The AIAC Podcast

This episode of AIAC Talk is a replay of the launch of issue 78 of Amandla! magazine, a progressive South African publication devoted to advancing radical left perspectives for social transformation. Since 2020, Africa Is a Country has been fortunate to be in partnership with Amandla! and is pleased to expand the range of content shared across both publications. The issue was published on the eve of South Africa’s local government elections, which happened on November 1. While South Africa’s political class has run out of ideas to address the manifold crises afflicting the country’s municipalities, this issue looks at the many ideas for change amongst South Africa’s progressive forces, as well as the organizers carrying out some of them. At the launch, Amandla! editorial collective member Shaeera Kalla sat down with issue contributor Ayabonga Cawe for a wide-ranging conversation about municipal decay and what can be done about it. To read the whole issue, download your copy here. Select articles have been republished on Africa Is a Country.

This week on AIAC Talk, we chat to Lassane Ouedraogo, an AIAC Fellow and lecturer at Université Joseph Ki Zerbo in Burkina Faso, and Brian Peterson, professor of history at Union College specializing in West Africa, about the trial for the assassination of Thomas Sankara, which resumes in Burkina Faso on the October 25. The dramatic and tragic details of Sankara’s murder by his comrades on October 15, 1987 are well-known. Less explored is the broader social and political context that made Sankara both noteworthy for his revolutionary ambition, but also marked for his stubborn refusal to accept the constraints of circumstance. Thirty-four years after his passing, and with the architect of his downfall, Blaise Compare, successfully ousted in 2014, Burkinabes are increasingly giving concrete political expression to Sankara’s towering legacy. Unearthing old wounds, will the trial be another catalyst for movements for change in a country still captured by political elites?

In this edition of AIAC Talk, we speak to Adam Tooze, Professor of History at Columbia University, about his latest book Shutdown: How COVID Shook the World Economy. The COVID pandemic is ongoing, and since its outset has provoked unprecedented response from governments, central banks, corporations, and civil society. Although some key fiscal and monetary responses have departed from mainstay neoliberal orthodoxies, were they pursued to keep things fundamentally the same—to restore the “normal” that was the very problem? How have these measures failed to end the pandemic, as elites continue to prioritize their own self-interests in acts of organized irresponsibility. As social and ecological crises worsen, is there hope for more egalitarian politics within and between countries? How do Africa and the global South, more broadly, fit into the escalating power struggle between China and the US?

In a widely supported move in July, Tunisia’s president Kais Saied suspended parliament, sacked the prime minister, and assumed emergency powers. In September, he suspended parts of the constitution, announced rule by decree, and appointed Najla Bouden as the country’s first female prime minister. Many Western commentators are now wondering, is this the end of Tunisian democracy?

This week on AIAC Talk, we chat to Maha ben Gadha, the economic program manager at the Tunis-based, North Africa office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. We dig into the roots of the political crisis, uncovering how Tunisia’s political class has lost legitimacy since the 2011 revolution by failing to deliver social transformation. Beyond the right to vote, Tunisians want a democracy that includes jobs and dignity too. With fiscal pressures growing and an IMF loan on the cards, will the president be able to respond to popular demands?

In this week’s episode of AIAC Talk, we speak to Professor Leswin Laubscher and Professor Derek Hook from Duquesne University, who with Miraj Desai, are editors of the upcoming book Fanon, Phenomenology, and Psychology. From twentieth-century anti-colonial movements to contemporary struggles for racial and economic justice, Fanon remains a cherished source of political guidance—but how have his psycho-analytical and philosophical insights been neglected? This is also the last episode where Sean joins us as a regular co-host. William will be taking up the baton as our solo regular host for the show.

In the kick off of Season two of AIAC Talk, Will Shoki and Sean Jacobs speak with Siba N’Zatioula Grovogui, a professor of international relations theory and law at Cornell University on the recent coup in the West African nation of Guinea-Conakry. On 5 September 2021, the country's first democratically-elected president, Alpha Condé, was deposed in a coup led by the country’s armed forces. When elected in 2010, the man once affectionately known as “Le Professeur” promised to undo the pattern of political violence that had long destabilized the country, as well as to deliver basic services and development to all. However, after successfully changing the constitution to allow him a run for a third term (and winning it in a disputed election in October 2020), the signs of creeping despotism were clearer than ever. In Africa Is a Country last April, Grovogui wrote that “Guinea, more than ever, needs an inclusive debate not only on the function of the state, but also on the nature of our institutions and therefore the very state of the republic." The debate is all the more necessary now, and on this episode, we hope to unpack the roots of Guinea’s political crisis, as well as to ask: what comes next?

Just over a year ago, we streamed the first episode of AIAC Talk. Africa Is A Country founder and editor, Sean Jacobs, and staff writer, William Shoki, got together virtually to host a show on politics and culture from an African perspective. Beginning during the first wave of COVID-19 transmission in 2020 which saw lockdowns imposed and citizens around the world compelled to remain indoors, it sought to take advantage of the migration of life online to reach captive audiences. It was shortly after when BlackLivesMatter swept the United States and conversations about, and protests against, racial injustice and inequality spread internationally, that the project developed a sense of urgency. In this episode, Sean and Will unpack the ongoing tumult in South Africa—is it simply a reactionary attack on constitutional democracy mobilized by supporters of Zuma? Or, are their underlying structural causes—like mass poverty and joblessness—which elites are exploiting for their own gain, and which arise from their failures to begin with?

We are talking film again. Viewers will remember that a few months ago, AIAC Talk explored how digital streaming platforms (like Netflix) are changing content production on the continent. On this occasion, we are interested in getting to know more about the cinematic initiatives that are working in this dynamic landscape and pushing the boundaries of what "African cinema" means, and indeed cinema as a whole.

In May 2020, Africa Is A Country awarded ten fellowships to young, mostly African, writers and since then have been working with the inaugural class of fellows to support the creation and publication of their original work. In this episode of AIAC Talk, we profile two fellows and their projects: Youlendree Appasamy, a freelance writer and editor from South Africa, whose work explores South African Indian class identities, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal province; and Liam Brickhill, a freelance journalist from Zimbabwe, who unearths unique stories on Zimbabwean cricket.

On 16 June 2021, Facebook announced that it had removed a network of fake accounts in Ethiopia that had been targeting domestic users ahead of the country's general elections. Facebook linked the accounts to individuals associated with the country’s Information Network Security Agency. The accounts posted positive stories about embattled Prime Minister Abyi Ahmed and his Prosperity Party, while ragging on opposition groups and parties.  Meanwhile, in South Africa, a senior journalist at one of the country's mainstream newspapers published a story about a black woman in South Africa's most populous province, Gauteng, giving birth to 10 children and thus breaking a Guinness World Record. The story turned out to be fake and probably linked to factional fights in the ruling ANC, but many of the journalist's social media supporters dismissed his critics as racist (he is black). Media scholar Herman Wasserman points out that in an era where disinformation is rampant, where an overwhelmed public craves clear, authoritative information and where trust in the media is low, disinformation has devastating consequences for the already fragile reputation of news media and our ability to make sense of the world. Wasserman, a professor of media and film studies at the University of Cape Town, joins us to talk about the results of a study he carried out on misinformation on the continent. The situation is worse than you think. Also on the show is Grieve Chelwa, a contributing editor at AIAC, and Inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute on Race and Political Economy at The New School, to remember the life and legacy of Zambia's first president Kenneth Kaunda (1924—2021).