Why do many journalists fill hours of airtime about the British royal family without critically questioning the significance of the institution for its former colonies? Dutch journalist Bram Vermeulen calls upon his colleagues to explore this colonial legacy. Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II, hours of broadcast time have been filled with what anybody could see with their own eyes in recent years, provided you weren't living under a rock. That she had been faithful to her royal duties for...
Why do many journalists fill hours of airtime about the British royal family without critically questioning the significance of the institution for its...
Despite her key role in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, details about Lilian Ngoyi’s life remain sparse. The short paragraphs on her legacy repeat a few well-worn phrases. South Africa’s “mother of the black resistance”, a widow and rumoured lover of Nelson Mandela, and the first woman member of the national executive committee – the core leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), the resistance movement that would later become the government of a democratic South Africa....
Despite her key role in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, details about Lilian Ngoyi’s life remain sparse. The short paragraphs on her...
After the flames that gutted the Jagger Library at the University of Cape Town (UCT) on 18 April 2021 were finally extinguished, the archives were thought to be lost. The Reading Room, where researchers could study some of the rare African books available from the short-loans desk, had been completely destroyed. It was a devastating loss of archival material, much of it irreplaceable. But in the days after the fire, the basements that housed the archives and parts of the African Studies collection...
After the flames that gutted the Jagger Library at the University of Cape Town (UCT) on 18 April 2021 were finally extinguished, the archives were...
Hosted by Musawenkosi Cabe, Radio New Frame unearths the roots of Afrikaans - once the ‘language of the White oppressor’ - and focuses on contemporary Black Afrikaans. The programme also tackles the misconception that Nelson Mandela rejected the use of violence in the struggle against Apartheid. A new book reconstructs his role as commander-in-chief of Umkhonto weSizwe and its war against Africa’s strongest army. Listen here. New Frame is one of our favourite not-for-profit social justice media...
Hosted by Musawenkosi Cabe, Radio New Frame unearths the roots of Afrikaans - once the ‘language of the White oppressor’ - and focuses on contemporary...
Only by grasping the political processes that reproduce death, destruction and destitution will Kenyans finally exorcise the demons of their history. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness in this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” – Ephesians 6:12 The first episode of the popular Netflix series Narcos opens with the title card: “Magical realism is defined as what happens when a...
Only by grasping the political processes that reproduce death, destruction and destitution will Kenyans finally exorcise the demons of their history....
In this Zimbabwean activist’s view todays’ rulers of the country are no different from the colonial settlers. On April 12, Zimbabwean activist Peter Mutasa was presented with the Febe Elizabeth Velásquez Trade Union Rights Prize, which had been awarded to him a year earlier by the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions (FNV). With the prize, named after the murdered Salvadoran trade union leader Febe Elizabeth Vélasquez (1962-1989), the FNV honours people who have dedicated themselves in a special way...
In this Zimbabwean activist’s view todays’ rulers of the country are no different from the colonial settlers. On April 12, Zimbabwean activist Peter...
How much airtime goes in one year, just to find out what is happening to one case of murder of a young man in South Africa? Or rather, times two? It is now two years ago that Tsepo Ndhlovu was killed by police officer Adolph Rikhotso at Groenvlei farm near Mookgophong, formerly Naboomspruit, in northern Limpopo province, on the 11th of March 2020. A quick count of the airtime used to try and break through the mountains of silence surrounding this case amounts to close to a thousand South African...
How much airtime goes in one year, just to find out what is happening to one case of murder of a young man in South Africa? Or rather, times two? It is...
The return of Patrice Lumumba’s remains must not be an occasion for Belgium to congratulate itself, but for a full accounting of the colonial violence that led to the assassination and coverup. For much of the past year, there have been plans for the sacred human remains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first post-independence prime minister, Patrice Émery Lumumba, to finally be returned to his children in Belgium, and then repatriated to the Congo. Originally scheduled for a ceremony on...
The return of Patrice Lumumba’s remains must not be an occasion for Belgium to congratulate itself, but for a full accounting of the colonial violence...
An African hunt for natural resources is one reason for the ongoing war in Eastern DRC. The destruction of the Nande people another. Many reports and books depict the war in the Kivu as greed of the neighboring countries to exploit the minerals. As an example, in an article written by Dr David Himbara, the Rwanda’s Gold Exports fetched US$ 522 Million in 2020, an increase of 754.6%. He further describes how this gold is smuggled from DRC as follows: ‘Rwanda’s gold exports are connected to gold...
An African hunt for natural resources is one reason for the ongoing war in Eastern DRC. The destruction of the Nande people another. Many reports and...
[* tekst in Nederlands onderaan ] This the story of a South African exile, black and lesbian, who who lived on in a Dutch solidarity campaign she started. After 35 years of solidarity the Tania Leon Study Fund comes to an end. Later, when we were past middle age and South Africa had changed into a gentle rainbow nation where the colour of your skin no longer determined where you could go, what you could become and who you could associate with, we would all live out our days in a communal house on a...
[* tekst in Nederlands onderaan ] This the story of a South African exile, black and lesbian, who who lived on in a Dutch solidarity campaign she...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
For more than three decades, ZAM's Investigations Editor Evelyn Groenink researched the murder of Paris ANC representative Dulcie September in 1988. The complex backgrounds of this gruesome act presented in Groenink's book Incorruptible were long ignored. Until now. Before she left for exile in 1973, Dulcie September was a school teacher. A serious one. She cared about her kids, cared so much that one of the reasons she left was that she had been banned from ever teaching in South Africa again. One...
For more than three decades, ZAM's Investigations Editor Evelyn Groenink researched the murder of Paris ANC representative Dulcie September in 1988. The...
The South African Revenue Services (SARS) was probably the greatest success story of the country’s post-Apartheid era. Financial targets were exceeded year after year. SARS became the well from which programs aimed at closing the gap between rich and poor could tap: access to water and electricity, housing, the world's largest rollout of ARVs to people with HIV. Led by a team of former freedom fighters, the service also fought against corruption and abuse of power. The decisiveness with which SARS...
The South African Revenue Services (SARS) was probably the greatest success story of the country’s post-Apartheid era. Financial targets were exceeded...
The hashtag #EndSARS has generated a lot of support on Twitter. Who were the people that joined the online protests? Online activism has played a role in protests all over Africa in the past decade. One of the most recent uprisings happened in Nigeria. Since October, when Nigerians took to the streets in various cities to protest against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), the hashtag #EndSARS has generated a lot of support on Twitter. This police force has been accused of torturing suspects and...
The hashtag #EndSARS has generated a lot of support on Twitter. Who were the people that joined the online protests? Online activism has played a role in...
Fidelia Onoghaife was the senior policy advisor at the Dutch embassy in Nigeria. She was recently dismissed after reporting her boss for leaking sensitive information to Shell about a large corruption investigation. The ambassador was reposted, whilst Miss Onoghaife lost her job. A Dutch court has ruled in her favor saying her dismissal was wrong. This case is another illustration of the gross inequalities that allow for toxic meddling of European companies and governments in African countries. In...
Fidelia Onoghaife was the senior policy advisor at the Dutch embassy in Nigeria. She was recently dismissed after reporting her boss for leaking...
