This is an edited extract from the book Darkest Before Dawn: Writings, Testimonies and Correspondence from the Life of Robert Sobukwe
Bringing together the traditional and the modern, Thandiswa Mazwai is taking her new album Sankofa to the world
The ruling elites have demonstrated that they are less interested in democracy than they are in pursuing self interests and the retention of power
Amílcar Cabral was assassinated 50 years ago today. His thought, which sometimes arrived in South Africa via a circuitous route, speaks to our current crisis with undiminished power.
Africa is again becoming the stage for the proxy wars of foreign powers
Britain’s high court showed no hesitation in sending Julian Assange to his death, living or otherwise.
The ‘neuf-3’ art project, curated by Riason Naidoo, aims to pay tribute to the African communities of Saint-Denis — and of Paris
The focus of a new book on Lewis Nkosi is his plays rather than his tsotsi-like critiques
Three texts through which to understand current unrest in South Africa – by Slavoj Žižek, Frantz Fanon and Alan Paton
How Frantz Fanon’s dire predictions about the postcolony are coming true in South Africa
Through her praxis, Kholeka Shange interrogates the marginalisation of African languages in the academy
The renowned author’s foundational anti-colonial work deserves more than a dogmatic reading
With private security keeping watch, the university and SRC seem to be working towards a compromise on student debt
From his adventures with Steve Biko to his support for shack dwellers in KwaZulu-Natal, Bishop Emeritus Rubin Phillip has always walked the talk of radical Christianity
Disparate lobby groups (I Am For The Arts, for one) and think-tanks within the arts are stepping up to fill the void, creating the kind of groundswell that is known to make politicians hot under the collar and speaking nervously
Africa must be part of developing technology that may make inhabiting the Red Planet possible and help the continent survive climate change
The guitarist is growing into his groove, with a new concept album launching soon
Our history has shown that the exercise of democratic reason can shake power from below
Mcebo Dlamini suggests the equality court took the slogan too literally, but the BLF itself has not provided any ideological justification for it
The equality court ruling that the slogan ‘Land or Death’ is hate speech sets a dangerous precedent
A documentary film takes Fanon’s ideas out of the past and tracks the ways in which his ideas are resonating with today’s young across the globe
Sumayya Menezes reflects on trawling through the source material that birthed Mating Birds Vol.2
In economic terms, a decision to give up everything in return for nothing is irrational but in human terms it can lead to irreversible change
We need to drop race as a category and rather see people according to their different needs
The liberal international order is being destroyed. And in the midst of this, Brics leaders gathered in Johannesburg this week
The entrenchment and normalisation of assassinations are a threat to democracy
The liberal public sphere is still unwilling to accord equal weight to all human lives
Intra-elite contestation on land seldom takes the often bitter struggles of the urban poor seriously
Maybe it’s being raised in racist enclaves. Whatever it is, white people still believe they are the rightful owners of South Africa
Rape culture can lodge even within a progressive project, as the example of Pablo Neruda shows
The social unpacking of interracial friendships is a winding, complex and often dense undertaking.
In the discipline’s top-down approach the ‘patient’ is the the problem rather than the system