for the 1974 World Cup—are remembered for their dismal performance. But is this legacy justified?
When discussing war is taboo
Dieudo Hamadi’s film 'Downstream to Kinshasa' is a powerful antidote to the DRC's collective amnesia around the Six-Day War and its aftermath.
Congo’s white ‘refugees’
After the fall of colonial rule, some whites fled from their African countries of residence and sought refuge in apartheid South Africa.
Slam democracy
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has a rigid educational system, largely unchanged from the colonial era. Slam artists and activists are working to open it up to alternative spaces of expression.
In the jungles of the Congo
The book 'Emerald Labyrinth' explores American and Congolese efforts to document species biodiversity.
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, a healer from within
We should honor Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba by carrying on his life's work.
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, un guérisseur de l’esprit
Il sied d’honorer le professeur Ernest Wamba dia Wamba en continuant l’œuvre de sa vie.
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba mponyaji kutoka ndani
Tunapaswa kumheshimu Profesa Ernest Wamba dia Wamba kwa kuendelea na kazi ya maisha yake.
Lumumba’s iconography in the arts
On anniversary of the birthday of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of an independent Congo, we ask, "What iconography arose around him, and why is that iconography so diverse?"
‘Bogus companies’ in the DR Congo
Can safety policies in the transnational mining sector in DR Congo break with the past?