MILKING A DYING COW
Zimbabwe’s economic crises have played out in the press, in political and parliamentary exchanges, and on the streets, among the people most immediately affected. At a glance, it appears like a no-win situation. But, foreign companies, especially South African retailers, are making a handsome profit from Zimbabwe’s demise. Simbarashe Mumera boards the night vendor bus […]
SUNGURA STORIES
Ranga Mberi travels back in musical time to the 1980s and 1990s, the era of sungura music. Dubbed the “authentic sound of Zimbabwe”, sungura weaved together Congolese rumba with Zimbabwean jiti and Tanzanian kanindo. Rooted deeply in the struggles, heartbreak and suffering of the times, but also in joy and celebration of common people – […]
PORTRAITS OF POWER
The president’s portrait holds a venerable position in post-independence Zimbabwe. Not unlike its colonial predecessor’s (and in keeping with entrenched social hierarchies and royal patronage that persist in Britain), it looks down upon the toiling citizenry, casts its gaze on every space imaginable, and frames the notion of identity. Farai Mudzingwa writes about the power […]
Chimurenga Library on Circulations
The Chimurenga Library is an ongoing invention into knowledge production and the archive that seeks to re-imagine the library as a laboratory for extended curiosity, new adventures, critical thinking, daydreaming, socio-political involvement, partying and random perusal. Embodying the proposition evoked by the title by “finding oneself,” as Moses Molelekwa put it, on library shelves and […]
No Pass, But Nine Passports
In her 30 years of exile, Miriam Makeba redefined pan Africanism – performing and speaking around the world, informing the Black Power movement, forwarding the liberation struggle, and participating in events that shaped public cultures on the continent and around the world. She was a woman with nine passports and honorary citizenship in 10 countries. […]