NONE BUT OURSELVES
The history of reggae in Zimbabwe echoes far beyond Bob Marley’s historic concert in the earliest days of the country’s independence. Percy Zvomuya crawls the web of influences that makes up not only the sonic cartography of a revolution fuelled by chimurenga music and reggae, but which are the very groundations of today’s Zimdancehall. Sometime […]
THE WAY I SEE IT – National Heroes Acre I
Bongani Kona Who or what haunts you? Do recurrences draw you back in time? Are you nostalgic for lost futures? Does the present seem ghostly? These questions appear in a recent issue of the PEN America journal on the subject of hauntings, a subject I’d like to turn to in this brief reflection, because, lately […]
‘GO TO THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE!’ MURIDISM IN THE LIFE OF CHEIKH ANTA DIOP
While French colonialism was at its zenith, the first quarter of the twentieth century in Senegal saw the emergence of charismatic Sufi leaders. Among them, one in particular, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, made a profound impact on Senegalese culture. Founder of the Murid Tariqa (Murid spiritual path) and of the holy city of Touba, he dominates […]
BAHUJANAFRIQUE – A PLAUSIBLE FUTURE
Sumesh Sharma traces the circuitous roots of Afro-Asiatic history, from the world’s first civilisations in Eygpt to Dravidian civilisations of southern India. Through the exhibition of the work of two radical artists, the Senegalese Issa Samb and the Indian Krishna Reddy, and the writings of the radical philosopher and physicist, Cheikh Anta Diop, he introduces […]
ARMY ARRANGEMENT
News of President Robert Gabriel Mugabe’s imminent ouster from office continues to swirl. After nearly four decades at the helm The Commander-in-Chief is set to be removed by his own army, any day now. As the country waits, Bernard Matambo traces the intrigues of factional politics within Zimbabwe’s ruling party, ZANU-PF, the mistrust and ambition which […]