Nationalist gestures, resented privileges, and acute defensiveness—all are components of what it can mean to be a white Kenyan today … their self-consciousness and uncertainties suggest that in some respects, they are of two minds about their entitlement to belong.
The struggle for a prosperous, democratic and stable Kenya is not over and despite having successfully fought for a new constitution, three decades after Saba Saba, power is still largely imperial, exercised in a brutal and unaccountable manner by a political elite who have in the last decade taken every step to undermine it.
On anniversary of the birthday of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of an independent Congo, we ask, "What iconography arose around him, and why is that iconography so diverse?"
The UN Security Council is not a club of equals. The ten rotational non-permanent members of the fifteen-member Council, including Kenya, do not pose a serious threat to the five veto-holding permanent members – though membership does give the former the illusion of being influential.
The judgment that Sankara was a hero rests in part on what was politically possible in Burkina Faso in the early 1980s.
Trust deficit is high among political elites. Political pacts in Kenya's political history collapse when the elite begin to disagree on the distribution of power – or others will renege on what has been agreed upon. The handshake between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga isn't any different.
Do Indian celebrities have the moral authority to condemn racism when they themselves promote the idea that white skin is more desirable than black or brown skin? And does the Black Lives Matter movement offer India an opportunity to critically examine its own increasingly intolerant society, including the oppressive caste system?
It’s time to reckon with the anti-black brutality that defines American policy from Minneapolis to Somalia.
Rediscovered lectures Walter Rodney gave in 1978 in Hamburg shows a reflective intellectual, thinking critically about postcolonial African governance.
As the trajectory of the COVID-19 crisis continues to evolve, the African Union must activate Africa’s global human capital in a think-and-do tank to support the efforts of its member states. Such a mechanism, if done well, can outlast the crisis, strengthen the legitimacy of the AU, and complement future external technical assistance.
