What is the university for?
We should not be tempted to idealize the university ‘as it was’ – especially in a country like South Africa.
We should not be tempted to idealize the university ‘as it was’ – especially in a country like South Africa.
Africa is a Radio show for October 2015. Sean and Elliot are on a break from the show, so Boima fills in with some new tunes from around the African Diaspora, with special shout outs to the South African student protesters, and young Afrobeats artists in the UK. Tracklist VVIP – Skolom feat. Sena DagaduAewon […]
The larger story of the United States’s rapidly expanding military interests and presence on the continent.
No victory was achieved for the #Feesmustfall campaign last Friday. Let’s be clear about that. No fees have fallen. There is nothing to celebrate or get excited about. Fortunately, young people are not stupid nor naive as I discovered for myself. My intention of going to the march at the Union Buildings was to pledge solidarity as […]
Jimmy Morales, Guatemala's new president, is basically a proxy for the country's very powerful lobby of rightwing former military men.
The Pan-Africanist intellectual and journalist Bennie Bunsee (79) passed away on October 10th in Cape Town, the city where he lived and worked since he returned from exile after South Africa’s first democratic elections. I was part of his Cape Town family. This ‘family’ was not related in the strictest sense, but gathered every now […]
After the reawakening of South African student activism, what next? It is at the point of the rub between race, class and gender politics that the difficult questions present themselves.
"Shutting Down the Rainbow Nation" lets mostly women students, mostly from Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, articulate for themselves what is going on in this moment.
The fearlessness with which South African students confront their society's contradictions, suggests much more than fees may fall.
In April 2012, Ingrid Turinawe, then leader of Uganda’s Forum for Democratic Change Women’s League, was on her way to an FDC rally when police attacked her. They dragged her out of her car, groped, mauled, and tore off her top. Ugandan women responded with protests where they stripped off their tops. That was then, […]
Real regional integration would mean both the end of trade barriers and the local subsidies that distort trade flows and prevent competition.
Demands for racial justice and concerns about economic inequality are coming together in a powerful call for change that cannot be ignored or easily dismissed.
Two weeks ago, on October 6th, Nigeria’s former oil minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke, was arrested in London by British police. It’s estimated that over $20 billion went missing on her watch. But how much longer will Nigeria rely on the British police to deal with powerful mega-looters like Diezani Allison-Madueke? Beyond the celebrations that lit up […]
Following protest action at the University of Cape Town and Wits University in Johannesburg against higher fees, students at Rhodes University (the students prefer to refer to the school as “The university currently known as Rhodes”) came out in protest against the “Minimum Initial Payment” that would require students in Rhodes residences to pay R45,000 […]
Bizarrely, for all the attention paid Piketty’s visit to South Africa, we've learned very little about what he actually said. So, what did he tell his hosts?
“What is the difference between refugees and ‘normal’ citizens besides the fact that the former had to flee from their homes? There is none.”
Note left at Thomas Sankara's graveside: “Mama Sankara, your son will be avenged. We are all Sankara.”
if Luaty Beirão dies in jail on their watch, Angola's state will have a much bigger problem than small protests on their hands.
October 11 is International Day of the Girl Child, and October 25 Tanzania will run Presidential and Parliamentary elections. The presidential elections, in particular, will or will not be the closest ever, depending on which poll one prefers, but one thing is clear: youth matters. According to the 2012 Census, of the close to 45 […]
This transition from conflict to post-conflict represents a different approach to solve the underlying causes that gave raise to Colombia's violence.