In an imaginary interview, composed from actual quotes, the late Zimbawean writer Dambudzo Marechera (1952 – 1987) comments on the troubles his country today is facing today. It is reported that in 1978, Dambudzo Marechera, heckled Robert Mugabe when he came to London to address Zimbabweans at the Africa Centre. He had already seen the troubles ahead as he could read through the deceptive characters that were on the brink of leading Zimbabwe. Most of those in power in Zimbabwe today were...
In an imaginary interview, composed from actual quotes, the late Zimbawean writer Dambudzo Marechera (1952 – 1987) comments on the troubles his country...
During the Tigray war, queer Tigrayans like me had to isolate ourselves from the state and our community, as violent nationalism and support of the state’s subjugation were justified by the same people who faced oppression from the state. “So did you dump the strap-on?” I asked a friend over text. I had expressed my worries after police started searching the homes of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. As a queer woman, I had begun de-dyking my space, which included getting rid of...
During the Tigray war, queer Tigrayans like me had to isolate ourselves from the state and our community, as violent nationalism and support of the...
Cape Town is a most popular holiday destination. The city also bears the scars of slavery the Dutch settlers were guilty of. In his new book, The Truth about Cape Slavery , Patric Tariq Mellet challenges the Netherlands to improve on the weak apology offered in 2022 by government and king and the lack of reparations. Finding My Roots I first came to understand what slavery meant when I was a young boy of eight years old. I was occasionally cared for by a German nun while my single parent mother...
Cape Town is a most popular holiday destination. The city also bears the scars of slavery the Dutch settlers were guilty of. In his new book, The Truth...
Vanaf woensdag 16 oktober gaat de Nigeriaans/Britse programmamaker Ikenna Azuike in een nieuwe serie op zoek naar Afrikaanse diaspora gemeenschappen in het Verenigd Koninkrijk (Nigerianen), Portugal (Kaapverdianen), Finland (Somaliërs), Cyprus (Soedanezen) en Belgie (Congolezen). Maar Azuike (45) gaat vooral ook op zoek naar zichzelf. In de eerste van 6 uitzendingen wordt dat al behoorlijk stevig neergezet. Ikenna, geboren en de eerste acht jaren van zijn leven opgegroeid in Nigeria, verhuisde in...
Vanaf woensdag 16 oktober gaat de Nigeriaans/Britse programmamaker Ikenna Azuike in een nieuwe serie op zoek naar Afrikaanse diaspora gemeenschappen in...
Award-winning author and BBC broadcaster Zeinab Badawi will be in conversation with fellow writer Vamba Sherif about her new book, dealing with a history from the dawn of humanity to independence. In her new book, the Sudanese-British journalist traces the sprawling history of the African continent through the voices of Africans themselves – of countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers from across more than 30 countries. ‘The history of Africa is the story of the...
Award-winning author and BBC broadcaster Zeinab Badawi will be in conversation with fellow writer Vamba Sherif about her new book, dealing with a history...
Recently released statistics on African population growth tell a different story to what the prophets of doom want us to believe. In no other continent is population growth falling as fast as in Africa. While in 1960 African women bore an average of 6.6 children, today it is 3.8. By 2050, the annual UN report calculates, it will drop further to 2.6. The report's authors point to several reasons for this decline. Fewer children die shortly after birth, and life expectancy has been increasing. In...
Recently released statistics on African population growth tell a different story to what the prophets of doom want us to believe. In no other continent...
In a new 6 part series for Dutch television, Ikenna Azuike travels through various African communities in Europe in search of the meaning of home. What do Afro-Europeans tell us about making a home? And how do you find the right balance when uniting two continents within you? Nigerian-British-Dutch Ikenna Azuike (45) has a fine career and a nice family. Yet he feels “split.” In his tv-series The Afro-European Azuike visits Somali Finns, Cape Verdean Portuguese and Congolese Belgians, among others....
In a new 6 part series for Dutch television, Ikenna Azuike travels through various African communities in Europe in search of the meaning of home. What...
What must happen to turn Africa’s strong population growth into prosperity for all? On the World Population in July, the United Nations’ Population Division released the 28th edition of official World Population Prospects (WPP) and forecast. It is a rich repository of population estimates from 1950 to the present for 192 countries or areas of analyses of historical demographic trends and of projections to the year 2100 that reflect a range of plausible outcomes at the global, regional and national...
What must happen to turn Africa’s strong population growth into prosperity for all? On the World Population in July, the United Nations’ Population...
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” Milan Kundera Not forgetting is living, and living is not forgetting. The world's attention was focused on 9/11 when the ruler of Eritrea, President Isaias Afwerki — in power for 33 years without elections — struck hard against critics and independent media. On September 18, 2001, and in the weeks that followed, he arrested all critical members of parliament, ministers, and generals. They had asked the president to...
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” Milan Kundera Not forgetting is living, and living is not forgetting....
South Africa has a strange tendency to put total opposites in the international spotlight. Bad boy Paul Kruger, a Boer hero who fought both the imperialist British and the country's original inhabitants, thrilled thousands of Dutch supporters in the early 1900s. Freedom fighters like Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Archbishop Tutu, or white human rights lawyer Bram Fischer inspired international solidarity movements decades later with their principled struggle against racism and oppression. Athlete...
South Africa has a strange tendency to put total opposites in the international spotlight. Bad boy Paul Kruger, a Boer hero who fought both the...
Removed from the facts, the firestorm around Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is the latest attempt by the right-wing in the West to find fodder for its culture war. Imane Khelif must be feeling awfully confused. Out of nowhere, a woman who was raised in a poor, conservative family in Biban Mesbah—an agricultural village in central Algeria that even most Algerians aren’t familiar with—has been quickly plunged into a toxic culture war online, where she’s the target of global abuse and harassment. If...
Removed from the facts, the firestorm around Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is the latest attempt by the right-wing in the West to find fodder for its...
During the second Olympic Games in 1904 in St. Louis, USA, African athletes were still excluded from official competition. However, they did participate in a kind of shadow games, “athletic events for savages.” In a retrospective in this issue, sports historian Francois Cleophas recalls this “unique spectacle” in which spectators witnessed how the “savage tribes” had to pelt each other with stones in one of the events. After African American runner Jesse Owens mocked Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Games...
During the second Olympic Games in 1904 in St. Louis, USA, African athletes were still excluded from official competition. However, they did participate...
Anti-government protests have spread to Uganda, where ordinary people are tired of passively accepting elite misrule. “(We) are called bazukulu , meaning ‘grandchildren.’ (…) We are certainly beyond the days of being an infantilized citizenry.” Kenya is the talk of the East African neighborhood because a cross-section of its citizenry continues to demand accountability and speak up against vile egocentric economic policies. Kenya is a prime example of a people who have rejected spectator...
Anti-government protests have spread to Uganda, where ordinary people are tired of passively accepting elite misrule. “(We) are called bazukulu , meaning...
The answer to that question reveals the surprising story of a 1904 marathon – and exposes the history of racism and white supremacy that characterised the Olympics in its early days. The first modern Olympic Games was held in 1896 in Greece. This was at the height of European colonialism and there is no record of Africans participating. It was only after the second world war, in the late 1940s, that African countries began to join the Olympic movement in significant numbers, as African independence...
The answer to that question reveals the surprising story of a 1904 marathon – and exposes the history of racism and white supremacy that characterised...
The crux of the struggle lies in reclaiming the soul of Kenya from a generation that became malevolent during public duty. The recent protests, sparked by a youth movement rejecting the Finance Bill 2024, have grown into widespread demonstrations confronting deep-seated issues within Kenya. What started as peaceful gatherings in Nairobi, with the prominent presence of young women denouncing the proposed Finance Bill, deteriorated into a storming of parliament and violent confrontations with police,...
The crux of the struggle lies in reclaiming the soul of Kenya from a generation that became malevolent during public duty. The recent protests, sparked...
When Christian missionaries established schools in different parts of East Africa, they constructed the narrative that Black hair was unsightly, ungodly and untameable . In many postcolonial schools this still seems to be the norm. My love-hate relationship with my hair started when I was six years old and my mom chopped off my hair a few days before I joined grade one. I remember crying and pleading with her while equally asking why I couldn’t just go to school with my long hair. Eventually, she...
When Christian missionaries established schools in different parts of East Africa, they constructed the narrative that Black hair was unsightly, ungodly...
This past week was the week of Kenya’s youth, which came out in thousands on the streets of Nairobi to reject austerity, new heavy taxation, and government corruption. What follows is reporter Ngina Kirori’s diary of the protests. Tuesday, June 18 Today is the day that sets the wheels in motion. Citizens are planning to occupy Kenya’s parliament to protest the proposed high taxation that threatens to burden even further the many who are already struggling financially. The dress code for the...
This past week was the week of Kenya’s youth, which came out in thousands on the streets of Nairobi to reject austerity, new heavy taxation, and...
William Ruto has gravely misjudged the nerve of his countrymen. The man who narrowly sailed to Kenya’s presidency in 2022, is trying to shove a sketchy legislative proposal down Kenyan throats. The Finance Bill 2024 aims to raise 346 billion Kenyan shillings to service debt and fund development and has been met with public outcry and widespread protests. The movement to #RejectFinanceBill2024 is being led by media-savvy, urban Gen-Z youth. The demonstrations, which escalated on June 20 with...
William Ruto has gravely misjudged the nerve of his countrymen. The man who narrowly sailed to Kenya’s presidency in 2022, is trying to shove a sketchy...
Kenya protests: Gen Z shows the power of digital activism - driving change from screens to the streets Nationwide demonstrations have erupted in Kenya over a controversial tax bill. The Finance Bill 2024 , initially presented to parliament in May, has sparked discontent with an increase in an array of taxes and levies for Kenyans. The mass protests , initially organised in the capital city, Nairobi, have spread across the country. Demonstrations have taken place in almost every city and major town....
Kenya protests: Gen Z shows the power of digital activism - driving change from screens to the streets Nationwide demonstrations have erupted in Kenya...
In her award-winning thesis, Rachel Dubale reveals how Ethiopian social communal practices that secure financial resources dissolve, as urban development projects rise. In February 2024, Rachel Dubale won Leiden University’s Africa Thesis Award. Dubale, currently in her 20s, completed her research master’s degree in African Studies at Leiden University in 2023. The motivation for her research, titled “They think we can eat the condominium.” Chronicles of Economic, Social and Political Practices in...
In her award-winning thesis, Rachel Dubale reveals how Ethiopian social communal practices that secure financial resources dissolve, as urban development...
Respected South African jurist John Dugard chose law as a weapon against apartheid and genocide. At an age when most people retire, he became UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine. “Meanwhile, racism in Israel has reached a level I have never seen in South Africa.” It is a grey Monday morning as the Peace Palace in The Hague gears up for a historic affair. At the gate, international media have set up their cameras. Expensive cars drive through the front yard to the steps, where ambassadors, diplomats...
Respected South African jurist John Dugard chose law as a weapon against apartheid and genocide. At an age when most people retire, he became UN Special...
