Issue # 10
I Am Samuel
Books lauded, films banned
I Am Samuel , an LGBTQ+ documentary about a Kenyan man struggling with his sexuality, has been banned by the Kenya Film Classification Board. In a statement, the board described the film as 'a clear and deliberate attempt by the producer to promote same-sex marriage as an acceptable way of life'. The board went on to claim that the film was ‘demeaning of Christianity as two gay men in the film purport to conduct a religious marriage invoking the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’, The...
I Am Samuel , an LGBTQ+ documentary about a Kenyan man struggling with his sexuality, has been banned by the Kenya Film Classification Board. In a statement, the board described the film as 'a clear and deliberate attempt by the producer to promote same-sex marriage as an acceptable...
The novels of Abdulrazak Gurnah offer a running commentary and a skepticism toward the cultural politics of packaging African stories for global circulation and consumption. The news that Abdulrazak Gurnah had won the Nobel Prize for Literature was met with joy as well as surprise. The first black African author to receive the award since Wole Soyinka 35 years earlier, Gurnah is not entirely a familiar name among readers on the continent and much less so outside it. The announcement set off a...
The novels of Abdulrazak Gurnah offer a running commentary and a skepticism toward the cultural politics of packaging African stories for global circulation and consumption. The news that Abdulrazak Gurnah had won the Nobel Prize for Literature was met with joy as well as surprise....
This year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature will be interviewed online by Ethiopian writer Maaza Mengiste at the upcoming edition of the Nigeria based Aké Festival. The event will take place on 30 October between 17h45 and 18h55 West-African Time. Read an excerpt from Gurnah novel Desertion here . Review of his latest novel After Life here . This year’s Aké Arts & Book Festival 2021 theme is 'Generational Discordance'. Dozens of online sessions with as many writers and opinionistas are...
This year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature will be interviewed online by Ethiopian writer Maaza Mengiste at the upcoming edition of the Nigeria based Aké Festival. The event will take place on 30 October between 17h45 and 18h55 West-African Time. Read an excerpt from...
If I had stayed in Sierra Leone, I would undoubtedly have become a doctor. And had I, like my father, been married to three women, had many children. I would have become a traditionalist, a profound believer in the Islamic faith and my life put wholly to the service of society. Like my father, I would no doubt have been a happy person who would find satisfaction in serving my people. But destiny had chosen for me a different direction. I moved from the WE to the I. Or say uprooted from A to B. My...
If I had stayed in Sierra Leone, I would undoubtedly have become a doctor. And had I, like my father, been married to three women, had many children. I would have become a traditionalist, a profound believer in the Islamic faith and my life put wholly to the service of society. Like...
Since 1996 the people in Kivu have not been in peace despite the presence of the so-called UN Peace Keeping Force MONUSCO (United Nations Organization Mission for the Stabilization of the Congo) and a great number of humanitarian organisations. Thousands of people have been killed, houses and other assets have been burned, and people have fled from their homes to more secure areas where they are suffering from malnutrition. The situation has worsened since 2014, particularly in North-Kivu where...
Since 1996 the people in Kivu have not been in peace despite the presence of the so-called UN Peace Keeping Force MONUSCO (United Nations Organization Mission for the Stabilization of the Congo) and a great number of humanitarian organisations. Thousands of people have been killed,...
18 – 25.10.21 Freedom Lectures | Susan Kigula, the woman who made the death penalty unconstitutional
While on death row in Uganda, Susan Kigula started law. On behalf of 418 inmates Kigula sued the state. In 2009, the countries’ Constitutional Court declared the death penalty unlawful. All cases were reviewed. Kigula was released in 2016. This year’s Freedom Lecture will be delivered by Kigula in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leiden and Enschede. Kigula has been invited to visit the Netherlands by Amsterdam debate centre De Balie and artist/photographer Jan Banning. He is a friend of Kigula since 2011...
While on death row in Uganda, Susan Kigula started law. On behalf of 418 inmates Kigula sued the state. In 2009, the countries’ Constitutional Court declared the death penalty unlawful. All cases were reviewed. Kigula was released in 2016. This year’s Freedom Lecture will be...
Afrovibes x ZAM: how we made it – African artists center stage from De Balie TV on Vimeo . Like what you see? Support us in creating exceptional stories for change. Scan the QR code and become a friend of ZAM! * Forget about borders, visa restrictions and Fort Europe! Join us on Friday 8th of October for a special ZAM / Afrovibes festival programme. How We Made It – African Artists Centre Stage With hosts Ikenna Azuike & Ms Aba. Participating artists: Trixie Munyama, Lisette Ma Neza, Jelili Atiku...
Afrovibes x ZAM: how we made it – African artists center stage from De Balie TV on Vimeo . Like what you see? Support us in creating exceptional stories for change. Scan the QR code and become a friend of ZAM! * Forget about borders, visa restrictions and Fort Europe! Join us on...
On Sunday 5 September, the Nelson Mandela Memorial was unveiled in the South East district of Amsterdam. With over 170 nationalities, the South East is the most multicultural neighbourhood in the city. The creator of the work is South African artist Mohau Modisakeng. The memorial differs from all other Mandela monuments in the world. It is not a statue because, in the words of Modisakeng in an interview with Dutch daily Trouw 'a larger-than-life Mandela does not make one think'. His memorial...
On Sunday 5 September, the Nelson Mandela Memorial was unveiled in the South East district of Amsterdam. With over 170 nationalities, the South East is the most multicultural neighbourhood in the city. The creator of the work is South African artist Mohau Modisakeng. The memorial...
Reluctantly, South Africans are coming to terms with the fact that in the same way that no condition is permanent, no euphoria is permanent either. The innocence of the 1990s and early 2000s, when the country moved from apartheid to post-apartheid, has given way to a gnawing unease about the future of the democratic experiment. Two camps are emerging — there are those whose disenchantment expresses itself in the desire to burn everything, destroy everything, declaim everything. There are, on the...
Reluctantly, South Africans are coming to terms with the fact that in the same way that no condition is permanent, no euphoria is permanent either. The innocence of the 1990s and early 2000s, when the country moved from apartheid to post-apartheid, has given way to a gnawing unease...
#ImagineMandela – What is your ideal? Thursday 26.08.21, 17h30–20h00 | Livestream – In conversation with Mohau Modikaseng, creator of the Amsterdam Nelson Mandela Memorial. Venue: CBK Zuidoost, Anton de Komplein 120, Amsterdam. Video. Spoken Word. Debate. Drinks & Snacks. Organised by ZAM and CBK Zuidoost.
#ImagineMandela – What is your ideal? Thursday 26.08.21, 17h30–20h00 | Livestream – In conversation with Mohau Modikaseng, creator of the Amsterdam Nelson Mandela Memorial. Venue: CBK Zuidoost, Anton de Komplein 120, Amsterdam. Video. Spoken Word. Debate. Drinks & Snacks. Organised...
Ten African investigative journalists who participated in ZAM’s Kleptocracy Project look back on months of risks, hardship and revelations. Bettie Johnson-Mbayo’s worse moment came when she had to print a Freedom of Information request at a print shop in Monrovia, her Liberian hometown. ‘I live in a society where people are interrelated. The print shop owner could be related to a subject in my request’. At the time, Johnson-Mbayo was already receiving threats. Journalists have been killed before in...
Ten African investigative journalists who participated in ZAM’s Kleptocracy Project look back on months of risks, hardship and revelations. Bettie Johnson-Mbayo’s worse moment came when she had to print a Freedom of Information request at a print shop in Monrovia, her Liberian...
On June 12, Richard Kofi’s newest film, Imprenta , premiered online, streaming from Korzo Theatre in The Hague. The film forms part of the FluX programme series, where connection, movement, and conversation are central. Imprenta is a collaboration with choreographer and dancer Junadry Leocaria as well as filmmaker Conni Trommlitz and musician Ernest Guiraud Cissé. Richard Kofi is a member of the diaspora himself, having grown up in the Netherlands with Ghanian roots. He says he has always felt both...
On June 12, Richard Kofi’s newest film, Imprenta , premiered online, streaming from Korzo Theatre in The Hague. The film forms part of the FluX programme series, where connection, movement, and conversation are central. Imprenta is a collaboration with choreographer and dancer...
Essay – In the late 1990s, Kiza Magendane and his uncle left their native country of Congo to start a new life elsewhere. Kiza ended up in the Netherlands, his uncle in South Africa. Nineteen years later they meet in Pretoria. 'Kiza, the South African dream does not exist.' I have landed. After ten years of Europe, I set foot on the African continent again. The customs lady at Johannesburg airport wants to know everything about the reason for my visit. Patiently I show my travel document and the...
Essay – In the late 1990s, Kiza Magendane and his uncle left their native country of Congo to start a new life elsewhere. Kiza ended up in the Netherlands, his uncle in South Africa. Nineteen years later they meet in Pretoria. 'Kiza, the South African dream does not exist.' I have...
A vernacular attempt at a social anthropology of dogs across three countries: Nigeria, South Africa and Canada. I recently moved to a small, cynophilic Canadian city called Kelowna. The first home I visited in this city had a special sofa for dogs. It took me only a few days here to discover that people take their dogs to daycare and that dog doctors are well-to-do. In fact, holding funeral services for demised dogs, adopting stray dogs or financially rewarding lost dog finders are not uncommon...
A vernacular attempt at a social anthropology of dogs across three countries: Nigeria, South Africa and Canada. I recently moved to a small, cynophilic Canadian city called Kelowna. The first home I visited in this city had a special sofa for dogs. It took me only a few days here to...
In July 2021, Julie Kretzschmer and Jay Pather presented a three-day programme full of multimedia installations from the field of contemporary dance, performance and visual arts to conclude the Here Comes Africa, Africa 2020 in the La Friche Belle de Mai centre in Marseille. Before Julie Kretschmer—who specialises in making projects in the Arab world, including Algeria and develops new contemporary cultural programmes on the spot—and Jay Pather—curator of Afrovibes and Infecting the City...
In July 2021, Julie Kretzschmer and Jay Pather presented a three-day programme full of multimedia installations from the field of contemporary dance, performance and visual arts to conclude the Here Comes Africa, Africa 2020 in the La Friche Belle de Mai centre in Marseille. Before...
An exhibition opened recently at Nuweland Gallery in the northern part of the Netherlands. Curator, South African artist Morné Visagie, brought together the works of artists from around the world; from Namibia to Mexico, South Korea to Zimbabwe, Germany to the United States, and South Africa. It’s an amazing showcase of artistic expression. Artists Musa N Nxumalo and Haneem Christian, featured on this page, are only two of the participating artists. They might come from different worlds, but they...
An exhibition opened recently at Nuweland Gallery in the northern part of the Netherlands. Curator, South African artist Morné Visagie, brought together the works of artists from around the world; from Namibia to Mexico, South Korea to Zimbabwe, Germany to the United States, and...
It would take a liveable basic income grant and a job-guarantee programme with the state and private sector behind it. But it can be done. American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jnr went to Jamaica for a three-week writing retreat in January and February 1967, where he penned an economic manifesto called Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? ‘I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective’, he wrote. ‘The solution to poverty is to abolish it...
It would take a liveable basic income grant and a job-guarantee programme with the state and private sector behind it. But it can be done. American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jnr went to Jamaica for a three-week writing retreat in January and February 1967, where he...
On Sunday 5 September, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema will unveil the Nelson Mandela Memorial. The work, inspired by the residents of the neighbourhood, was designed by South African visual artist Mohau Modisakeng and produced in Cape Town. The unveiling is the culmination of a week-long programme in which ZAM, Bijlmerpark Theatre, OBA, OSCAM, Imagine IC, Heesterveld, New Metropolis and CBK Zuidoost are participating. Thursday 26 August: In Conversation with Mohau Modisakeng During this informal...
On Sunday 5 September, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema will unveil the Nelson Mandela Memorial. The work, inspired by the residents of the neighbourhood, was designed by South African visual artist Mohau Modisakeng and produced in Cape Town. The unveiling is the culmination of a...
‘I don’t know how much it is in Kwacha that we have to pay, but it is a lot, in thousands’, says Dickson Chishimba, leaning back on his chair and wiping his moustache after a sip of sweet beer, locally known as munkoyo. Thought it is lunchtime at his cooperative’s milling plant in Kalense, northern Zambia, the production of maize meal, a staple in the country where many do not have sufficient access to food, is ongoing today. But that may not continue to be the case for very long. The Zambia...
‘I don’t know how much it is in Kwacha that we have to pay, but it is a lot, in thousands’, says Dickson Chishimba, leaning back on his chair and wiping his moustache after a sip of sweet beer, locally known as munkoyo. Thought it is lunchtime at his cooperative’s milling plant in...
Entrenched interests, from top to bottom, have turned border control into a money-making machine for those at the head of the Nigerian Immigration Service. Partnerships with a number of private companies siphon off monies paid to them by the state as well as by visa and passport applicants. Court judgements, a parliamentary probe and even petitions by the agencies' own former senior officers have not been able to dent the scheme. With honest civil servants having left in frustration, and a former...
Entrenched interests, from top to bottom, have turned border control into a money-making machine for those at the head of the Nigerian Immigration Service. Partnerships with a number of private companies siphon off monies paid to them by the state as well as by visa and passport...
In 1988, South African freedom fighter and the Paris representative of the ANC, was murdered in front of her office. As is the case for every political assassination, memorialising and spreading the legacy of the murdered person is sine qua non for justice. The process constantly evolves over time and involves actors from different backgrounds who might have never known each other but work together at turning the grievance into a fight. To acknowledge the many lives that Dulcie September had in her...
In 1988, South African freedom fighter and the Paris representative of the ANC, was murdered in front of her office. As is the case for every political assassination, memorialising and spreading the legacy of the murdered person is sine qua non for justice. The process constantly...
