Ayinde Barrister: Tribute to a True Exponent
By Akin Adekosan The setting was a night party somewhere in Old Yaba, Lagos, in February or March 1993. I was sitting backstage with the fuji musician Alhaji (Chief Dr) Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, still in his forties, but by now self-described as “Alhaji Agba” (Grand Old Alhaji), and was having quite a task getting him […]
The Sahara is not a Boundary
Ziad Bentahar is an assistant professor of French and Arabic at Towson University in the United States. He grew up in Morocco, where his interest in the country’s competing relationships to “the Arab world” and to rest of the continent began. His recent scholarship looks at reasons why the identities of “Arab” and “African” seem, […]
It Can Only Go Up From Here
By Nisreen Kaj For a long time, I was sure Lebanon was in the sky. I was, I think, five years old and unaware of an already-decade-long civil war raging, when I first left Lagos for Beirut. I remember flashes, here and there, like how excited I was to be in a plane for the […]
The African Affairs Bureau
By Helmi Sharawy I have pointed out in the past that the three spheres of interest in Egyptian politics (Arab, African and Islamic, in this order) mentioned in President Gamal Abdul Nasser’s booklet Philosophy of the Revolution did not indicate the real priority given to Egypt’s relations with Africa. The period 1956 –1960 was rich in […]
Rumble in the Nile
By Jamal Mahjoub The first house we lived in after moving to Khartoum had an air of danger to it. There was something there that didn’t feel right. A small rock garden by the entrance held over a dozen types of cactus. Some had big flat leaves, others furry yellow spines that stuck to your fingers […]