The insensitivity displayed by the Kenyan government during the COVID-19 lockdown has confirmed that the country’s leaders are oblivious to the challenges facing ordinary citizens. This don’t-care attitude could, however, give rise to demands for a more progressive and caring leadership.
COVID-19 spreads from Europe to Africa, inverting colonial imaginaries of African disease and challenging inherited hierarchies.
Frantz Fanon remains vital not only for his bracing anti-racism and anti-colonialism, but equally for the less-recognized, empathetic politics of solidarity he cultivated and exemplified.
Pandemics force even neoliberal thinkers to admit that government action and collective solidarity are what is urgently needed.
A severe economic crisis followed by the COVID-19 pandemic have had a deep impact on African domestic workers living and working in Lebanon. Some homeless female workers from Sierra Leone have found refuge in shelters, but resources to sustain them are drying up.
Laughter is cathartic, a coping mechanism in the midst of crisis. But humour also has the potential to catalyse analysis and mobilise diverse publics around socio-economic and political concerns.
KARUTI KANYINGA pays tribute to his friend and mentor, Thandika Mkandawire, who left an indelible mark on scholarship focusing on Africa’s growth and development.
President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw funding from WHO underscores how powerful UN member states play politics with people’s lives. But by withholding information that paints them in a bad light, influential countries like China are also endangering the world’s health.
Relationships between African countries and China are more complex than they appear in the media and academia.
In an update on the COVID-19 pandemic across Africa, Heike Becker, Femi Aborisade and Issa Shivji report on the reaction of governments, the struggles of poor communities and the urgency of building a new world out of the ruins of the old.
