ROAPE Journal
HomeROAPE Blog

ROAPE Blog

ROAPE’s blog hosts short articles to highlight developments on the continent and comment on the dynamics of protest, shifting patterns of political economy and issues of historical concern for the journal. We welcome submissions for short articles between 800 and 1,800 words.

The Central African Republic – the end of Françafrique and the return of imperialist competition...

The Central African Republic has, despite being at the centre of the continent, been a country on the margins of global power since independence. Despite a conflict which has lasted for more than a decade, the country remains largely ignored. Ben Jackson writes that while African conflicts are often underreported, for example the war in Sudan barely gets a mention, the situation in the Central African Republic demands our attention.

Resisting state brutality in Senegal

ROAPE’s Rama Salla Dieng writes that the current political crisis in Senegal is neither a symptom of ‘democracy dying in Africa’ nor the country being ‘on the brink’ as some headlines from the western media would have it. On the contrary, Dieng argues, this illusion does not hold when one considers the country’s political history stained by state and police brutality and human rights violations since independence.

A Journey with Cheddad into Mauritanian Revolutionary Activism

Pascal Bianchini interviews Ahmed Salem El Moctar, also known as Cheddad, who was a leader of the Mauritanian student movement in the early 1970s, as well as an underground activist with the Kadihines movement. Cheddad recounts his activism in Mauritania during the late 1960s and 1970s, providing insight into the period's school movements, strikes, and the fight against neocolonialism. He offers insight into the complexity of Mauritanian post-independence politics, the significance of the Kadihine movement, and the National Democratic Movement.

Call for Papers – Frantz Fanon at 100: A Century of Radical Thought and...

The year 2025 will mark the one hundredth anniversary of Frantz Fanon’s birth. ROAPE intends to mark this occasion through reflections, arguments, and analyses of his life, his philosophy, his activism, and his political legacies today. For this issue, our call for papers is proposed in the belief that Fanon is an indispensable thinker for addressing Africa’s past, present, and future.

Conspiracy Theory as Myth-Busting?

Henning Melber challenges Ludo de Witte who claims to reveal the “true role” of Dag Hammarskjöld “in the imperialist catastrophe that savaged the Congo”. Melber argues that De Witte's blog offers no new empirical evidence, and demonstrates a failure to understand global institutions and the role of individuals within them. He argues Ludo de Witte shows a total denial of local dynamics and agency, which has led to misperceptions bordering on conspiracy theories.

Imperialism and Resistance in the Red Sea

Jesse Harasta describes the complex dynamics of contemporary imperialism and resistance. He argues that understanding a world system divided into Core, Semi-Periphery and Periphery is essential for unpicking and analysing the real workings of global capitalism today. Harasta states that Gulf states have engaged in an active imperial re-peripheralization of the Horn of Africa, which has had devastating consequences but it has also triggered resistance, and important political confrontations.

Learning nothing from history: Germany, genocide, and colonialism in the time of Gaza

Heike Becker writes about what has been going on in Germany since 7 October last year. She contextualises the German government’s unconditional support of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and astonishing efforts by government and civil society associations to silence critics of Israel’s actions. Becker points out the deafening silence in mainstream German politics and society about the thousands of children, women, and men who have been killed.

Myth-Busting: Dag Hammarskjöld, Katanga, and the coup against the Lumumba government

A terrible myth has developed around the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, who died in a plane crash in 1961. Ludo De Witte explains that the UN chief was one of the architects of the Congo crisis that led to the removal and murder of the country’s first leader, Patrice Lumumba. De Witte reveals the true role of the UN, and Hammarskjöld, in the imperialist catastrophe that savaged the Congo in 1960.

Remembering Kenneth Kaunda (1924-2021), Africa’s Last Anti-Colonial Leader

Towards the end of 2023, the fully open access and free to download Zambia Journal of Social Science published an edited collection of nine articles investigating and reflecting on the life and legacy of former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda. Here, one of the collection's editors Duncan Money introduces the body of work. The contributions are wide ranging, from those that deal directly with anti-colonial struggle - including an exploration of some of the tensions and failures within Zambia's liberation movements - to those interrogating Kaunda's postcolonial politics and governance, to a remarkable series of interviews with Kaunda and those close to him, which offer a fascinating glimpse into his daily life and habits.

Germany’s Namibia Genocide Apology: the limits of decolonizing the past

We republish a widely read article in commemoration of the 120th anniversary of the Ovaherero and Nama genocide in Namibia (1904-1908) by the German empire. Heike Becker discussed the 2021 agreement between the German and Namibian governments for special: reconciliation and reconstruction” projects benefiting the affected Ovaherero and Nama communities. Becker brilliantly delved into the issues of the agreement, highlighting the popular protests in Windhoek. The German-imposed agreement was criticized for excluding genocide victims and the Namibian people. Today, Namibian victims continue to struggle for adequate recognition and reparations, as Germany's 1.1 billion pledge over 30 years pales in comparison to the 80 billion given to Israel, facing its own accusations of genocide against the Palestinians.

Apartheid, Israel, and a chosen people

The connection between Israel and apartheid South Africa has been repeated and disputed since October last year, but this is not new argues Graham Harrison. The comparison of Israel to apartheid was debated in the 1970s over a denunciation of Israel’s removals, settlements, walls and border-posts crisscrossing the occupied territories. Harrison teases out some of the similarities, and important differences, in the relationship between two states, and two chosen people.

Learning from Lenin today

One hundred years since Lenin's death, Nigerian socialist Abiodun Olamosu describes of the revolutionary on his own political development. As the preeminent organiser of the Russian revolution, Lenin helped to determine the course of Olamosu's life in Nigeria. Olamosu explores the development of Lenin’s work and legacy. He regards Stalin’s rise to power, and the Soviet Union, as an abomination to the body of ideas of Marxism and socialist internationalism.

ROAPE welcomes new submissions

ROAPE is now fully open access, each journal article, review, briefing and debate published for 50 years is available for everyone to read, download and share. As well as moving to a new open access platform, ROAPE is welcoming new submissions to our peer-reviewed journal. Our radical and high quality publication remains the same, as does our remit, but publishing in ROAPE will now mean that once published your article will be immediately free to read and share across the world. In this blogpost, we explain how to submit your article on our new platform. 

CLR James and George Padmore: Hidden Disputes in The Black Radical Tradition

On CLR James’ 123rd birthday, Matthew Quest examines the collaboration between James and George Padmore since their partnership within the International African Service Bureau in the 1930s. Despite their joint activism in Pan-African affairs, political rifts emerged on democracy, socialism, and revolutionary strategy. Quest looks at James’ portrayal of Padmore to highlight the political tensions underlying their friendship. James' and Padmore's different perspectives on anti-imperialism reveals hidden disputes in the Black radical tradition. 

ROAPE’s 2023 Best Reads for African Radicals

Last year, for the first time on roape.net, members of ROAPE’s Editorial Group offered some of our favourite radical reads from 2022, new and old, fiction and non-fiction. Here again, in what we hope will beome an annual offering, Editorial Group members provide a list of books that have served to educate, shock, move, and inspire over the last 12 months, in our 2023 offering of ROAPE's best reads for African radicals. Five of the ten books listed are available as free downloads.