Geography Archives: Africa

When the late South African artist Tito Zungu wanted to depict the world of the migrant labourer, he settled on the envelope. It was by infrequent letters that the migrant would be able to be in touch with family – letters dictated to professional letter writers at one end, which would be read out by professional letter readers at the other.

In this interview Gyekye Tanoh, head of the Political Economy Unit at the Third World Network-Africa based in Accra (Ghana), elaborates upon the themes of corporate plunder, resource nationalism and people-centered forms of resource management in Africa.

Over 25 years ago now the people of South Africa won the struggle to end the Apartheid regime. Nevertheless, even though it is now against the law, de facto racial segregation is still apparent.

Western capitalists are to blame largely for climatic changes that causes natural and environmental disasters. Poverty, which is a result of the diabolic and pernicious economic sanctions, has forced the poor to build poor and weak structures that do not withstand the heavy winds and storms.

The U.S. has nothing to offer Africa but guns, drones and an extended half-life for the neocolonial order.

The fight over the Amazon is not new, but the scale of its potential destruction has considerably increased. The protagonists of the murder of the Amazon are clear: capitalist firms of different scales and the political class that enables them.

This analysis shows there could be no more startling illustration of the operation of the brutal and ruthless British Establishment in an undisguisedly Imperialist cause.

The campaign to ‘liberate’ Algerian women sheds light on the contemporary place of Muslim women in France—and the double aggression against them, both by the state and by a section of the feminist movement.

The U.S. airbase on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia is among the most crucial and heavily used. With this ruling by the International Court of Justice the brand of a cruel and blatant violation of international law has been fixed for all time—and U.S. military control of the island may finally be over.

The shack-dwellers’ movement– Abahlali baseMjondolo, or AbM— is among the organizations of the world’s poor and dispossessed fighting for land reform and dignity. Despite waves of repression by the state, AbM membership now numbers over 50,000 in settlements across the country since their founding in 2006. In an interview with Tricontinental Institute, Zikode talks about the essence of AbM—what they are fighting for, who they are, what they have achieved, and what we can learn from them.

For academics working on Frantz Fanon Alienation and Freedom is no less than a gift. With the publication of this book we finally have the complete available works of Fanon in English. Aptly divided into neat sections – Theatre, Psychiatric Writings, Political Writings, Publishing Fanon, Frantz Fanon’s Library and Life.

The Great Lie about the Rwandan bloodbath opened the door to a far larger genocide in Congo and justified U.S. military interventions all over the planet. During a recent campaign event, Florida Senator Bill Nelson said, “That story of Rwanda is very instructive to us because when a place gets so tribal that the two […]

Mike Peters explores the legacy of Steve Biko, a radical who spent his life fighting for Black liberation and for the overthrow of the Apartheid government in South Africa.

War is romantic only when it is limited to the confines of a sanitized imagination. Movies that portray heroic soldiers vanquishing demonic enemy combatants or rescuing fallen comrades may whip up jingoistic war fever, but horrific images of real children and elders maimed, scarred, dismembered and killed during armed conflicts have the power to end wars.

A peace train in Morocco teaches Youth to become advocates for peace and tolerance.

Does the concept of imperialism explain major characteristics of the capitalist world in the 21st century?

The Egyptian-born social scientist and activist Samir Amin wrote extensively on political economy and the challenges for the peripheral capitalist states. He died in a Paris, France hospital on 12 August 2018 at the age of 86.

The hundreds of delegates who met in Ghana held discussions on five major themes that are of prime importance in the struggle against capitalism and imperialism.

In response to accusations of encouraging “debt trap” diplomacy in Africa, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the announced aid package is not “a scheme to form an exclusive club or bloc against others. Rather it is about greater openness, sharing and mutual benefit.”

To this day, “NUMSA has not deviated from its perspective of Marxism, Leninism and its goal of building a socialist South Africa,” says Karl Cloete