More morbid symptoms
Much of what passes for politics these days is actually just anti-politics: not a function of too much politicization, but a severe lack of it.
South Africa
The tragic delusions of white exceptionalism
At another historical inflection point, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. recognized white Americans’ delusions as the property of the West more broadly.
The problem with generalizations
Despite the media's wish for a neat story, the African continent's response to COVID-19 is all over the map.
The legacy of violence in the struggle for South Africa
An excerpt of an essay, titled “Nongoloza’s Ghost,” in Lapham’s Quarterly. It's published in partnership with Africa Is a Country.
Renewable energy’s dark side
As countries expand investment in decentralized renewable energy, its worth keeping an eye on who's profiting.
Soft targets
What was behind the assassinations in the 1980s of two key anti-apartheid figures: Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme, and senior ANC official, Dulcie September?
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.
Tupac is alive in Africa
Young Africans are breathing life into Tupac’s memory, channeling his image and his music to be heard and seen in social spaces where they feel neither audible nor visible.
Living on
The Indian activist ES Reddy led the fight against South African apartheid at the UN. More importantly, his life reflected the best of left internationalism.
The corporatization of food in South Africa
We can only end hunger when people have control over what they eat and how that food is produced.
A cycle of diminishing expectations
South Africans are learning the hard way that corruption cannot simply be solved through technical fixes and increasing “accountability” through locking the villains up.
Johannesburg cannot police its future
South Africa’s biggest city is ground zero for debates about the long-term effectiveness and constitutionality of militarized urban policing and how we imagine the post-COVID city.
The myth of South African nationality
Growing xenophobic nationalism in South Africa is a danger to African people across the continent.
Where are the flowers for Gilbert?
The drummer Gilbert Matthews was a visionary of South African jazz. The silences on his passing from official quarters are discordant.
The hallucinatory bunker of the white right
The anti-Black Lives Matter backlash in South Africa highlights the growing ideological convergence between the far right and conservatives.
A city on a hill
The viral sensation “Jerusalema” and its dance challenge reveals a deeper longing and desire to re-imagine the world.
The most wanted man
The legend of Nelson Mandela was built years before his lengthy jail sentence catapulted him to global fame.
The global rise of the right-wing
Chelsea Stieber and Christopher McMichael talk the growth of right-wing nationalist movements and their ideological roots on AIAC Talk.
The media and the workers of Marikana
The anniversary of Marikana just passed us. Media coverage of the massacre is an important part of its legacy.