In late August and early September, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Nigeria’s Silicon Lagoon and Kenya’s Silicon Savannah. Both visits were “surprises” for the locals and were also Zuckerberg’s first official trips to any African country. As noted in a recent survey, Kenya and Nigeria are two of the five countries that host 50 percent of […]
Zimbabwe is going through an evolution, not a revolution. Over the past few weeks, pundits and analysts alike have debated about the future of the country’s nascent citizen movement. In a widely circulated post, the academic Blessings Miles Tendi cautioned against premature optimism, and listed the lack of a united opposition movement, the limited activist […]
In Zimbabwe, the leap from online conversation to citizen protest has followed the same path as other protest movements around the world.
Following weeks of public demonstrations against corruption, bad governance and a rapidly deteriorating economy, people all across Zimbabwe heeded a call last week for a nationwide stay-away, in an act of defiance against the government. In recent weeks, protests both within and outside the country have increased in both number and intensity. On Friday July […]
2015’s last episode of Africa is a Radio features a snippet from an extended interview with Pakistani-American journalist Rafia Zakaria, as well as a selection of tunes from Africa and the rest of the Atlantic world. Check it out below, and see you in 2016! Tracklist 1) Raury – Devil’s Whisper 2) Burna Boy – Soke […]
The feminist Bella Matabanadzho remembers Zimbabwean academic and activist Sam Moyo carrying his "intellectual smarts with so much ease."
Lions and black people are not the same or even straightforwardly comparable. But it is true that something wants them both dead.
We head to Zimbabwe for the continuation of our Fresh Eyes series. Based in Bulawayo, KB Mpofu is a self-taught photographer who shoots portraits, fashion editorials and NGO work. With portraits in particular, the camera itself has a presence which heightens the intensity of the interplay between photographer and photographed. This is a delicate relationship to manage and […]
Johannesburg artists investigate power and its structures to interrogate the invisible forces that create them and to imagine alternatives.
I is for Independence: That revolutionary moment when we as a new cowntry, ended our reliance on colonial governments for civil services, and instead, started relying on NGOs.
Protests are important because they raise awareness. Awareness leads to dialogue. And dialogue may lead to lasting solutions.
What do you when your 70 year old South African father wants to meet Robert Mugabe for his birthday. Make a film about it.
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.
In Terence Ranger, politics and history, nationalism and scholarship, intersected in ways rarely seen. Zimbabwe and Africa, will forever be in his debt.
Zimbabwean historian Terence Ranger (1929-2015) is no more. Ranger was central to the historiography of Rhodesian colonialism and a keen observer of post-independent Zimbabwe. In the image above, taken in 1962, Ranger is on the left. At the time he was being deported from Rhodesia. In middle Joshua Nkomo, then leader of the liberation movement ZAPU, and second […]
With the exception of Hillary Clinton’s attempt at entering politics during Bill Clinton’s first term as president there hasn’t been a more contentious First Lady.
Survival is an album with a purpose. Released in 1979, it is Bob Marley’s most political recording.
I was home alone one Friday night around 2001 watching, as was tradition, one of the music shows which came on at SABC 1 during that period. It could’ve been Studio Mix during its dying years, or Basiq with Azania, or Castle Loud with Unathi and Stoan. The first video played after a Telkom ad. […]
The 'Baba Jukwa' Facebook page exposes state and ruling party corruption and correctly predicts leadership battles in Zimbabwe. Who is behind it?
From this week’s Washington Post Travel Section–“How unexpected: There was more modernity than I expected, such as extremey modern infrastructure (roads, etc.) in many places, although there is still poverty there. “