Research Africa News: July 30, 2024
In Town For The Olympics? Here’s How To Experience Black-Owned Paris
By Mariette Williams, July 25, 2024.
For the next few weeks, millions of athletes and spectators will gather in Paris for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympic Games, and billions more will watch from home. One of the most iconic cities in the world, Paris regularly tops the list of most frequented destinations. While most travelers think of the Eiffel Tower, baguettes, and street cafes when they think of the “City of Light,” Paris is also home to rich Black culture. Made up of the Caribbean and African diaspora and Black American expats, Black communities within Paris offer locals and visitors great music, food, and art. If you’re heading to the Olympic Games (or have an upcoming trip to Paris), we’ve rounded up some of the city’s best restaurants and walking tours to immerse yourself in Black-owned Paris.
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Linguistic Colonialism: Moroccan Education and its Dark Past .
By Vikram Kolli, 10 July 2024.
In February 2024, the Minister of Education in Morocco unveiled plans to gradually introduce the teaching of the Berber (Amazigh) language in primary schools, marking a significant shift in educational policy. The initiative, set to impact four million pupils by 2030, reflects a pivotal moment in the nation’s educational landscape.
The decision responds to longstanding demands from linguistic activists, underscoring the growing momentum behind efforts to preserve the language and culture of Morocco’s indigenous communities. Currently, the Amazigh language is only taught to approximately 330,000 students. By expanding its inclusion within the curriculum, Morocco has taken a significant step towards recognizing and celebrating its diverse linguistic heritage, reckoning with its dark colonial past.
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The Scramble for Africa: How Europe Conquered a Continent
The division of Africa by imperial Europe exemplifies the destructive power of colonialism. The Scramble for Africa changed the continent forever.
By Thomas Bailey, BSc Geography, Jun 29, 20.
In the 19th century, Europe’s imperial superpowers were locked in a battle for global supremacy. Their colonial gaze soon fell upon Africa. The continent became a battleground for European competition as the powers scrambled to conquer the entire landmass. Europe’s conquest of Africa would haunt the African people for generations and change the continent’s course of history forever.
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Space discovery shows that the pyramids were built using water
By Greg Evans Jun 11, 2024.
A landmark discovery on an ancient branch of the River Nile may have solved the mystery of how the pyramids in Egypt were built centuries ago. The now dried-out waterway, which once ran through Giza might have been used to transport the materials that were used to construct the pyramids. The proximity to the waterway might also suggest why there is such a cluster of pyramids in that particular area of Cairo, as the large amount of water would have been able to support the various building blocks needed for the colossal structures.
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Smuggling thrives on Kebbi, Sokoto borders to Niger, Benin
By Animashaun Salman, 15th May 2024
Dole Kaina is a beehive community in Kebbi State in the Dandi Local Government Area of the state with two international borders. One of the border towns is the Dole-Faransi, where what could be called an ordinary drainage facility separates two nations. Arewa PUNCH visited these two border towns and reports that truly, it was a beehive of activities at both the Dole Kaina and the Dole Faransi in Kebbi State which both have the opportunity to host the two different nations border towns. Our Correspondent observed that both names – the Dole Kaina and the Dole Faransi are names carved out from the Hausa language for the community which shares its land border with the Niger Republic and sea border with the Benin Republic.
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NEW BOOKS كتب جديدة
Myth and Reality of the Missionary Family: Livingstonia Mission 1921 – 1928.
[أساطير وحقائق الحركات التبشيرية: حالة بعثة ليفينغستونيا 1921 – 1928]
Author: Isobel Esther Reid.
Isobel Reid offers a concise account of the origins, establishment, and some internal dynamics of the Livingstonia Mission, in particular those impacting missionary families as seen through the eyes of a young missionary couple at its Bandawe station. This study not only demonstrates a general awareness of the role and initiative of the people of Northern Malawi, among whom and with whom the Scottish missionaries lived and worked, but also of the specific importance of interpersonal relationships between Scottish and Malawian women – as in the case of Marie Martin and her Tonga women friends. Race as the primary dividing line was thus subverted by mutual gender awareness. From 1978 Isobel Reid, a qualified nurse/midwife, with her doctor husband and young family lived for 18 months on Ekwendeni CCPA Mission Station before transferring to Mzuzu where Dr. Reid was in charge of St John’s Roman Catholic Mission Hospital for four further years. A consequent academic interest in mission history resulted in an MTh (Edinburgh 1999) which provided the basis for this book.
Publisher: Mzuni Press, Malawi, 2024.
Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society: Social Histories of Accommodation.
[أحوال المواطنين البيض في عهد مجتمع الفصل العنصري: التاريخ الاجتماعي للمعايشة]
Author: Neil Roos.
How were whites implicated in and shaped by apartheid culture and society, and how did they contribute to it? In Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society, historian Neil Roos traces the lives of ordinary white people in South Africa during the apartheid years, beginning in 1948 when the National Party swept into power on the back of its catchall apartheid slogan. Drawing on his own family’s story and others, Roos explores how working-class whites frequently defied particular aspects of the apartheid state but seldom opposed or even acknowledged the idea of racial supremacy, which lay at the heart of apartheid society. This cognitive dissonance afforded them a way to simultaneously accommodate and oppose apartheid and allowed them to later claim they never supported the apartheid system. Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society offers a telling reminder that the politics and practice of race, in this case apartheid-era whiteness, derive not only from the top, but also from the bottom.
Publisher: Wits University Press, 2024.
How We Write Now: Living with Black Feminist Theory
[كيف نكتب اليوم: التعايش مع النظرية النسوية عند السود]
Author: Jennifer C. Nash.
Jennifer Nash examines how Black feminists use beautiful writing to allow writers and readers to stay close to the field’s central object and preoccupation: loss. She demonstrates how contemporary Black feminist writers and theorists such as Jesmyn Ward, Elizabeth Alexander, Christina Sharpe, and Natasha Trethewey mobilize their prose to ask readers to feel, undo, and reassemble themselves. These intimate invitations are more than a set of tools for decoding the social world; Black feminist prose becomes a mode of living and feeling, dreaming and being, and a distinctly affective project that treats loss as not only paradigmatic of Black life but also an aesthetic question. Through her own beautiful writing, Nash shows how Black feminism offers itself as a companion to readers to chart their own lives with and in loss, from devastating personal losses to organizing around the movement for Black lives. Charting her own losses, Nash reminds us that even as Black feminist writers get as close to loss as possible, it remains a slippery object that troubles memory and eludes capture.
Publisher: Duke University Press, 2024.
The Democracy Illusion in Mauritius
[ أوهام الديمقراطية في موريشيوس]
Author: Moshumee T. Dewoo.
Once a beacon of democracy in Africa, Mauritius is today making headlines as a democracy in steep decline instead. This book dissects this decline through three lenses: local leadership mimicking inept foreign leadership (Chapter 1: Ineptocracy), colonial foundations naturally resistant to anything but coloniality (Chapter 2: Bad Bedrock), and a misplaced emphasis on Western-style order, rigidity and finality or solidity clashing with Mauritius’ liquid identity, where this would thrive from flexibility and interconnectedness in incompleteness (Chapter 3: Misplaced Solidity). From here, the book argues that the challenges of Mauritius lie not just in democratic decline, but in a deeper incompatibility with democracy itself and any attempt to establish a successful form thereof is not only futile but also detrimental as it would hinder the flexibility and interconnectedness that are crucial for Mauritius’ unique society. It urges scholars, policymakers, NGOs, IFIs, countries on a similar political development path, and the West in particular, accustomed to promoting and expecting democracy beyond itself, toward an inclusive global conversation in consideration of the right of different cultures to embrace political systems that truly serve the needs of their people.
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2024.
Loboko Ya Mama: African homemade recipes in times of pandemic
[ لوبوكو يا ماما: أطباق أفريقية في زمن الأوبئة]
Author: PE ladies, Mimi Ocadiz.
This book celebrates the enduring power of food to nourish, connect, and heal, especially during challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a collection of diverse recipes from across Africa – Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Uganda – featuring dishes like fufu, Pondu, and fried rice, it showcases the continent’s rich culinary heritage. For migrants, food is a powerful link to home and heritage, shaping identity, fostering community, and providing comfort. The book chronicles how women used food to create joy, care, and connection during the pandemic, highlighting the importance of culinary traditions in fostering resilience and well-being. It is a testament to the vital role that food plays in our lives, both as a source of nourishment and as a means of cultural expression and connection, made accessible to all through globalization..
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2024.
Black X: Liberatory thought in Azania
[بلاك إكس: الفكر التحرري للسود في أزانيا]
Author: Tendayi Sithole.
In Black X: Liberatory Thought in Azania, Tendayi Sithole elaborates on the problematic signifier X, a marker of the dehumanization of the black subject, and presents the struggle for Azania as a liberatory project. Sithole argues that post-1994 South Africa retains the markers of its colonial past and remains a territory of unfreedom for blacks. He shows how the colonial contract still stands, with the land question unresolved by the new constitutional dispensation. His thesis is that being and land are indissoluble, and the denial of the centrality of land restitution is a denial of the black being. Drawing on the Black Consciousness philosophy of Steve Biko, he critiques the manner in which Marx and Marxism evade the reality of antiblack racism and landlessness as drivers of colonial conquest and ongoing forms of oppression, and emphasizes existential struggle of the black subject through Mabogo P More’s African philosophy. Sithole foregrounds these iterations under the mark X, and shows how the black subject, as a dehumanized figure, must continue to radically insist on alternative forms of being in an antiblack world, and on Azania as the true form of liberation.
Publisher: Wits University Press, 2024.
Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism
[روابط خيرية: كيف ساهمت المسيحية في حركة إلغاء العبودية في أميركا كما حدت من نجاحها]
Author: Ben Wright.
This book demonstrates how religion structured the possibilities and limitations of American abolitionism during the early years of the republic. From the American Revolution through the eruption of schisms in the three largest Protestant denominations in the 1840s, this comprehensive work lays bare the social and religious divides that culminated in secession and civil war. Historians often emphasize status anxieties, market changes, biracial cooperation, and political maneuvering as primary forces in the evolution of slavery in the United States. Wright instead foregrounds the pivotal role religion played in shaping the ideological contours of the early abolitionist movement.
Publisher: LSU Press, 2020.
