Latest news with #Africans'
TimesLIVE
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- TimesLIVE
Redressing the past
Tensions of colonial dress, the white gaze and thin legacies of oral tradition are at play in the Fashion Accounts exhibition at Museum Africa. The exhibition signals a pertinent void — the lack of an uninterrupted record of black South African histories of dress. The series of installations challenge rituals of collecting, archiving and memorialising through dress. It's a protest against inherited Western museum practices, which remain exclusionary. By holding fashion to account as an instrument of colonialism, the exhibition — curated by Wanda Lephoto, Alison Moloney and Erica de Greef — also honours the use of fashion as a means of resistance and preservation. The works offer entangled histories of dress including the influence of colonialism, Africans' appropriation of western textiles and the post-apartheid response by contemporary fashion minds and designers. 'Europe created the concept of savageness and barbarism as [the] antithesis to its modernity and civilisation ... Europe was to represent the modern model and the rest was to represent the antiquity; the traditional,' Rabah Omer writes in their paper, The Modern and the Traditional: African Women and Colonial Morality. It is from this premise that Africans were brainwashed about their traditional clothing, which was deemed 'primitive' and 'barbaric', and instead forced to adopt European wear considered 'civilised' and 'modern', creating an inferiority complex that later generations are now dismantling. Colonisers also used the church and Christianity as morally divisive tools to pit modesty, which meant covering up the body against African wear, which was seen as revealing and immoral. Decolonising dress starts with interrogating this history, understanding the colonial ties of the Basotho blanket or the Shweshwe textile (an Indonesian cotton printing technique brought to South Africa by the Dutch and Germans in the 1800s) which have been appropriated into local dress cultures, for example. In Santu Mofokeng's The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890—1950, a collection of private portrait images that urban working- and middle-class families had commissioned, requested or tacitly sanctioned, the South African photographer asks, who were these people? What were their aspirations? What was the occasion? Who is gazing? Did these images serve to challenge prevailing Western perceptions of the African? Are these images evidence of mental colonisation? The book is drawn from an ongoing research project at Wits University. It inspired a response from fashion designer Lephoto and his collective The Sartists (Sartorial Artists) with the Sartists Sports Series of 2014 (included in the exhibition) to 'reimagine how historically, blackness was presented back to black people', opting for fictioning to replace absence. The collective which comprises Lephoto, Kabelo Kungwane and Andile Buka interrogates and interprets the past to inform current urban youth cultures through fashion, providing an educational, documentative and nuanced slant to their sartorialism. In another corner of the museum is the Bernberg Fashion and Textiles Collection from the Bernberg sisters, who donated their Forest Town, Joburg home with antiques, paintings, fashion and accessories worn by colonial settlers to Museum Africa in 1960. The exhibition elicits emotions: anger, sadness, longing even for something unknown yet felt and a connection to nameless faces. The heaviness sat with the curators as well. 'Working with the weight of a violent history is overwhelming. It was the scale of erasure, and the evidence of oppression and disavowal — it lingers in the archives — that compelled us to continue. And our shared conviction that this is necessary transformational work for future generations to access history differently,' De Greef said. Moloney said: 'Entering this collection as a white British curator from London felt unsettling yet familiar, as the collection content is similar to those in British museums. How could Wanda, Erica, and I engage with this collection, which both represents and eradicates history? How could we put absence into collective action? How do we exhibit a colonial, settler collection without repeating colonialism? This exhibition offers fragments of our conversations held over many years, and made with respect and in friendship.' Image: Supplied For Lephoto it was about finding a middle ground in the personal. 'Walking into the archive, I was not sure of what to find. This is where the question of beauty or trauma comes in. On the one hand the garments are beautiful, but on the other it is easy to imagine the colonial settlers who oppressed our ancestors embodying these clothes,' said Lephoto. 'But something happened when I saw the Cape in the archive. The Cape represents my mum. It also represented the missionaries who used the church and the bible for colonising African spirituality. Despite these efforts, African spirituality is still intact. My mum navigates Christianity but at the same time she maintains her practices of African spirituality. They seemingly oppose each other but they meet and become one in my mom.' Optimism prevails in the exhibition. Extending on the practice of visual artists such as Lebohang Kganye who preserve familial heritage through their art, is fashion designer Thebe Magugu, who had images of his family printed over the brand's family heirloom shirt. The shirt resonated so much so that it spawned a bigger project that had Magugu designing the shirt for global clients who wanted to immortalise their loved ones on a shirt. This is represented in the exhibition by a piece from his Genealogy Collection, Spring/Summer 2022. With the gradual regrowth and localisation of the textile industry, there's a move through prints towards ownership, reclamation and preservation. Putting a poignant spin on this is sustainable textile designer Sindiso Khumalo with her Jagger Collection Spring/Summer 2022. It pays homage to the African History Library which was damaged in a fire that ravaged the Reading Room and other facilities at the University of Cape Town in 2021. Women whose voices were held in the archive are celebrated as well as historic maps, African film and political posters to reclaim what has been lost. A suit featured in the exhibition, 'carries the print of a colonial map that was digitised before the fire and is an ode to the richness of cultures from the deep past', according to Khumalo. 'It offers a way to re-embody and reimagine those histories. Mapping and archiving are synonymous. I believe that fashion intervenes in a way to create new connections and celebrates both iconic and intimate moments in African history.' The Fashion Accounts exhibition at Museum Africa has been extended to September 2025.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - In the messaging battle for Africa, Russia is winning
Since the very start of its invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, Russia's government has focused a barrage of propaganda on Africa. Western governments have pushed back, while Ukraine is opening its own embassies across the continent to spread its message. With all this activity, one would expect that the Ukraine conflict would be the talk of the continent. Not so, however. A recent visit to West and East Africa suggests Russia, Ukraine and the whole East-West conflict still attract only marginal interest among academics, civil society, students and journalists. Rather, the public mood is focused heavily on more local events, particularly government corruption. This helps explain Moscow's approach to the region. In its appeals to young Africans, Russia spends little time justifying its invasion of Ukraine. It devotes far more effort to positioning itself as an ally of young, restless populations angry at their local governments and at what they see as Western dominance and diktat. By doing so, the Kremlin has deftly outflanked the West's focus on the lawlessness and brutality of the invasion itself. It has concentrated instead on broader issues that resonate far more with local populations. Western communicators need to revise their strategy accordingly. 'A lot of Africans don't know anything about Russia except as an opponent of the West,' Morité Camara of Côte d'Ivoire's Institut Afrique-Monde think tank told me. 'If people are angry at the West, associating with Russia makes sense since it's the West's enemy.' Western nations have pressed African states to take a strong stance against Russia's invasion. But African media typically publish little news from abroad. Europe's biggest war in decades gets play mainly when it threatens Africans' food supplies, or when African students suffer racist treatment in the war zone. In my conversations, the international issues cited most often were enduring resentment toward European colonialism; the West's killing of Moammar Gadhafi and the ensuing destruction of Libya; the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq (which included Ukrainian troops); and present-day American support for Israel. None of this dims the eagerness of many to study in, or move to, Western Europe or the United States. But politically, university students made clear, the West is still seen as a predatory actor with much to atone for, while Russia looks like an alternative power center that might bring a change to the status quo. That represents an opening for Moscow. Compared to the chaotic state of Western nations, Russia looks to Africans like a stable, reliable power — whatever internal repression the Kremlin may use to keep it that way. Vladimir Putin, whose image is painted on the occasional minibus in Nairobi, comes across as a tough leader who gets things done. Western analysts often give Russian propagandists credit for the anti-French and anti-corruption mood that fueled coups in recent years in Sahel nations. That's understandable, given that the overthrow of governments in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad sharply increased Russian influence in the region. But the reality is more complex; Russian information operations amplify the feelings of Africans across the continent who are resentful toward the West and looking for any alternative. Older Africans remember with gratitude Soviet aid to the continent's national liberation movements during the decades of the Cold War. At the same time, Africa is the world's youngest continent, with an average age of 19, and Russia is skilled at reaching out to the younger cohort as well. Moscow offers scholarships to Russian universities, promotes the Russian Orthodox faith (many young Africans are religious) and aligns itself with populations discontented with the continent's remaining pro-Western governments. Russia's tactics are shrewd. Actual Russian development aid to Africa is minimal, concentrating mainly on mining and other deals that help enrich Russian and local elites. But Russia excels at building networks of social media influencers and pseudo-news brands to intensify anti-Western and anti-corruption feelings in Africa's remaining pro-Western nations. This threatens the stability of their governments and intimidates them into remaining at least neutral in the standoff between the West and Moscow. All this calls into question the West's own messaging to Africa. Western communication has tended to support friendly governments and emphasize the value of U.S. ties. Diplomats say they try to avoid attacking Moscow, worried it would feed an image of great powers squabbling with each other while ignoring Africa's needs. Perhaps as a result, few Africans know much about racism in Russia, or that political freedom in many African countries far exceeds what Russians enjoy. These points are certainly worth making. But to be more responsive to African concerns, U.S. outreach also needs to more effectively emphasize fighting corruption. Even if such policies weaken pro-Western regimes now in power, their days may be numbered. If angry young people or the military sweep them away, the West's interests should not be swept away with them. When it comes to Africa, the U.S. must remain committed to fundamental political rights and engage in economic projects that benefit populations as a whole, not just the continent's elites. Doing so would differentiate Washington from Moscow in Africans' minds, and position America as the partner that will benefit Africa the most. Thomas Kent is senior fellow for strategic communication at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C., and a consultant on Russian affairs and information operations. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
28-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
In the messaging battle for Africa, Russia is winning
Since the very start of its invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, Russia's government has focused a barrage of propaganda on Africa. Western governments have pushed back, while Ukraine is opening its own embassies across the continent to spread its message. With all this activity, one would expect that the Ukraine conflict would be the talk of the continent. Not so, however. A recent visit to West and East Africa suggests Russia, Ukraine and the whole East-West conflict still attract only marginal interest among academics, civil society, students and journalists. Rather, the public mood is focused heavily on more local events, particularly government corruption. This helps explain Moscow's approach to the region. In its appeals to young Africans, Russia spends little time justifying its invasion of Ukraine. It devotes far more effort to positioning itself as an ally of young, restless populations angry at their local governments and at what they see as Western dominance and diktat. By doing so, the Kremlin has deftly outflanked the West's focus on the lawlessness and brutality of the invasion itself. It has concentrated instead on broader issues that resonate far more with local populations. Western communicators need to revise their strategy accordingly. 'A lot of Africans don't know anything about Russia except as an opponent of the West,' Morité Camara of Côte d'Ivoire's Institut Afrique-Monde think tank told me. 'If people are angry at the West, associating with Russia makes sense since it's the West's enemy.' Western nations have pressed African states to take a strong stance against Russia's invasion. But African media typically publish little news from abroad. Europe's biggest war in decades gets play mainly when it threatens Africans' food supplies, or when African students suffer racist treatment in the war zone. In my conversations, the international issues cited most often were enduring resentment toward European colonialism; the West's killing of Moammar Gadhafi and the ensuing destruction of Libya; the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq (which included Ukrainian troops); and present-day American support for Israel. None of this dims the eagerness of many to study in, or move to, Western Europe or the United States. But politically, university students made clear, the West is still seen as a predatory actor with much to atone for, while Russia looks like an alternative power center that might bring a change to the status quo. That represents an opening for Moscow. Compared to the chaotic state of Western nations, Russia looks to Africans like a stable, reliable power — whatever internal repression the Kremlin may use to keep it that way. Vladimir Putin, whose image is painted on the occasional minibus in Nairobi, comes across as a tough leader who gets things done. Western analysts often give Russian propagandists credit for the anti-French and anti-corruption mood that fueled coups in recent years in Sahel nations. That's understandable, given that the overthrow of governments in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad sharply increased Russian influence in the region. But the reality is more complex; Russian information operations amplify the feelings of Africans across the continent who are resentful toward the West and looking for any alternative. Older Africans remember with gratitude Soviet aid to the continent's national liberation movements during the decades of the Cold War. At the same time, Africa is the world's youngest continent, with an average age of 19, and Russia is skilled at reaching out to the younger cohort as well. Moscow offers scholarships to Russian universities, promotes the Russian Orthodox faith (many young Africans are religious) and aligns itself with populations discontented with the continent's remaining pro-Western governments. Russia's tactics are shrewd. Actual Russian development aid to Africa is minimal, concentrating mainly on mining and other deals that help enrich Russian and local elites. But Russia excels at building networks of social media influencers and pseudo-news brands to intensify anti-Western and anti-corruption feelings in Africa's remaining pro-Western nations. This threatens the stability of their governments and intimidates them into remaining at least neutral in the standoff between the West and Moscow. All this calls into question the West's own messaging to Africa. Western communication has tended to support friendly governments and emphasize the value of U.S. ties. Diplomats say they try to avoid attacking Moscow, worried it would feed an image of great powers squabbling with each other while ignoring Africa's needs. Perhaps as a result, few Africans know much about racism in Russia, or that political freedom in many African countries far exceeds what Russians enjoy. These points are certainly worth making. But to be more responsive to African concerns, U.S. outreach also needs to more effectively emphasize fighting corruption. Even if such policies weaken pro-Western regimes now in power, their days may be numbered. If angry young people or the military sweep them away, the West's interests should not be swept away with them. When it comes to Africa, the U.S. must remain committed to fundamental political rights and engage in economic projects that benefit populations as a whole, not just the continent's elites. Doing so would differentiate Washington from Moscow in Africans' minds, and position America as the partner that will benefit Africa the most.
Daily Maverick
22-04-2025
- Daily Maverick
New African zeitgeist — citizens want climate action, digital age might be how they get it
Citizens across Africa want climate action. New research shows that internet connectivity, which plugs people into novel media forms, can bridge the climate literacy gap and mobilise citizens to demand more from their governments in North-South negotiations. It can also boost ground-up participation in developmental decision-making as the continent's climate becomes increasingly unstable. Joel Ralits'a straddles two worlds. To a visitor from the city, he describes himself as jobless. Although as he strolls between his maize and sorghum fields high above a whiplash bend in the Makhaleng River gorge near the Malealea village in Lesotho, about 80km south of Maseru, it's clear that he's kept busy in the way that farming demands. Hand-tilled fields don't bend the knee to the office hours or work weeks that govern office folks' lives. These are the same fields his grandfather tilled, and which have been handed down the family line in accordance with customary practice. Right now, he is on the clock. The 30-year-old takes on occasional gigs as a tour guide, accompanying guests from a nearby lodge to the gorge's storied rock paintings and waterfall. The work is sporadic and doesn't pay well, but it puts a bit of cash in his pocket. Today's tour is different. After an hour-long slog beneath the midday February sun, he pauses on a roughly bulldozed access road that ends at a precipitous drop into the gorge. He pulls back a shrub to reveal a sunken cement block, its square top just proud of the ground. Whoever scratched a code and date into the setting concrete wasn't concerned with neat writing, but it was done on '30/09/23'. The block's significance is greater than its size, for it may be a Rubicon moment for the families dotted along the shoulder of the gorge in thatch- and iron-roofed homesteads. This is the anchor point for a dam wall that the community has long known might be built in the path of the river. There are a few red-tape steps before any sod turning can happen, but if the long-anticipated project gets the go-ahead, it's a fait accompli: the gorge will flood and Ralits'a, his ageing parents and the entire village will have to move. Where to? No idea. When? Don't know. How much say will they have in the process? Unclear. Ralits'a whips out his smartphone. The device is slim, and by the state of its screen protector, it's been around the block. The edges are chipped and dust has collected in places in the way that a fingernail gathers soil after a good gardening session. Without much face-to-face consultation with the Lesotho government and officials from the Orange-Senqu River Commission who are responsible for this development, the internet is the first and last port of call, allowing Ralits'a to be part of the democratic processes that should govern big infrastructure builds in any African country. New research into Africans' attitudes towards climate collapse, and who needs to act to address it, shows that access to new forms of media is central to educating people and mobilising the continent to leverage its power to demand action on climate change. The pocket-sized device that delivers information into the palm of Ralits'a's hand, a device taken for granted by people living closer to the arteries of information exchange, is a golden tether to an information stream that is the oxygen that allows a healthy democracy to breathe. Active citizenry can stir up climate-engaged African governments Ralits'a straddles two worlds – the old ways of his grandfather and the new ways of devices and connectivity in a hyperconnected information age – while his country straddles a development threshold. Water is one of Lesotho's most important exports. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) is a network of mega-dams that brings in about 10% of the country's gross domestic product through selling its 'white gold' to Southern African Development Community (SADC) partners. Many SADC countries are already dramatically water-scarce and will get more so as parts of the subcontinent warm and dry, and are hit by increasingly severe multiyear droughts such as the 2015-to-2021 event that had devastating consequences. At the same time there are questions about how much of this export income makes it down to the villagers on the ground, including those who have been relocated to make way for these kinds of mega-developments, according to social scientist Dr Teboho Mosuoe-Tsietsi, whose doctoral research focused on communities forced to relocate when the Mohale Dam, about 65km east of Maseru, was added to the LHWP expansion. This is in a country where about 60% of rural families live below the poverty line and are falling behind their urban counterparts in terms of income and job prospects. Mosuoe-Tsietsi's time with the relocated Mohale Dam families shows that there needs to be 'exhaustive measures of accountability' if those forced to resettle are to be protected from unintended consequences of what is inevitably an unequal power dynamic in such developmental decision-making. Africans want climate action – new research shows how to mobilise it In this challenging development context, Africans know that action is needed on climate and expect their governments to lead the charge, according to a recent continent-wide study. The survey, by the nonprofit Afrobarometer, asked rural and urban people across 39 countries who they thought should lead climate action: their governments, ordinary citizens or countries and industries who are historically the biggest polluters. Most respondents said they place this responsibility on their own governments. Very few said historic emitters should be accountable for action, in spite of these being responsible for most of the pollution causing the societal, economic and environmental damage linked with climate instability, to which Africa is most vulnerable. This suggests a gap in climate literacy but also points to an opportunity for increased engagement, according to Dr Nick Simpson, chief research officer at the Climate Risk Lab in the University of Cape Town's African Climate and Development Initiative. Those who had access to climate information through the internet via platforms such as a computer or smartphone, WhatsApp or social media were more likely to point the finger at historic Global North polluters and industries in terms of responsibly to act. 'There is a strong correlation between access to new media types that shifted the dial for attributing responsibility to historical emitters.' This emerging zeitgeist can be a 'wake-up call' for governments in terms of their stepping up to citizens' expectations for them to take the lead, particularly in North-South negotiations aimed at raising funds to pay for the losses and damages suffered on the continent. 'It could be leveraged for greater responsiveness by African governments, particularly for adaptation to climate change,' says Simpson, who co-wrote a recent review of the survey's findings. Off the beaten track – hyperconnected On the way back through his village, Ralits'a points to a two-wheeled cart that was once fire-engine red but now dulled from age and sun exposure. The letters MNR are hand-painted in a squiggly white. If he wants to get his elderly parents to hospital, he says, picking up the tow-hitch, it means hauling them off in a donkey cart like this, phoning around to find a charitable neighbour with an off-road vehicle to meet them at the nearest road and bouncing over the appalling dirt tracks before they can reach asphalt and a town. It could take hours, he says. And yet information can reach here in seconds, if someone has a phone and money to buy data. If the Makhaleng River dam goes ahead, Ralits'a and his neighbours will have to abandon their fields and the inheritance these small patches of earth represent. They'll leave behind the gravesites where their forebears rest. They'll probably lose the social threads that kept neighbours neighbourly for generations. They won't have a say in the move – it will be a forced relocation – but they are supposed to have a say in where they move to and what compensation they receive on the other side. But Ralits'a hasn't been able to get clarity from his government or the Orange-Senqu River Commission about what comes next, or when. He seems exasperated and determined in equal measure, though, and prepared to put the thumbscrews on to anyone who might have some answers. Without the phone in his pocket, though, his best efforts would probably be dead in the water. DM This article is produced for Story Ark – tales from southern Africa's climate tipping points, a collaboration with the Stellenbosch University School for Climate Studies and the Henry Nxumalo Foundation which supports investigative journalism. It is also part of the Covering Climate Now 89 Percent Project, a yearlong global media collaboration aimed at highlighting the fact that the vast majority of people in the world care about climate change and want their governments to do something about it. The project launched this week on 21 April 2025.
BBC News
10-02-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
South Africa-Trump row: Controversial land law in court challenge
A legal challenge against a controversial new land seizure law at the centre of a row with US President Donald Trump has been filed by the Democratic Alliance (DA), which is part of South Africa's coalition Expropriation Act allows for private land to be seized by the government without compensation in certain has frozen foreign aid to the country as a result, alleging that land is being confiscated government, which is made up of 10 parties led by the African National Congress (ANC), said the US president's actions were based on "a campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at misrepresenting our great nation". The ANC was forced into a power-sharing deal last year after losing its parliamentary majority, for the first time in three decades, in May's general Africans' anger over land set to explodeThe DA, which is the coalition's second largest party, has called the Expropriation Act unconstitutional, arguing that no democratic government should be given powers to seize property without said that South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa signed it into law against its ownership has long been a contentious issue in South Africa, with most private farmland owned by white people 30 years after the end of the racist system of have been continuous calls for the government to address land reform and deal with the past injustices of racial in its argument against the Expropriation Act, the majority-white DA says that the apartheid government used similar powers to remove native communities from their land, and that it wants to protect property rights for all South Africans. "This history teaches us that true redress requires protecting property rights, ensuring that no government is ever given unchecked expropriation powers ever again," the party said in a a statement last week, the DA said that it was deeply concerned about the threat by Trump to halt ANC said no land has been seized without compensation and added this would only happen in exceptional circumstances, such as if land was needed for public use and all other avenues to acquire the land had been exhausted. Trump's executive order over the weekend freezing aid said the US "cannot support the government of South Africa's commission of rights violations in its country".It also as long as South Africa "continues these unjust and immoral practices" then the US will not provide aid or White House said Washington will also formulate a plan to resettle South African farmers and their families as said US officials will take steps to prioritise humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program for Afrikaners in South Africa, who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French Ramaphosa has said he will send envoys to various countries to explain the government's recent policy changes, including the Expropriation Act. You may also be interested in: South African president signs controversial land seizure lawIs South Africa's land reform a gimmick?The groups playing on the fears of a 'white genocide' Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
