7 min read. A few months ago, when the #MeToo movement was gaining momentum globally, I wrote that the movement was not likely to have a significant impact on the United Nations because the global body is immune to criticism and because those UN staff members who have the courage to report sexual harassment or abuse are more […]
17 min read. We live in a world where our certainties, including lines in the sand, the imagination of our boundaries, are crumbling. We are in a season where one of the most significant struggles is that of giving a name to the realities of our now. You know the landscape through which our metaphorical boundaries intend to […]
7 min read. The Scopes of our Identities: Perhaps the real reason why they often irk the rest of society is that the youth are often a clear mirror of who we really are. Simply by their being, they accurately tell those who care to listen what we truly believe about our nationalities, age, gender, religion and ethnicity. They are also clear indicators of the truth of our politics and perceptions of corruption and integrity, concludes the May 2016 ‘The East Africa Youth Survey Report’ by ALEX O. AWITI, of Aga Khan University’.
12 min read. In this first of a three-part series, ISAAC OTIDI AMUKE traces Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s early years, from her marriage to her iconic husband Nelson Mandela to her incarceration and mistreatment by the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa. Through the eyes and words of those who knew and loved her, the author paints a portrait of a woman who refused to live in her husband’s shadow and who rose to become one of the most powerful voices in the anti-apartheid struggle.
12 min read. In Kenya, corruption conjures up images of a favourite pair of well-worn and spit-polished shoes that one cannot bear to throw out. We roll the word on our tongues and give it pet names, such as scandals, hustling, deals, cat-walking, growing legs, eating and kitu kidogo, to name a few. The word “theft” is rarely […]
15 min read. “My kingdom is not of this world…” John 18:36 When we were children, our mother took us to St. Andrews Church in Nairobi every Sunday. A grand, cavernous cathedral-style building on the right side of Uhuru Highway, it was there that she and my father had had their wedding ceremony in 1983. The Presbyterian Church […]
7 min read. After a twenty-five year absence, I returned to Somalia in the summer of 2016. I didn’t go back to the cosmopolitan city of Mogadishu where I grew up (now perceived as one of the world’s most dangerous cities) but to the federal state of Puntland, where I had been officially invited to attend the Garowe […]
13 min read. The planet is getting smarter. Inanimate objects from phones to houses are becoming intelligent. The vehicle of the information technology revolution has been hardware but information is the real prize. Advances in processing power facilitate the reorganisation of the data around us with previously unimaginable results. The amount of data we generate is increasing exponentially. […]
11 min read. Imagine a world without the Internet. Now imagine a world where you are not free to say what you want to and where your social media posts could land you in jail. There are those who would love this world. To them, the Internet is encumbered with bigoted, sadistic and misogynistic speech that must be […]
20 min read. It is this era of intelligent robots – when there is a fuller convergence between genetic engineering and nanotechnology – biopolitical questions will become central to democratic questions within the Pan-African movement. This article describes the challenges in charting the differences between the Pan-African struggles from above, as manifested in organisations such as the African Union, and Pan-Africanism from below, as manifested in the Black Lives Matter movement. The author proposes that the Pan-African movement and the unification of Africa represent the frontline forces in the struggle to preserve humanity and save planet Earth from new threats,...
