Zimbabwe is a victim of outsiders’ fantasies
Zimbabwe is its own self, its own country, not some echo chamber from which people hope to catch reverberated strains of their own discourses.
Politics
That uncomfortable feeling
The ‘premature’ launch of South Africa’s second 24-hour news television channel.
Little Stan Greenberg is Dead
South African political party, the DA, pivots its election campaign around claiming Nelson Mandela. Who came up with this?
Not all the news that’s fit to print
How the U.S.'s paper of record, the New York Times, "debates" South Africa's "future."
While we wait for election results in Mali
Here's a selection of articles that go the extra mile and poke holes in the narrow frame of the "Malian crisis."
The Story of South Africa’s Very Violent Farms
Thanks to labor groups in Sweden, a major importer of South African wine, who have recently called attention to labour abuses on farms.
Malians educating Malians
SOS Democracy wants to raise voter turnout, educate them on their choices and hold the candidates and government accountable to voters.
The Bicycle Thief
A new Israeli law orders asylum-seekers to be detained for an unlimited period without judicial oversight or criminal proceedings, even for misdemeanors like bicycle or cell-phone theft.
On the Pain of Violent Men
TRIGGER WARNING: sexual violence Let me start by saying that I feel very ambivalent about causing two workers to lose their source of income. It makes me uncomfortable to have deprived anyone of a wage in this time of crisis. ‘Getting someone fired’, more than a victory, makes me feel miserable, concerned, confused. There are […]
The New Yorker Goes to Mali
I do know a bit about Mali, but I hardly recognize The New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson’s version of it.
Mandela Day
The writer, an American graduate student at the time, goes in search of Nelson Mandela to tell the story of Mandela's alma mater, the University of Fort Hare.
Julius Malema’s next move
In South Africa, many youth votes are up for grabs for the first time, from the generation facing 70% unemployment and with little loyalty to the ANC of their parents.
At the Protests for Trayvon Martin in New York City
The picture above shows Times Square on Sunday night, during the protest for Trayvon Martin. As I took this photo the woman with the loudspeaker was yelling out “We are here to say that black lives have value.” That is what the demonstrations boil down to. When the Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman, something snapped […]
How to be a man
The simple fact that all forms of violence in South Africa have a male face tells us there’s something fundamentally wrong with ideas around manhood there.
Return from the Promised Land
There are some 36,000 Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel who wants to force them to go home. To a dictatorship.
George Bush and Nicholas Kristof’s Hunger Games
We hope the “women of Africa,” who are being discovered yet again, appreciate all the good work being done for them.
What is going in Egypt?
Is this Egypt’s second revolution, a military coup, or an agglomeration of both (“Democratic Coup”, anyone)? And then there's the media noise.
Nelson Mandela is around like never before
Mandela’s significance can be understood through his ability to concede that the concept of the post-apartheid could not be entrusted to messianism or figureheads.
Linda Ikeji should drop the homophobia
On Linda Ikeji's blog it's all good fun until the gay-baiting begins.
There will be no hiding place
The UK government is now openly tweeting its contempt for people of color.