Running with white people
South Africans have chosen ignorance. We have decided to not know what’s on the other side of the road. To be safe in our enclaves, and only venture out to edify our prejudices or prop up credentials.
Blog
President of France, King of Africa?
Francois Hollande want French-African relations to be transparent. Is this a new African policy or the old FrançAfrique?
What joy sounds like in German
Bonus music break: Abdullah Ibrahim, John Tchicai, Gato Barbieri, Barre Phillips and Makaya Ntshoko performing live on German public television in 1968.
Kenya’s #purplezebra Spring
Political springs, as in social movements that topple and/or transform political regimes, occur when the youth of a nation get on the move. And that may be what happened in Nairobi this past Monday. A harbinger of spring.
There are more cell phones in Africa than India
For Canada's Conservative Party government Africa has moved from disaster and aid to opportunity. An actual Canadian government said the above.
10 African films to watch out for, N°7
I was surprised to find very few films by African directors in this year’s programme of the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam. At my count, 4 out of 317 — Samoute Andrey Diarra’s Sand Fishers, Karima Zoubir’s Woman with a Camera, Nadine Cloete’s Miseducation and Muhammad Taymour’s One Minute — but maybe I have […]
#Kony2005
The writer revisits his notes from 2005 when he visited Acholiland, the site of a conflict between the LRA and Uganda's military.
Germany’s Turn
What to make of Germany’s newest arts funding program for the African continent, TURN, a 2 million Euro art and culture initiative that will last till 2015.
Our love is hot for Tiwa Savage
The music video for Tiwa Savage's "Ife wa Gbona" is as engrossing as the song. With its blend of pop, juju and highlife It bring up warm feelings in the listener.
If dolls never die, neither does their past
The artist Gérard Quenum's work suggest that society’s collective bad parenting and maltreatment cannot ever, completely ransack the spirit.
Legson Kayira, the first Malawian novelist, has died
Malawi had three first novelists: David Rubadiri, Aubrey Kachingwe, and Legson Kayira, who has died this week in London aged 70. In the 1960s and 1970s Kayira wrote a number of works of fiction, but he will be remembered most of all for his 1965 memoir, I Will Try, an account of the astonishing journey he […]
‘Syn City’ Harare
Zimbabwe is a paradox. A country riddled with contradictions. While the often unpalatable and sometimes hair-raising stories are making news, the stories of everyday people of Zimbabwe are less reported, if not altogether the country’s best kept secret. “Generally, Africa seems to be portrayed in a negative light,” says Gerald Mugwenhi, better known as Synik, […]