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The struggle to reclaim or protect land is fundamentally a struggle to restore human dignity. Photo: Lucky Nxumalo/City Press/Gallo Images/Getty Images

Land and dignity: A global reflection anchored in Palestine

Land is more than a physical resource — it is the foundation of identity, freedom and dignity in places as far-flung as North America, Australia and New Zealand to Gaza, India…

Warning: Destroyed buildings after an Israeli air strike in a residential area of the Al-Shaboura refugee camp in Rafah, Gaza, on 13 December 2023. Photo: Ahmad Salem/Getty Images

Climate crisis, imperialism intertwined with Palestine genocide

Like all wars, Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza with the backing of other imperialist countries and their industrial-military complex exacerbates the ecological and climate…

Ancient Egyptians hunting wildfowl . Photo: Getty Images

‘Restitution’ of looted African art continues colonial policies – and much more is at stake

It was not only objects that were removed, knowledges — social, political, ecological and epistemological organisation —‚on the continent were destroyed

A painting by an activist was put on a pavement during the demonstration. Youth group activists staged a Black Friday protest towards the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) but they were blocked by the Philippine National Police (PNP), Civil Disturbance Management (CDM) units before reaching the building. So the protesters just did their program at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex. The protesters are against the result of the Philippines May 9th. presidential elections. (Photo by Josefiel Rivera/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Philippines election shows how personality politics is our collective future in this digital populist age

These elections are a warning of how history can be washed over and and used to promote modern dynasties

US President Donald Trump. (SAUL LOEB / AFP/ Getty Images)

We need to think critically but honestly about our legal future

To survive our many problems we require creative thinking, with integrity; not vulgar populism as a blunt tool to capture power and glory

Taking advantage of local communities’ despair and desperation, the politicians agitate by blaming foreigners for stealing jobs (Getty)

We were separated by colonial borders and lost our ubuntu

Afrophobia is an imported anti-African sentiment that internalises colonialism because current state borders never existed in African societies

Uncaring society: A man who was killed outside a vandalised mall in Vosloorus  in Gauteng on July 14 was one of 337 people who died during the looting and violence that rocked parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in July. (Marco Longari/AFP)

Racial capitalism destroys ubuntu

South Africans’ behaviour and attitudes show that poor black working-class people, and black women in particular, are denied their innate humanity

Who’s who: Protesters and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Grégory Pierrot argues that ‘hipsterdom has its roots in Black cultural appropriation’. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

Your hipster beard has long been problematic

Grégory Pierrot’s analysis of the deep roots of white supremacy and black exploitation in hipster culture in Decolonise Hipsters also offers a way out

The likes of Thomas Sankara (Burkina Faso) and Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) and many others laid a foundation. The onus is now on us, especially the youth, to continue what they began.
(Kambou Sia/AFP)

Africa’s youth must continue the struggle of great leaders

Our continent is not just united geographically, but also by our shared experiences and we should use that to build a bright future

Political footballs: Chagos take on Panjab in December. (AFP)

Football on the colonial frontier

Still fighting for their right to return home, exiled Chagossians are using football to unite a diaspora

The question of human remains and cultural material held in European ethnographic museums is also a question of the largely devastating afterlives of European colonial rule. (John McCann/M&G)

Decolonisation can’t just be a metaphor

Decolonising museums requires more than knowledge exchange and lending back stolen artefacts

They allege that the British army and colonial administrators deployed rape

‘There is blood in the tea’

Kenyans who were expelled from their land by British colonisers — to make way for tea plantations — are demanding justice

The ruins of Great Zimbabwe reveal that the people who lived there used sophisticated technologies — and were essentially classless. (Hermes Images/AGF/UIG via Getty Images)

Class fluidity ruled in ancient Zim 

A UCT academic has won a top award, highlighting the role of local researchers in uncovering Africa’s rich history

Philosophy of dignity: Zakes Mda draws on Mandingo religion. (Joanne Oliver)

History plus myth means dignity

Mda’s latest novel paints a picture of how the West, then and now, refashions the other to validate its own preconceptions

The fictional country Wakanda that appears in the film Black Panther is another projection of what Africa ?‘should be’ ?by people who don’t live here. (Marvel Studios/Walt Disney)

Africa’s identity begins at home

After all we have been through, we still don’t get to define our own continent. This holds us back

Almost all countries on the African continent are blessed with natural resources, including oil, uranium, liquid nitrogen gas, gold and diamonds. (Reuters)

Africa is being colonised all over again

‘We have failed to hold our African leaders to account,’ writes Mustafa Bothwell Mheta

Coal, a key fuel for electricity production, is a major producer of carbon dioxide emissions, a major driver of global warming. (Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters)

The other African ‘Sara’ of Europe’s obsession

The grave of Sara Makatemele in Sweden has provoked much curiosity about her life and story