The news from South Africa
...or the constant deferral of reconciliation
Politics
Just one long war
The US is re-upping its failed "war on drugs" in Central America. The spin is they will fight "violence and poverty." This won't end well.
Many Terence Rangers
If you studied history in Zimbabwe in the 1980s and 1990s, you could not avoid the influence of Terence Ranger, especially in making sense of nationalism.
Africa Cup of Nations Memories: Cameroon’s shootout victory over Nigeria, enjoyed on VHS two days after the match
My favourite AFCON memory harks back to the year 2000 when Ghana and Nigeria co-hosted. To say it was a challenge to watch this competition is an understatement! This marked the era before internet streams and mass football broadcasting in North America. As recent immigrants to Canada, my family carried over our footballing passion but […]
El México Guerrero: Ayotzinapa’s defiant struggle for justice
On the night of September 26th, 2014, in the western Mexican state of Guerrero, 43 students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College of Ayotzinapa were intercepted and shot by the municipal police of Iguala. The survivors were later abducted by a local criminal group known as Guerreros Unidos at the request of the […]
Do critiques of representation make a real difference?
The Rusty Radiator Awards is not a critique of existing power relations and stark global inequalities, but of representation.
Africa Cup of Nations Memories: When Sudan scored their first AFCON goal in 32 years
Sudan had entered AFCON 2012 with 23 home-based players, all playing in Sudan. It was the first time they had qualified since 2008, and before that it was 1976. We were thrown into a group with Ivory Coast, Angola and Burkina Faso.
Why would a Black American root for Ghana’s soccer team over USA?
This post on The Outer Drive got me thinking about blackness and football, but first and foremost American blackness and football. (Not to say that nations and borders can confine blackness but in terms of this discussion, it will be something directly related to American blacks. Yet I still find an issue with limiting blackness […]
Security Killings: American Police Violence, from Ferguson to Nairobi
The world watched U.S. tanks roll into Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, in a misguided attempt to control protests over the police killing of Michael Brown. In the aftermath, the apparent militarization of local American police departments struck many critics as disproportionate force. It also tells us a great deal about the interconnections between U.S. […]
Perpetrator or Victim?
A decade after the ICC opened its investigation in northern Uganda, it lays its hands on a suspect in that conflict: a former child soldier.
How decisive is ethnicity and regionalism in Zambian electoral politics?
Results from Zambia’s presidential by-election held on 20th January 2015 are now clear. They do show a very disturbing trend of regionalism in the voting pattern. Since 1964, Zambia has prided itself as a beacon of unity in Southern Africa. Immediately after its founding, Zambia’s first President Kenneth Kaunda (KK) coined the One Zambia One […]
The limits of African autonomy
Achille Mbembe on how the Ebola Crisis exposed Africa’s dependency on the West.
African Cup of Nations memories
We've teamed up with brand new soccer kit supplier AMS (like them on Facebook) to give you the chance to win a Sierra Leone or South Sudan kit.
The Baddest
Hipster's Don't Dance's Top 10 UK-based Afrobeats Tunes of 2014.
The first and only woman to be charged by the ICC
The trials and tribulations of Cote d'Ivoire's former first lady, Simone Gbagbo, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The Chikungunya land of Latin America
A virus transmitted by a mosquito bite could become misinformed panic in Latin America that Ebola was in the United States.
The shoulders that carried Ebola’s weight
Making sure we give credit where it’s due to those on the frontline during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Havana and Washington: On African Time?
Was it ever in doubt that the first African American president of the United States would wish to crown his legacy by normalizing relations with the most African island in the Americas?
Race, class and domestic work in Latin America
The author on how she developed consciousness about the centrality of domestic work in her native Colombia and further afield
Some observations on race and security in South Africa
The writer, an anthropologist, gets a quick lesson on race and crime on a visit to South Africa.