Wat beweegt een mens om zich aan de sluiten bij een gewapende strijd in een ver land? In zijn boek De Koerier van Maputo gaat journalist Jenne Jan Holtland op zoek naar de geschiedenis van Klaas de Jonge, ‘een Nederlander in de Zuid-Afrikaanse revolutie’. Een voorpublicatie. Op mijn hotelkamer gaat de wekker iets voor zessen. Ik neem vlug een douche, rits mijn koffer dicht en loop naar beneden. Daar word ik opgewacht door Klaas de Jonge, de 81-jarige met wie ik naar zuidelijk Afrika ben gereisd...
Wat beweegt een mens om zich aan de sluiten bij een gewapende strijd in een ver land? In zijn boek De Koerier van Maputo gaat journalist Jenne Jan...
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...
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...
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...
Do Not Disturb , the latest of Michela Wrong’s Africa-themed books, is a penetrating examination of a gruesome murder committed in a posh hotel in post-Apartheid South Africa. This country was infamous for chasing African National Congress (ANC) officials and freedom fighters, whom it labelled communists and terrorists, wherever they hid. The boer regime had a special hit squad within its intelligence and security apparatuses that had all the names of the people blacklisted for death. Akin to...
Do Not Disturb , the latest of Michela Wrong’s Africa-themed books, is a penetrating examination of a gruesome murder committed in a posh hotel in...
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...
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...
Op 17 juli verschijnt Niels Posthumus’ nieuwste boek Alle problemen begonnen met van Riebeeck . Het is een fascinerend verslag van een reis door het land en de geschiedenis van Zuid-Afrika. Met het boek plaatst Posthumus een uitroepteken achter een negenjarig correspondentschap voor Trouw en het Financieele Dagblad. Eerder verscheen van zijn hand Liefdes verdriet dat de shortlist haalde van de Brusseprijs. JOHANNESBURG – Om in de Zuid-Afrikaanse sloppenwijk Freedom Charter te komen, moet je een...
Op 17 juli verschijnt Niels Posthumus’ nieuwste boek Alle problemen begonnen met van Riebeeck . Het is een fascinerend verslag van een reis door het land...
One meme that has been circulated widely during the rioting and looting in South Africa is of an evil king – Lord Farquaad from Shrek – standing on his palace balcony, exhorting his troops to go fight for something he wants, saying: ‘Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make’. South Africa’s plunder king and his family, the Zuma’s of Nkandla, and their accomplices in the state, are Lord Farquaad. Having written the textbook on looting – ‘Radical Economic Transformation’ as...
One meme that has been circulated widely during the rioting and looting in South Africa is of an evil king – Lord Farquaad from Shrek – standing on his...
There was, once, an investment, south of Durban in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. A local factory wanted to produce soap and perfumes. Normally, they would be looking to recruit some workers from the townships in the area, but this time it was different. Some men with knives and spears said they were workers, but also they said they were the neighbourhood committee. They were the people. And they wanted the people’s share of the project. Then there was another committee. And another one. Among the...
There was, once, an investment, south of Durban in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. A local factory wanted to produce soap and perfumes. Normally, they would...
One of the guests at ZAM’s recently screened The Kleptocracy Project livecast on Thursday 24 June, the softly spoken Ivan Pillay, impressed many in the audience with his in depth understanding of dysfunctional systems in African governance and how to fix them. If you want to get to know him better, you may be interested in the recently published book The Unlikely Mr Rogue in which he is a central character. The book narrates Pillay’s personal history from the time he was involved in the armed...
One of the guests at ZAM’s recently screened The Kleptocracy Project livecast on Thursday 24 June, the softly spoken Ivan Pillay, impressed many in the...
Progressive South Africans fighting for justice are celebrating the Constitutional Court’s decision on Tuesday 29 June to sentence former president, Jacob Zuma to fifteen months in jail. The verdict for contempt of court was issued because Zuma failed to comply with a direct order by the same Constitutional Court to appear before the country’s Judicial Commission of Enquiry into State Capture that investigates ‘allegations of state capture, corruption, fraud and other allegations in the public...
Progressive South Africans fighting for justice are celebrating the Constitutional Court’s decision on Tuesday 29 June to sentence former president,...
Over the past few years the Rwandan Supreme Court seating as the Constitutional Court has established itself as a reliable force in considering challenges to unconstitutional laws. That’s why public interest petitions have arisen. In 2018, there was a petition about defamation and the Supreme Court largely ruled in favor of rights to expression. In response the president of Rwanda called for the repeal of the article that protected his office from defamation. The parliament proceeded to amend the...
Over the past few years the Rwandan Supreme Court seating as the Constitutional Court has established itself as a reliable force in considering...
The Nigerian Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) has a frightening history of brutality, corruption and even killings. SARS officers have been alleged to profile young Nigerians, mostly males, based on fashion choices, tattoos and hairstyles. They were also known to mount illegal road blocks, conduct unwarranted checks and searches, arrest and detain without warrant or trial, rape women, and extort young male Nigerians for driving exotic vehicles and using laptops and iPhones . Nigerians have shared...
The Nigerian Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) has a frightening history of brutality, corruption and even killings. SARS officers have been alleged to...
How Africa’s ‘new breed’ leaders have become the masters of information warfare. With weeks to go until the Ugandan presidential election on January 14, 2021, Ugandan readers of The Elephant, an online platform published in Nairobi, Kenya, suddenly could not access its site. Typically, at first, they presumed, the site was down, or was experiencing some normal malfunctions associated with the heavy use of such a platform. So, they really were not duly concerned, they knew the site managers would no...
How Africa’s ‘new breed’ leaders have become the masters of information warfare. With weeks to go until the Ugandan presidential election on January 14,...
Despite having to flee after the state raided their offices, members of LGBT+ Rights Ghana vow to continue to work for legal recognition in a country pushing for even more repressive laws. More than two months after fleeing “unprecedented” threats of violence, members of the queer rights organisation LGBT+ Rights Ghana are still in hiding. “It is very challenging. It takes a lot of toll,” says Alex Kofi Donkor, founder and director of the organisation. “The experiences of the past weeks haven’t...
Despite having to flee after the state raided their offices, members of LGBT+ Rights Ghana vow to continue to work for legal recognition in a country...
An official UK report on racism is ‘consistent with the radical historical amnesia and vicious revisionism of Caribbean and African history by the British far right’. It was only when I settled in the United Kingdom that I realised how very different it was to the Netherlands. The genuine fabric of British society had eluded me during the occasional holiday. Both countries qualify as European yet the UK seemed to mirror the United States, its raw and undiluted capitalism, a privatised public...
An official UK report on racism is ‘consistent with the radical historical amnesia and vicious revisionism of Caribbean and African history by the...
On Monday February 22, 2021, the high-profile Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Luca Attanasio, was kidnapped on the outskirts of Virunga National Park and assassinated. What happened and who’s behind this heinous crime? To answer this question, let us first analyse the crime scene. Luca Attanasio and his companions, two other Italians and a Congolese, were murdered a little more than 10 km north of Goma, in the area commonly known as the ‘Three Antennas’ near the border...
On Monday February 22, 2021, the high-profile Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Luca Attanasio, was kidnapped on the outskirts of...
Superstition remains because there is some racial undertone. This question has become necessary following reported cases of attacks and killings linked to witchcraft and muti beliefs in South Africa. In pre-apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, these superstitious-based abuses have been perpetrated. A lot is missing in the way South Africans have addressed this problem. It has become necessary to explore how these dark and destructive phenomena could be eradicated going forward. Let us take a...
Superstition remains because there is some racial undertone. This question has become necessary following reported cases of attacks and killings linked...
Billions of dollars disappear through cartel schemes. In 2000, Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa, with mass exports of tobacco and food to other African countries and to the world. Now, Zimbabwe is a major importer of food from Western countries, with more than 60 percent of its population battling food insecurity and rapidly approaching man-made starvation. This nationwide poverty is the result of a variety of factors, including the country’s turbulent political history, underqualified...
Billions of dollars disappear through cartel schemes. In 2000, Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa, with mass exports of tobacco and food to other...
In the Mozambican province wracked by a violent insurgency, the convenient labelling of those rising up against the predatory elite paints a picture that is far from reality. When the uprising started in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s northernmost province, in 2017, the insurgents used the only weapons they had: their machetes. And they cut off the heads of local elites whom they accused of being allied to the leaders of the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) in stealing the mineral wealth....
In the Mozambican province wracked by a violent insurgency, the convenient labelling of those rising up against the predatory elite paints a picture that...
