“We Are All Many Things”
South African creatives of Muslim background interact matter-of-factly with their social identity. An interview with playwright and novelist Nadia Davids.
508 Articles by:
Sean Henry Jacobs
Sean Henry Jacobs is publisher of Africa is a Country and on the tenured faculty of The New School. He edits the substack, Eleven Named People.
Weekend Special, No. 1211
(1) Identity politics is neoliberalism, as Adolph Reed once said. And it delivers like clockwork. The hip hop
Weekend Special
We're bringing back Weekend Special. Borrowing its title from a song by the late Brenda Fassie,
Art in dark times
Interview with historian Dan Magaziner about his new book, The Art of Life in South Africa, about one of the few art schools training black art teachers under Apartheid.
Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961)
“Africa will write its own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity” (Lumumba, 1960)
MLK was a Pan-African
On the third Monday of January each year, Americans mark MLK’s birthday with a public holiday. Africans should too.
The year of Elaine Salo
Elaine Salo, who died on August 13, 2016, had done the hard work of liberation and engaged head-on with the limits and promises of the new South Africa.
If Africa is a country, then Fidel Castro is one of our national heroes
On 25 November 2016, Fidel Castro passed away. To many Africans Fidel was a hero, playing a central role in their liberation from colonialism.
All you need to know about Ghana’s December 2016 elections
We asked a group of experts–journalists, academics and an architect–a bunch of questions about the elections. First: Does it matter whoever Ghanaians elect as president?
The Upright Man, Thomas Sankara
Burkina Faso is finally beginning to do right by the memory of revuolutionary leader, Thomas Sankara.
On Safari, Summer 2016 Edition
Don’t worry, we’ll cook up some stuff for the fall and we’ll be back on September 1. In the meantime, you can go potter around the website and catch up on our archive.
What Muhammad Ali Believed
Muhammad Ali’s political life was like his boxing career: as frustrating and contradictory as it was principled and selfless.
Postapartheid South Africa’s negative moment
The political theorist Achille Mbembe, from the University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, describes South Africa
No normal sport in an abnormal society
Recently, Aubrey Bloomfield, a graduate student at The New School, and I wrote a piece for
The ‘Big Man’ Syndrome in Africa
Why do so many African leaders overstay their welcome or break electoral rules?
On Safari
The year that Prince Akeem, Queen Aoleon, King Jaffe Joffer and the “African” Kingdom of Zamunda made a spectacular comeback.