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The world is confronting an unprecedented multidimensional crisis - ecological, economic, geopolitical - each interacting with the other. Yet it is the Global South that yet again is becoming the sacrificial zone, providing the resources for the countries of the North. In a powerful statement from the Global South movements challenge the existing neo-colonial energy model and offer a just alternative.

Kenyan activists Faith Asina and Gathanga Ndung’u deliver powerful and sharp criticism of the role of the Kenyan police as the oppressor of the masses. They explain in detail how police terror has manifested itself on issues such as the crackdowns on activists, the aftermath of elections, state-led campaigns against terrorism and informal settlements. They also take the time to commemorate fallen activists and inform us about ongoing grassroots movements against the violence of the police, which they believe needs radical surgery or a total overhaul.

In early January 2019, Ugandan activist, and University of Cornell doctoral student Bwesigye Mwesigire was violently attacked on a bus in Uganda and sent into a three-day coma because of his political work. Four years later, he explains what led to the attack and makes some observations on the role of the intellectual in the Ugandan situation. Through this piece, he informs us about the importance of international solidarity, the challenges facing opposition to dictatorship in Uganda, and how radical intellectuals can potentially relate to the masses.  

ROAPE speaks to Nigerian socialist and activist, Alex Batubo, about the elections this month, and the political and economic situation in the country. Batubo focuses on the struggle of labour, and the possibilities of a radical alternative emerging from the challenges (and opportunities) of the present.

ROAPE contributor Yusuf Serunkuma asks if the pillage we are witnessing on the African continent—mostly from the 1980s-onwards—is worse than the exploitation of the 1884-1960s, where is the resistance? Serunkuma writes that even after decolonisation has been achieved (the academy decolonised, stolen artefacts returned, Rhodes, and others, fall), Africa will remain an impoverished and looted continent. The reason for this absurd state of affairs is that the African intelligentsia still struggles to see and expose the performative, informal, localized, and seemingly benevolent manifestation of new colonialism.

Looking in detail at the issues behind COP27, ROAPE’s Ray Bush examines migration in the age of the climate emergency. The consequences of imperialism, colonialism and climate crises is the persistence of labour migration. Bush argues that the underlying cause of migration is structural inequality and its reproduction between the global north and south, which is now exacerbated by climate catastrophe.  

In an interview with ROAPE’s Leo Zeilig, writer, researcher and activist Ndongo Samba Sylla speaks about his work, French imperialism in Africa, and the struggle for economic and political liberation in Senegal and the continent. Ndongo continues Samir Amin’s search for anti-capitalist political alternatives, grounded in a radical analysis of trends and developments across Africa, and the Global South.  

Yusuf Serunkuma argues that the apparent success and smoothness of electoral ‘democracy’ in African states is a recipe for disaster—just as bad as Africa under conflict. Beneath the hype is the ruthless continuity of economic and political control by Western companies and governments. Serunkuma argues that elections across the continent are invariably a trap that disguises naked and unabashed plunder.   

Nadia Sayed assesses the Black Lives Matter movement two years after mass protests erupted following the assassination of George Floyd. We share a talk she gave at Marxism festival in London in July 2022, which is based on her article for the International Socialism Journal (click the link at the bottom of the page to access the full article). Defending the movement’s achievements while considering its weaknesses, Sayed argues that mobilising the power of the working class is crucial to ensuring that Black Lives Matter is not merely a moment but the beginning of a movement that delivers fundamental change.

In the first of a three-part series on mental health and activism in Kenya, Noosim Naimasiah writes about the pandemic of mental health breakdown in Kenya. She notes how activists respond increasingly to distress calls, extrajudicial executions, sexual abuse, fatal domestic violence, and suicides are interspersed by the chronic conditions of violence in the informal settlements of Nairobi. Naimasiah writes how communities once connected by values of respect, dignity and love have been left to the cold machinations of a brutal system registering only exchange value.