Category
Government intervention in the economy simply does not work. It is a mystery, then, why so many otherwise intelligent people keep calling for more of the same. After years of low growth (12 years now) concurrent with government fiscal deficits …
Continue reading
Along with Frederick Douglass, the most famous slave in history was probably Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was an Igbo, though there was no way for him to know that until his own Middle Passage. As an African ethnonym, the word Igbo …
Continue reading
One of Jacob Olupona’s earliest memories in Massachusetts is of nearly freezing in his apartment as a graduate student at Boston University during the great snowstorm
…
When the Berlin Wall was pierced on 9 November 1989, world attention was on Europe. But the collapse of the Soviet Union that followed resonated across Africa and globally. The 30th anniversary offers an opportunity to reflect on these forces …
Continue reading
Twenty-five years ago, on the eve of democratic transition, South African women were optimistic. They were confident of being included in democratic processes that would ensure greater representation for women and more spaces in the state to promote gender equality.…
Continue reading
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda recently rekindled the African quest for digital transformation at the Transform Africa Summit held in Kigali. President Kagame and President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya called on other African leaders to speedily invest in technology across …
Continue reading
Africa remains an enigmatic paradox: a continent rich in mineral resources yet so desperately poor. But the paradox is only superficial: Africa is poor because she is not free.
Only 10 of the 54 African countries can be labeled economic …
Continue reading
More than a century after 48,000 people died in concentration camps in what’s known as the South African War between 1899 and 1902 – or the Anglo-Boer War – the events of that period are back in the headlines.
The …
Continue reading
The recent announcement that a British museum will return two stolen locks of hair from a 19th-century Ethiopian king was hailed as an “exemplary gesture of goodwill” by the Ethiopian Embassy in London. The hair was cut from Emperor Tewodros …
Continue reading
Equating capitalism with colonialism, Africa’s nationalist leaders rejected it and adopted socialism in the 1960s. Foreign companies were nationalized, a string of state-owned enterprises was established and a plethora of state controls on rent, prices, imports, and foreign exchange were …
Continue reading
