What is free and fair?
2024 has been the ultimate election year. Just Us Under A Tree rejoins the Africa Is a Country Podcast to reflect on South Africa’s May poll and what it reveals about contemporary democratic politics.
South Africa
Girl on the internet
Nicknamed the “Candace Owens of South Africa,” Siphesihle Nxokwana is an anti-feminist influencer playing to crowds already on her side.
Rebuilding a destroyed garden
South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa returns to places of pain and beauty to reinterpret the landscape and, in turn, discover something new about himself.
Integrity should be integral
Samthing Soweto and DJ Maphorisa’s clash over a song credit raises the question of whether numbers trump respect in the Amapiano music scene.
The mine dumps of Silicon Valley
While it might be cathartic to compare Elon Musk’s tech firms to apartheid-era mines, the connection between ex-South Africans and American capitalism is complicated.
Marketplace of failure
South Africa’s pivot to electricity markets will be socially regressive, whether green or not.
Coming home
In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.
Imaginary homelands
A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.
Imperialism does not localize
In 1973, Josie Fanon interviewed then-ANC president Oliver Tambo about Israel and apartheid South Africa. Originally printed in French, it is now available in English for the first time.
L’impérialisme ne localise pas
En 1973, Josie Fanon a interviewé Oliver Tambo, alors président de l’ANC, à propos d’Israël et de l’apartheid en Afrique du Sud. Il est désormais disponible pour la première fois depuis sa publication originale.
Spectacles of incompetence
Given his track record of sowing division and making empty promises, South Africans should be wary of treating its new Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture as a lovable buffoon.
Pretty girl from Soweto
In South Africa, a popular beauty contest is revealing the specter of ultranationalism and anti-blackness.
Food wars
The theft dispute between Onezwa Mbola and Nara Smith reveals the consumerist undertones behind content for women in the online creative economy.
Chasing shadows
A docuseries about the Springbok rugby team invites us to examine the enduring legacy of Rainbowism in South Africa.
Born coloured, not born free
Jazz bassist Benjamin Jeptha’s latest project interrogates the meaning of Creole identity in South Africa, thirty years after the end of white-minority rule.
The genuine goema captain of Cape Town
The musician Mac McKenzie, who passed away in April 2024, helped pioneer a sound that captured the Mother City’s Creole heritage.
What to do about the South African economy?
Some progressive economists argue that a bigger budget deficit is the solution to the country’s socio-economic woes. But it isn’t that straightforward.
Between two evils
After losing its parliamentary majority for the first time, the African National Congress is scrambling to form a coalition government. The options are bleak.
Direct action gets the goods
In 1985, black students at the University of Houston led a campaign for divestment from apartheid South Africa.
Just us voting?
The Just Us Under A Tree podcast returns to analyze all the legal drama building up to South Africa’s general election.