African Affairs

The Frightening Prospect of a "Post-Racial" World

Wandia Njoya — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:32:54 -0700

I get amused reading the commentaries about Obama and Biden, McCain and Palin, because the writers sound like they take this election business too seriously when it's just an American presidential election. We've seen a 40-odd others before, and we'll be seeing a few more if Christ doesn't decide that 2000 years is soon enough to show up after being waited for for so long. read more »

Africa's Dismal Olympic Performance

Guest Blogger — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:08:02 -0700

The Beijing Olympic Games are finally over. They will probably be judged the biggest and best in Olympic history involving more than 10,000 athletes from 204 nations competing in 302 events in 28 sports. The glittering opening and closing ceremonies were truly dazzling performances. The Chinese spared no expense, spending a staggering $44 billion building state-of-the-art-stadiums, improving Beijing's infrastructure, transportation system, and environment, in their coming out party as a global economic and sporting superpower. read more »

President Yar’Adua’s Breasts

Pius Adesanmi — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:43:27 -0700

My title is a play on the title of a play: Les mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tirésias), a 1903 play by French surrealist writer, Guillaume Apollinaire. Students of French literature will recall that Apollinaire coined the term ‘surrealism’ in his powerful preface to this play. The storyline is simple. Thérèse, a thoroughly submissive wife, gets tired of her subaltern condition. read more »

Memo to the Nigerian Street

Pius Adesanmi — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:56:27 -0700

Bros! Bros!! How now? How far? Body dey inside cloth? read more »

Becoming 'European'

Carina Ray — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:38:47 -0700

West Indian officers in British West Africa were categorised as "Europeans" by the colonial governments and given better salaries and working conditions than the "Natives". This is Part One of a two part series exploring the fraught history of West Indian "European" colonial officers in British West Africa.

Zimbabwe: Between Imperialism and Authoritarianism? by Jimi O. Adesina

Guest Blogger — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:15:52 -0700

It is foolhardy to try justifying what has been happening in Zimbabwe purely on the basis of the defence of the pan-African project; in this case the defence of ZANU-PF. At the same time, I am worried about the assumption that somehow the MDC represents the alternative for Zimbabwe that I will consider compatible with a pan-African project. To get stuck at this level is to insist that the alternatives we have is between imperialism (which is clearly what MDC represents) and dictatorship (which is what ZANU-PF at this stage represents). read more »

By the River Nile Where We Shall Weep

Wandia Njoya — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:16:20 -0700

Barack Obama's European-Middle East tour has made me sick in the stomach. Not angry. Sick. The kind of sickness I imagine I would feel if I inhaled a sweet-smelling poisonous gas. While the pleasant odor would flatter my nostrils and even make my body willingly lose itself in bliss, I would be conscious that the gas would also be sucking life out of me.

The Headmaster and the Senior Prefects By Idang Alibi

Guest Blogger — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:19:13 -0700

About four weeks ago, a meeting of Turkish-African business men held in Ankara, Turkey. Nigeria was represented at the meeting by a delegation led by the FCT Minister Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar.

I do not know when it started but for some time now I have been reading about Sino-Africa Summit which usually holds in Beijing, China. Africa leaders are 'summoned' (do not say invited) in their hundreds to attend.

Britain, Hiss- Hiss- History, and the Ni- Ni- Niger Delta

Pius Adesanmi — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:37:55 -0700

“The trouble with the English” stutters Whiskey Sisodia, a character in Salman Rushdie’s famous novel, The Satanic Verses, “is that their hiss- hiss- history happened overseas, so they do- do- don’t know what it means”. read more »

About Ageing...

Wandia Njoya — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:59:31 -0700

Today, my usual Sunday meditations were characterized by a mixture of pride and bafflement at the celebration of Nelson Mandela's 90^th birthday. I am extremely proud of his achievements and his commitment to freedom and humanity that made him survive 27 years in prison. I am also proud that he retired in dignity, rather than waste his legacy and sunset years on fighting with young people over some mediocre patriarchal post otherwise known as the presidency, as Mugabe and other African leaders before him have done. read more »

Third Festival of Negro Arts? By Chika Okeke Agulu

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:10:03 -0700

I understand there are plans to organize the 3rd Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar late next year. Indications are that the current Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade, is spearheading the project. Of course this will, as had the two previous iterations of the festival, provide occasion for amazing events reflecting the rich and diverse cultures of Africa and its Diaspora, as well as intellectual debates on the past, present and future of Africa peoples, societies and states. read more »

Celebrating Madiba: Mandela At 90

Guest Blogger — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:46:40 -0700

Madiba, as former President Nelson Mandela is fondly called in South Africa, is celebrating his 90^th birthday today in his home village of Qunu. read more »

African writing in our time By Mukoma Wa Ngugi

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:56:42 -0700

Each generation of writers is confounded by the simple and clichéd paradox - the more the world changes the more it remains the same. The imagination wants to be freed from the hold of the past, and yet it finds that the present and the material worlds are indelibly tied to that past. I believe it is to this tension that James Baldwin was speaking when he wrote that a writer cannot write outside his or her times.

Transitional Justice in Sexual and Gender-based Violence By Makau Mutua

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:51:31 -0700

It is now fashionable in academic and activist circles to speak of transitional justice in normative, inflexible terms that suggest a utopian certainty. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the outset, we need to understand that transitional justice concepts are experimental - good experiments to be sure - but that they do not offer us tested panacea because they are essentially works in progress. This is not meant to diminish the utility of the concepts or to throw cold water on them as a beachhead for recovering societies with a legacy of traumatic conflict. read more »

The Theodicy of Democracy Stunts African Intellectualism

Wandia Njoya — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:13:27 -0700

Recently, a friend of mine sent me the link to an article in the conservative British newspaper The Times. The article, written by Michael Holman, is entitled "Never Forget How We Created Robert Mugabe." I assumed that it would be another of those written by Western journalists decrying how Zimbabwean women and children are losing their lives due to Mugabe's "anti-imperialism." I was in for a surprise. read more »

Zimbabwe: In Response to My Friend Godwin Murunga, By Ato Onoma

Guest Blogger — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:14:15 -0700

Bwana Murunga I read your very interesting piece, "Is anti-imperialism incompatible with pro-democracy in Zimbabwe?" and readily agreed with your point about anti-imperialism and pro-democracy being compatible. I have always seen the former as primarily meaning the latter. read more »

uMunthu, Peace and Education: On Malawi's 44th Independence Anniversary

Steve Sharra — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:59:38 -0700

One morning at a school near Lake Chirwa in Zomba in 1972, pupils entering their Standard 8 classroom received the shock of their lives. The portrait of then Life President Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda had been defaced. Someone had drawn into the portrait a pair of spectacles, and had written unsavory comments about the then president. The pupils informed the teacher, who informed the school's head. The head immediately convened a staff meeting. After lengthy deliberations, the school administration agreed on investigating to find out who did it. read more »

Is Anti-Imperialism Incompatible with Pro-Democracy in Zimbabwe? By Godwin Murunga

Guest Blogger — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:02:16 -0700

The red flag one is most likely to be confronted with for criticizing the thoroughly illegitimate ‘leader' of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, is imperialism and racism. If you are an African criticizing Mugabe, you are likely to be accused of being guilty of working in cahoots with racist-imperialists. read more »

The Hypocrisy of Kenya's Position on Zimbabwe

Wandia Njoya — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:07:48 -0700

I commend Ndugu Horace Campbell and Ndugu Eusi Kwayana for the best insight I've seen so far into how Africans can view Zimbabwe's crisis. read more »

Struggles Over African Art: The African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale By Chika Okeke Agulu

Guest Blogger — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:20:01 -0700

For those who have followed the debates around the African Pavilion at the 52^nd Venice Biennale before the exhibition itself, especially those who had no opportunity of seeing the show in Venice, nor of monitoring critical responses to it in the international art media, here are three excerpts from reviews by three major international art magazines: Flash Art, and Art in America and Frieze. These reviews point to the gains and losses of the African project in this year's Venice. read more »