If the coronavirus has taught us anything, it is that not even a pandemic can erase the inherent racism in the Western media and in humanitarian organisations. Western experts and international media are apparently bewildered by COVID-19 figures emerging from the African continent that suggest that African countries might have “flattened the curve” much faster than countries in the West, whose infection and death rates continue to rise. Various theories on why Africans are not dying in large...
If the coronavirus has taught us anything, it is that not even a pandemic can erase the inherent racism in the Western media and in humanitarian...
Transaltion of colloquial terms in this article: keke —tricycle/tuktuk o kada —motorbike taxi cookry —complete meals sold on the street plasas —stew made from green leaves, national dish poda-poda —minivans that function as taxi's kongosabench —a low wooden stool Freetown, fall 2020 I am in the back of a taxi. Approaching a police checkpoint, my eye catches the phrase #Maskup on a billboard towering above the chaotic street in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. You mean #chinmask . In my mind I...
Transaltion of colloquial terms in this article: keke —tricycle/tuktuk o kada —motorbike taxi cookry —complete meals sold on the street plasas —stew made...
Observing the largest gathering of black people I had ever seen in Amsterdam, I realised that their pain was familiar, yet we knew so little of each other, separated not just by geography and language, but also by a suppression of our stories. The Dam square, a major tourist trap in Amsterdam, is one of its busiest locations, often teeming with visitors flowing from the streets of Kalverstraat, Damstraat and Nieuwendijk in the heart of the Amsterdam canal zone. Dam Square is within walking distance...
Observing the largest gathering of black people I had ever seen in Amsterdam, I realised that their pain was familiar, yet we knew so little of each...
Ik ben Zuid-Afrikaanse, maar ik woon in Australië, een van de rijkste landen ter wereld. Zoals veel mensen die in rijke landen wonen, waren ‘eerstewereldproblemen’ mijn grootste zorg aan het begin van het jaar. Ik was druk met het regelen van een nieuw schooluniform voor mijn oudste kind en ik was geïrriteerd door te luidruchtige bouwwerkzaamheden bij de buren. Ik heb urenlang nagedacht over de vraag of ik een opdracht moest aannemen waarvoor ik eigenlijk te lang van huis weg zou zijn. Ik had niet...
Ik ben Zuid-Afrikaanse, maar ik woon in Australië, een van de rijkste landen ter wereld. Zoals veel mensen die in rijke landen wonen, waren...
*Dutch translation here. I am South African but I live in Australia, which is one of the richest countries in the world. Like many people who live in rich countries, I began my year concerned about first world problems. I was preoccupied with getting a new school uniform for my eldest child and irritated by a neighbour whose building work was too noisy. I spent hours contemplating whether to take on an assignment that would take me away from home for too long. I did not imagine that within a few...
*Dutch translation here. I am South African but I live in Australia, which is one of the richest countries in the world. Like many people who live in...
Mr. President, I hope this letter finds you and your family well. I would like to write this letter to express my opinion on the current state of affairs in Namibia. I would like to start by telling you a little bit about myself. I was born in Oneumba, a village in Oshikoto region. My father was a clerk at the Nampost branch in Ondangwa (now a farmer) and my mother is a school principal. I grew up in a government house in Ondangwa and I was fortunate enough to attend a private school. I completed a...
Mr. President, I hope this letter finds you and your family well. I would like to write this letter to express my opinion on the current state of affairs...
Great news!!! Hajooj Kuka and the other four artists have just been released from prison after their appeal!!!! The global solidarity really made a difference. Thank you to everyone for your solidarity. There are the remaining six artists from the group who are still in prison, they were imprisoned one week after the group of five, they have also appealed. We need to keep up the pressure for them to be released and the many others who have been jailed for arbitrary and discriminatory reasons in...
Great news!!! Hajooj Kuka and the other four artists have just been released from prison after their appeal!!!! The global solidarity really made a...
What does a world without racism looks like? And how do we get there? Inspired by an Afrofuturistic graphic novel, filmmakers Ikenna Azuike, Soraya Pol and Mette te Velde explore a world beyond them and us. This episode of Dutch VPRO tv's Tegenlicht shows Azuike's personal journey. While reading to his children from the fictional 'De Post-Racistische Planeet', a different world comes to life, a world drawn by artist Brian Elstak and inspired by Afrofuturism. The expert interviewees in the...
What does a world without racism looks like? And how do we get there? Inspired by an Afrofuturistic graphic novel, filmmakers Ikenna Azuike, Soraya Pol...
Fire flickered from the matches in the crowd, jostling alongside the young men that had gathered below the steps of one of Benin’s most recognisable landmarks, the Martyrs Square monument, which commemorates victims of a French coup d'état attempt in 1977. 40 years after that attempt, the crowd of young Beninese men had congregated in the West African capital of Cotonou in August 2017 to rid the region of a symbol of its French colonial era: by burning banknotes of the CFA franc, the France-backed...
Fire flickered from the matches in the crowd, jostling alongside the young men that had gathered below the steps of one of Benin’s most recognisable...
The Mnangagwa regime responds to protests with violence and the arrests of activists and journalists. A call for solidarity with those fighting for social justice has gained the support of many. With hyperinflation, mass unemployment and increasing violence under the guise of corona lockdown policies, many Zimbabweans now say: enough is enough. The Mnangagwa government, welcomed after the fall of Robert Mugabe in November 2017 as a new promise for the country, has now lost its credibility. Emmerson...
The Mnangagwa regime responds to protests with violence and the arrests of activists and journalists. A call for solidarity with those fighting for...
Amid the furore about #cancelculture it may be appropriate to commemorate the outrage that targeted Achille Mbembe, Cameroonian historian and social scientist, and a profound thinker and visionary, earlier this year. People who equate Mbembe's stance against the occupation of Palestine territories and his support for a boycot of Israel with anti-semitism then campaigned to withdraw his invitation to speak at a cultural festival in Germany. Fortunately, scholars worldwide, among whom, many in...
Amid the furore about #cancelculture it may be appropriate to commemorate the outrage that targeted Achille Mbembe, Cameroonian historian and social...
A German conservative politician has accused the Cameroonian historian and social scientist of antisemitism and demanded that an invitation for him to speak at a cultural festival in Germany be withdrawn. This is an edited excerpt of an interview with Achille Mbembe conducted by culture journalist René Aguigah for Deutschlandradio Kultur. René Aguigah: How would you describe your relationship with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement? Achille Mbembe: I bet those who accuse me are...
A German conservative politician has accused the Cameroonian historian and social scientist of antisemitism and demanded that an invitation for him to...
Zindzi Mandela, the 59-year-old daughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, has died. She was born in the year of the Sharpeville massacre, when South African police shot 69 peaceful demonstrators protesting against the Apartheid pass laws. Her father was already in prison for six years. As a teenager, Zindzi joined the struggle against white minority rule, often at her mother's side. In 1985, she made a momentous speech at the Jabulani stadium near Soweto. In that speech Zindzi read a letter from her...
Zindzi Mandela, the 59-year-old daughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, has died. She was born in the year of the Sharpeville massacre, when South African...
‘Sandwich’ helps tech giants avoid tax in Africa via the Netherlands and Ireland. Google's office at the airport residential area in Accra, Ghana, sits inside a plain white and blue two-storey building that could do with a coat of paint. Google, which made more than US$ 160 billion in global revenue in 2019, of which an estimated US$ eighteen billion in ‘Africa and the Middle East’, pays no tax in Ghana, nor does it do so in most of the countries on the African continent. Google Street View of the...
‘Sandwich’ helps tech giants avoid tax in Africa via the Netherlands and Ireland. Google's office at the airport residential area in Accra, Ghana, sits...
Hungry children and white saviours are still very much present in campaigns by Dutch aid organizations. But also, many of the new aid campaign genres are problematic, observe media scholars Emiel Martens and Wouter Oomen. Every year they present the Fly in the Eye Award for the worst campaign on behalf of IDleaks, a Dutch non-profit organization committed to better humanitarian communication. What is going wrong, and how can it be done better? This week, Save the Children UK, the oldest...
Hungry children and white saviours are still very much present in campaigns by Dutch aid organizations. But also, many of the new aid campaign genres are...
What a sad week it has been, as we have witnessed acts of femicide, genocide and senseless killings. It seems unconscionable that a 14-year old girl could stab a 28-year old man to death. Kirvan Fortuin was a respected dancer, choreographer, and LGBTIQ+ activist, who ploughed his artistic talents back into the community of Macassar, the community from which he hailed. The arts is a powerful tool through which to engage communities, empowering them and giving a voice to the voiceless. The arts...
What a sad week it has been, as we have witnessed acts of femicide, genocide and senseless killings. It seems unconscionable that a 14-year old girl...
On 24 April, 2020, the al-Naba newsletter reported a massacre by a local affiliate of the transnational jihadist IS killing 52 villagers in Cabo Delgado, a province in the northern part of Mozambique. António Guterres, the United Nation Secretary-General warned that extremist groups are taking advantage of Covid-19 lockdowns to spread hatred and intensify the recruitment of young people. Tibor Nagy, the Assistant Secretary for the US State's Bureau of African Affairs, compares the IS operations in...
On 24 April, 2020, the al-Naba newsletter reported a massacre by a local affiliate of the transnational jihadist IS killing 52 villagers in Cabo Delgado,...
Amsterdam based South African writer Richard de Nooy envies his daughter's insistence to march. ‘Things are easier to judge from the helicopter’, I tweeted to a friend yesterday, when she expressed concern about the Black Lives Matter demo on the Dam, to which I’d been invited by my youngest daughter. She’s 19, but has been doing her own thing in Amsterdam for quite a while. I see her less often than I’d like, but when we do meet we talk about music, ambition, love, relationships, politics and...
Amsterdam based South African writer Richard de Nooy envies his daughter's insistence to march. ‘Things are easier to judge from the helicopter’, I...
With more than 22 percent of its residents coming from over 220 foreign countries , the Netherlands is one of the most diverse nations in the world. As a result, the country is home to a variety of diaspora communities and organisations that represent them. It has been argued that these diaspora organisations could play a crucial role in making Dutch development policies and programmes more effective . At present, however, both the Dutch development sector and the Dutch government seem to struggle...
With more than 22 percent of its residents coming from over 220 foreign countries , the Netherlands is one of the most diverse nations in the world. As a...
The death of George Floyd under the knee of now former Minnesota Police Officer Derek Chauvin shook me to the core, as it has a lot of people around the world. And yet I did not even watch the video of the heartbreaking incident. Just like I did not watch the video of the point-blank shooting of a boda boda rider by a Local Defence Unit (LDU) militia-man in Masaka district in central Uganda. And just like I have not watched videos of other violent or gruesome murders that seem to litter social...
The death of George Floyd under the knee of now former Minnesota Police Officer Derek Chauvin shook me to the core, as it has a lot of people around the...
George Floyd is not dead He lifts his fist with us Who shout repeatedly, 'I can't breathe'. George Floyd is not dead not in Denver not in Atlanta not in New York not in Los Angeles not on the paved streets of Minneapolis where he died breathless while a police officer held a knee to his neck George Floyd is not dead he is present at all assemblies and law-givings he peers through the windows and into the hearts of people George Floyd who only wanted to live with dignity in the Minneapolis sunshine...
George Floyd is not dead He lifts his fist with us Who shout repeatedly, 'I can't breathe'. George Floyd is not dead not in Denver not in Atlanta not in...
