In 1955, now seventy years ago, the Bandung Conference took place in Indonesia. Initiated by Indian Prime Minister Nehru and Indonesian President Sukarno, twenty-nine newly independent African and Asian countries committed themselves to a charter emphasising ‘respect for fundamental human rights’. The conference’s then Secretary-General, Ruslan Abdulgani, spoke of the ‘Bandung Spirit’: a call for peace and a declaration of war on violence and discrimination. The gathering ultimately gave rise to...
In 1955, now seventy years ago, the Bandung Conference took place in Indonesia. Initiated by Indian Prime Minister Nehru and Indonesian President...
The LGBTQIA+ community in Burkina Faso responds with shock to lawmakers’ decision to recriminalise consensual same-sex sexual relationships. On 1 September 2025, all 71 MPs in Burkina Faso voted to adopt a new Persons and Family Code. Under the amended Code, anyone convicted of engaging in homosexual activity now faces between two and five years in prison, or a fine ranging from $3,600 to $17,800. Burkina Faso’s Justice Minister, Edasso Rodrique Bayala, told the national broadcaster RTB that “if a...
The LGBTQIA+ community in Burkina Faso responds with shock to lawmakers’ decision to recriminalise consensual same-sex sexual relationships. On 1...
Produced over eleven years in Mali and Mauritania, the film offers a unique first-person account of Tuareg history and culture against a backdrop of conflict and exile. It is a story of transmission and memory, where the intimate meets the political, and the first film to portray the Tuareg world from within. Undertows is a hieratic journey by filmmaker Intagrist el Ansari into the memory of his people. Framed as an intimate letter and testament to his son, it recounts the history of resistance and...
Produced over eleven years in Mali and Mauritania, the film offers a unique first-person account of Tuareg history and culture against a backdrop of...
Draagt een culturele boycot van officiële Israelische instituties bij aan het Palestijnse streven naar zelfbeschikking? In Nieuwsuur reflecteerde ZAM redacteur Bart Luirink op de ervaringen van zo’n boycot in de strijd tegen apartheid. Na het bloedbad van Sharpeville in maart 1960 riepen de Verenigde Naties op tot een boycot van Zuid-Afrika. In Nederland pleitten de eerste activisten tegen de apartheid, waaronder de latere burgemeester van Amsterdam Ed van Thijn, voor economische strafmaatregelen...
Draagt een culturele boycot van officiële Israelische instituties bij aan het Palestijnse streven naar zelfbeschikking? In Nieuwsuur reflecteerde ZAM...
Instead of young Africans trading their dreams for a place in someone else’s war, the international community should embrace them. International reports have addressed Russia’s recruitment of young African women for its Alabuga military-industrial zone, 1,000 km east of Moscow, as a ‘trap,’ based on false information and fake promises. Our recent investigation confirmed that much of the content in campaigns that reached tens of thousands in our countries was indeed false. Alabuga is not a school,...
Instead of young Africans trading their dreams for a place in someone else’s war, the international community should embrace them. International reports...
It’s easy to fall back on ‘the spectacle of suffering,’ but we need to examine the reasons behind the drama, argues Africa Is a Country editor William Shoki. By now, we’ve all seen the images from Gaza: starving children, skeletal arms, babies so thin they resemble ghosts. Rightly, the world has turned its attention to this horror, however belatedly. What is harder to explain is why Sudan’s starvation crisis—equally urgent and equally human—barely registers in the global imagination. Why does it...
It’s easy to fall back on ‘the spectacle of suffering,’ but we need to examine the reasons behind the drama, argues Africa Is a Country editor William...
[tekst in het Nederlands hieronder] Recently, American media reported on discussions between Israel and several African countries regarding the potential resettlement of Palestinians displaced from their land. Although official spokespeople claim to be unaware of such talks, it appears plausible that countries such as Sudan, Somaliland, Somalia, South Sudan, Rwanda, Chad, and the DRC are considering this option. US President Trump has previously entertained the idea, describing the West African...
[tekst in het Nederlands hieronder] Recently, American media reported on discussions between Israel and several African countries regarding the potential...
In the last few weeks, the genocide in Gaza has been framed as a problem of starvation. From global leaders to social media influencers to celebrities, everyone seems to have woken up to ‘what is happening in Gaza.’ And for some reason the word ‘starvation’ seems easier to say than genocide. Though the Israeli government continues to deny Western media access to Gaza, in the last few weeks mainstream publications that have worked painstakingly hard to ignore the genocide and to parrot Israeli...
In the last few weeks, the genocide in Gaza has been framed as a problem of starvation. From global leaders to social media influencers to celebrities,...
On 18 July, (coincidentally the birthday of Nelson Mandela), a landmark case was filed before the East African Court of Justice by Ugandan Agather Atuhaire, -a member of ZAM’s partner Network of African Investigative Reporters and Editors (NAIRE)- and Kenyan human rights defender Boniface Mwangi, together with seven regional and international civil society and legal bar organisations. Their targets are the Tanzanian authorities who oversaw Atuhaire’s and Mwangi’s kidnapping and torture lasting four...
On 18 July, (coincidentally the birthday of Nelson Mandela), a landmark case was filed before the East African Court of Justice by Ugandan Agather...
Nigerians suffer as military expenditure rises Nigeria’s 2025 national budget heavily favours the defence and security sector, which consumes nearly ten per cent of total expenditure. By contrast, health receives slightly less than five per cent, while the social investment budget, at under one per cent, lags even further behind. Yet despite more than a decade of steadily increasing security spending, the country’s persistent threats from terrorism, banditry, and other forms of criminality show...
Nigerians suffer as military expenditure rises Nigeria’s 2025 national budget heavily favours the defence and security sector, which consumes nearly ten...
Much has been written about the recent, scandalous reception of four West African leaders by Donald Trump. Telling the Liberian President, as Trump did, that his “English is beautiful” was deeply embarrassing—but not only for Trump. That Trump seemed unaware of Liberia’s existence, let alone that English is the mother tongue in this nation founded by freed slaves, is hardly surprising. What is shocking, however, is that Liberia’s President, Joseph Nyuma Boakai, silently endured the humiliation...
Much has been written about the recent, scandalous reception of four West African leaders by Donald Trump. Telling the Liberian President, as Trump did,...
Op-Ed | On Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s Glamourised Militarism and Africa’s Elusive Quest for Liberation
Burkina Faso’s military ruler is not a radical economic liberator; his so-called “populist anti-Western nativism” is a smokescreen to conceal the suppression of activists, journalists, and queer people, argues Rosebell Kagumire. On a recent flight to Dakar, a cabin crew member from an African airline warmly greeted a Burkinabè passport holder ahead of me: “Welcome and greetings to Captain Traoré! We love him.” The passenger smiled and quietly took their seat, declining to return the fanfare. Such...
Burkina Faso’s military ruler is not a radical economic liberator; his so-called “populist anti-Western nativism” is a smokescreen to conceal the...
Meditations on death, grief and healing in Kenya and the Netherlands. I know—I belong to a generation obsessed with graves. Their permanence has become our language of love, our way of asserting legacy and resisting the ephemeral nature of life. After a long absence, the first ritual of returning home—before embracing eager relatives or sitting down to lunch—is to ask: "Where are their graves?" It is customary to stand by the graves of those whose funerals you couldn't attend, to finally offer your...
Meditations on death, grief and healing in Kenya and the Netherlands. I know—I belong to a generation obsessed with graves. Their permanence has become...
The chainsaw feels an inadequate metaphor for the brutal violence with which the Trump administration slashes €58 billion annually from aid to poor countries. On top of that, European governments in the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands are cutting more than €10 billion in aid savings. This represents a catastrophic blow to the fight against malaria and HIV/AIDS, food assistance programs, and democratic development. The number of human lives lost to these reckless and inhumane decisions...
The chainsaw feels an inadequate metaphor for the brutal violence with which the Trump administration slashes €58 billion annually from aid to poor...
In a time of hate, missiles, and mass murders, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s call to mingle and meet, made recently at a symposium at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, comes as a wake-up call. Her speech is a tribute to Amsterdam, the city celebrating its 750th anniversary this year. It is a tribute to the city in general, a centre of energy where different human beings come together, exchange ideas, and belong. Listen to Adichie's speech here .
In a time of hate, missiles, and mass murders, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s call to mingle and meet, made recently at a symposium at the Royal Palace in...
Update Just as we were finalising this piece, yet another tragedy struck. The violence we thought we were remembering came crashing back into the present. On June 7–8, 2025, while in police custody in Nairobi, 31-year-old Kenyan teacher and activist Albert Ojwang died under suspicious circumstances after publicly accusing a senior police official of corruption. The official story? That he banged his head against a wall. The autopsy told a different truth: signs of strangulation, blunt force trauma,...
Update Just as we were finalising this piece, yet another tragedy struck. The violence we thought we were remembering came crashing back into the...
African despots will tell you, "Put up with my torture, or the colonialists will return to torture you." On May 23, 2025, former Ugandan journalist—and now political commentator and government acolyte—Andrew Mwenda posted a lengthy rant on X, accusing European ambassadors in Uganda of engaging in “Colonialism 101.” His outburst was prompted by a statement made two days earlier, in which European Union ambassadors expressed concern about the use of torture in Uganda. Specifically, a delegation of...
African despots will tell you, "Put up with my torture, or the colonialists will return to torture you." On May 23, 2025, former Ugandan journalist—and...
In the 2025 Ranking of Most Popular Countries, recently released by the Alliance of Democracies , South Africa ranked seventh . The metric measures “how countries are perceived by their neighbours, key trading partners, and other nations” on issues such as credibility and global trust. South African opinion maker and tech consultant Phumzile van Damme shared this striking result on LinkedIn at a time when U.S. President Trump and a surrounding coterie of South African apartheid beneficiaries had...
In the 2025 Ranking of Most Popular Countries, recently released by the Alliance of Democracies , South Africa ranked seventh . The metric measures “how...
On what it means for a stranger to touch your hair in a public space. About six months after you arrive on this island called Australia, you decide to take an afternoon for yourself. Your children are small, and they need you so much, but you have needs too. You are tired. Your partner says, “Go, I will deal with the kids. Pamper yourself.” You want only solitude, which you finally understand as the ultimate luxury. You want to wander and not have anyone ask you for things. You are homesick and...
On what it means for a stranger to touch your hair in a public space. About six months after you arrive on this island called Australia, you decide to...
Like the Kantamanto Market, the government continues to suffer from the same recurring fires In a remarkable comeback to serve a final term as president, former Ghanaian leader John Mahama is now promising Ghanaians a “reset” after years in the political wilderness. However, he is sticking to the same roadmap that led his immediate predecessors astray. Delali Adogla-Bessa advocates a new path. The first major news item of 2025 in Ghana was the fire that razed large parts of the Kantamanto market in...
Like the Kantamanto Market, the government continues to suffer from the same recurring fires In a remarkable comeback to serve a final term as president,...
Mass mortality due to the cessation of aid. Economic subjugation through import tariffs. Tighter visa rules and travel bans. It requires excessive optimism to discern anything positive amid US President Donald Trump’s plethora of decrees affecting Africa. Yet, the prompt surrender by some African leaders may do little to map out a way forward for the continent. Zimbabwean President Mnangagwa’s offer to Trump to withdraw all import tariffs on US goods won’t help his country. The same can be said for...
Mass mortality due to the cessation of aid. Economic subjugation through import tariffs. Tighter visa rules and travel bans. It requires excessive...
