Alex La Guma (in the words of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o)
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/alex-la-guma-in-the-words-of-ngugi-wa-thiongo
He was not there in person — he was under house arrest back in apartheid #South_Africa — but Alex La Guma dominated the literary discussions at the 1962 Conference of African Writers of English Expression, held at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Among the attendants were some of the leading writers of the continent,…
Voting in #Angola
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/voting-in-angola
On the morning of August 28th I voted for the first time in my life. It was an anti-climactic affair; none of the clichéd long winding lines stretching into the African bush, full of people who had walked for miles under a scorching sun; I had simply gotten into my car, driven 3-5 minutes under…
The dark and white side of conservation in #Kenya
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/the-dark-and-white-side-of-conservation-in-kenya
Conflict between pastoralists and white landowners in recent months has brought the Laikipia region of Kenya to the attention of international audiences. News coverage of these conflicts reached an apex in April with the shooting of renowned landowner and memoirist Kuki Gallmann. In previous weeks, Gallmann’s safari lodge had been burned by vandals, and her neighbor, Tristan Voorspuy, had been shot and killed. Speaking to journalist Tristan…
Uganda’s Bonfire Youth turning tradition on its head
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/ugandas-bonfire-youth-turning-tradition-on-its-head
There might be only little room for political dissent in Uganda, but there is no limit to the creativity of the country’s youth as they continually engage the three-decade-old grip on power of Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement (NRM). This, at least, is the conclusion one reaches after watching Luciana Farah’s new film, Somebody Clap for Me. Set in Kampala, the nation’s capital, the film highlights how a group of young people are employing…
Jeffrey Gettleman’s tired tome
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/jeffrey-gettlemans-tired-tome
Africa has often served as a laboratory of self-discovery for privileged outsiders. Since the era of colonial adventurers, as Nadifa Mohamed notes, the continent has been a site “for dreams and nightmares,” a foil and mirror for many a Western traveler. This is the tradition/trap into which Jeffrey Gettleman falls. Gettleman, a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist known for his lurid coverage of war, was until recently the East Africa correspondent for The New York Times. His journey from middle-class suburbia to the halls of one of the country’s most…
Gettleman’s tired tome
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/gettlemans-tired-tome
Africa has often served as a laboratory of self-discovery for privileged outsiders. Since the era of colonial adventurers, as Nadifa Mohamed notes, the continent has been a site “for dreams and nightmares,” a foil and mirror for many a Western traveler. This is the tradition/trap into which Jeffrey Gettleman falls. Gettleman, a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist known for his lurid coverage of war, was until recently the East Africa correspondent for The New York Times. His journey from middle-class suburbia to the halls of one of the country’s most…
When Cape Jazz found a perfect mix with R&B, fusion and pop
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/when-cape-jazz-found-a-perfect-mix-with-rb-fusion-and-pop
The band Pacific Express was Cape Town’s “answer to Earth Wind and Fire.” In 1976 they released the watershed album, Black Fire, the first successful confluence of Cape Jazz with R&B, fusion and pop. Reissued in 2017, Black Fire is clearly music for dancing, and even the more extended improvisations of trumpeter Robbie Jansen, saxophonist Basil Coetzee and pianist – and chief composer/arranger – Chris Schilder (Ebrahim Khalil Shihab) keep that in mind. The appealing voice of…
New ways of being Nigerian
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/new-ways-of-being-nigerian
There is a worrisome, undue accent on ethnic and sub-ethnic affiliations deserving scrutiny in Nigeria. Until the day when an Igbo ceases to be a visitor or stranger in Lagos and the growing number of northerners in Igboland become more than outsiders, secessionist agitations and their associated conflicts will remain components of the Nigerian ensemble.…
The struggle for new modes of being Nigerian
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/the-struggle-for-new-modes-of-being-nigerian
There is a worrisome, undue accent on ethnic and sub-ethnic affiliations deserving scrutiny in Nigeria. Until the day when an Igbo ceases to be a visitor or stranger in Lagos and the growing number of northerners in Igboland become more than outsiders, secessionist agitations and their associated conflicts will remain components of the Nigerian ensemble.…
How the Nigerian Left imploded
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/how-the-nigerian-left-imploded
In the history of democratic transitions in Africa – whether from military, one-party, civilian or multi-party rule – Nigeria’s experience presents an interesting dimension. First, the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida handpicked the parties that would contest the first democratic elections on June 12th, 1993 after many years of dictatorship. Second, with the exception…
What about human rights for ‘non-humans’
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/what-about-human-rights-for-non-humans
Human rights is an anthropocentric discourse that centers the “human” in its articulation of various rights claims. Human rights is therefore often described as rights that all humans possess inherently because they are human, or as rights that can be claimed by humans through various legal mechanisms that give effect to these rights. But what…
What comes after Human Rights?
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/what-comes-after-human-rights
Human rights is an anthropocentric discourse that centers the “human” in its articulation of various rights claims. Human rights is therefore often described as rights that all humans possess inherently because they are human, or as rights that can be claimed by humans through various legal mechanisms that give effect to these rights. But what…
#SundayRead : Next Time You See the Mediterranean
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/next-time-you-see-the-mediterranean
Next time you see the Mediterranean think of all these bodies brown and black, declared dead or missing in its waters. So far this year, 2,405 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean. Last year, the number of migrants declared dead or missing reached 5,143. In 2015, 3,771 deaths were documented. Between 1993 and 2012, according…
#Kenya After The Elections: Will Amnesia and Impunity Continue?
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/kenya-after-the-elections-will-amnesia-and-impunity-continue
As Kenya processes the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2017 election, competing narratives of resistance vs peace, and protest vs compliance are still dominating popular political discourse. Raila Odinga now seems set to lose the presidential election for the fourth time by a margin of roughly 1.4 million votes with a turnout of…
Encountering the promised land: Rastafari in Ethiopia and Shashamane
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/encountering-the-promised-land-rastafari-in-ethiopia-and-shashamane
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie would have been 125 this year. Perhaps coincidentally — and indeed meaningfully for Rastafari repatriates in Ethiopia — the government just announced a decision to issue identification cards to foreigners who have contributed to the country’s development, Israelis of Ethiopian descent and Rastafari. According to news agency AFP, a foreign ministry…
The Crisis of the Party-State in #South_Africa
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/the-crisis-of-the-party-state-in-south-africa
Left critics often cast South Africa’s ruling #African_National_Congress (ANC) as an organization under the thrall of a homogenous elite, wedded to neoliberalism and the old economic structure. Recent events have blown this interpretation open. The ANC elite is in fact sharply divided, and one faction seems largely impervious to corporate South Africa’s immense…
The world of photographer Osaretin Ugiagbe
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/the-world-of-photographer-osaretin-ugiagbe
Since he was ten years old back in Lagos, Osaretin Ugiagbe had been casually taking pictures. Using the family camera he would capture scenes from day-to-day life in the house, the neighborhood and thought nothing much of it. But from 2011 as a painter, and now living in the Bronx, he began feeling a yearning to make photographs. He…
#SUNDAY_READ: A place to call home
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/a-place-to-call-home
I recently traveled to Cape Town, where I was born. On this trip, I spent most of my time house-hunting for a place of my own for when I eventually retire. I will most likely end up living in a neighborhood in what was declared “white group areas” during apartheid. On this trip, I decided to stay in three different Airbnb’s in the city center. My last Airbnb was an apartment…
Joseph Kabila’s special relationship with South Africa
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/joseph-kabilas-special-relationship-with-south-africa
On June 25 this year, president Joseph Kabila travelled to Pretoria for the annual bi-national council between the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa (basically a regular cabinet-level meeting between two countries). Kabila is known for rarely leaving the country (aka his presidential residence). Some argue that it is due to fears surrounding his unpopularity for overstaying his presidential mandate,…
Hey VICE! Put some respeck on Nollywood’s name!
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/hey-vice-put-some-respeck-on-nollywoods-name
Though VICE has, in some ways, improved its Africa coverage — see, for instance, its reporting on the political crises in the Central African Republic —it continues to offer some familiar, adventurist, Tarzanist tricks. Think of the infamous “cannibals”-in-Liberia episode, which prompted the late New York Times reporter David Carr to pillory VICE executives for their exoticizing methods. Those affiliated with VICE appear to have learned little from Carr’s blistering critique. Among the worst offenders is its correspondent Thomas Morton. Take VICE’s recent television segment on Nollywood — the second half of an…
Un petit cadeau pour celles et ceux qui e demande à quoi ressemblent les œuvres cinématographiques de Nollywood...
►https://www.dropbox.com/s/fa29putiqfojfso/noliwood.dat?dl=0
