[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96hCD6BuAik&w=480&h=295]

Senegal’s President, Abdoluaye Wade, hired North Koreans to built a 50 meter high monument–at exhorbitant cost–to celebrate his country’s 50 years of independence. Oh and he’ll make some of the profits from tourists visiting the monument to line his own pocket.  His people want to know what’s to celebrate. Among those siding with Wade is Jesse Jackson btw. No surprises.

Via Al Jazeera English.

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Reading List: Barbara Boswell

While editing a collection of the writings of South African feminist Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell found inspiration in texts that reflected Ngcobo’s sense that writing is an exercise of freedom.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

An annual awakening

In the 1980s, the South African arts collective Vakalisa Art Associates reclaimed time as a tool of social control through their subversive calendars.

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.