AfricaIs aCountry

Save the Museum (in Uganda)

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Save the Museum (in Uganda)

By
Brett Davidson

Just about this time last year, Uganda lost a priceless part of its cultural heritage when the Kasubi Tombs were burnt down. The tombs were a UNESCO World Heritage Site and were built in 1882 – the burial place of four Buganda kings.

Now it seems another cultural site faces destruction. Global Voices reports on a campaign in Uganda to save the Uganda Museum, founded in 1908.

Apparently the ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry plans to build a 60-storey office building on the site (I wonder whether there were many fights between the Tourism and the Trade and Industry factions over that one).

Not only does the museum house some important exhibits, but according to the Facebook page set up by the Save the Museum Campaign, it’s the oldest museum in Eastern Africa.–Brett Davidson

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.