Rhodes Must Fall - search results

The murder of George Floyd has triggered giant protests around the world. Demonstrations in Africa have been much smaller, with tens or at best hundreds of protesters on the streets. Baba Aye, Lai Brown, Heike Becker and Sabatho Nyamsenda reflect on the Black Lives Matter movement on the continent, the development of radical art and how institutionalised racism and its root – capitalism – continue to kneel on all our necks.

In the South African House of Assembly, on 6 September 1966, Dimitri Tsafendas knifed to death Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. Shortly after, Tsafendas was declared to be a schizophrenic who had no political motive for assassinating Verwoerd. Declared unfit to stand trial, Tsafendas went down in the history books as a deranged murderer. Harris Dousemetzis exposes one of the great lies in South African history and shows that Tsafendas was an extraordinary man, with deeply held communist and anti-racist politics.

In the third interview in the series, Talking Back, Rama Salla Dieng speaks to Divine Fuh. Divine Fuh talks about his research on the economic, political, religious and social crises in Cameroon and how young men have been forced to create new criteria for endorsement as ‘successful men’ with the collapse of salaried achievement. In a wide-ranging interview he also discusses his work with CODESRIA in Dakar, fathering, feminism, masculinity, Afrophobia and social anthropology.

Rama Salla Dieng introduces a series of interviews with African feminists that roape.net will be posting in the coming weeks. In recent months across Africa we have witnessed women taking to the street to reclaim a fairer and more just world. In these protests and movements woman have often played a leading role. In interviews conducted by Rama, young African feminists will discuss how they are theorising their practice and philosophies.

In the second part of Matt Swagler’s blogpost on the Russian Revolution, he focuses on how Marxist ideas became central to African political organizing...

On the anniversary of Steve Biko’s murder, ROAPE’s Remi Adekoya speaks to South African scholar and activist Mosa Phadi. Phadi reflects on the legacy of Biko’s radical and important thought, but also discusses how he did not consider cohesive alternatives that could now serve as a counter to neoliberal ideas. In a wide-ranging interview Phadi also looks at the political and economic crisis in South Africa, the Economic Freedom Fighters, the failures of the ANC and the possibilities of a solution in the militancy and consciousness of working-class struggle.

Remi Adekoya interviews Pascal Bianchini about Senegal’s street fighting years from 1968 to the mid-1970s. It was a period of growth for the revolutionary left and it forced a multi-party system on the government of Léopold Senghor, which at the time was not that usual in Africa. Bianchini argues that the democratisation in the country started in 1968 and was driven by the left, leading to major political changes in subsequent decades.

In a major contribution to the on-going debate on imperialism, Patrick Bond argues that an explanation of imperialist political-economy and geopolitics must incorporate subimperialisms. John Smith’s old-fashioned binary of North/South prevents him from fully engaging with David Harvey’s overall concern about uneven geographical development.

In an interview for roape.net South African activist Nombuso Mathibela reflects on the student (and workers) movement in the country. Mathibela appeals for a new, radical politics that challenges patriarchy and sexist behaviour, and involves at every level black women and non-binary people in the struggle.

Colin Fancy reviews The Fall, an extraordinary play about a protest movement in South African in 2015-16 which has had an enormous impact in the West –  witness the campaign to tear down the racist Confederate statues in USA. The Fall, he argues, is about a struggle that we must fight simultaneously with our activist sisters and brothers in South Africa.