Armed struggle played a subsidiary role in the ANC’s fight against apartheid in South Africa. The tactics that were most decisive in securing freedom were those that didn’t involve organised violence.
Idyllic Mauritius is the only African country ranked in the favourable category of ‘more stable’ in the latest survey on state fragility.
Reuters/Darrin Zammit Lupi
The Fragile States Index leaves more questions than it answers. Like similar global surveys, its credibility hinges on reliable data. But how sound are its statistics and their interpretation?
Baby Lurky, whose family was displaced by Boko Haram in the northeast region of Nigeria, sleeps at a camp in Adamawa State.
Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde
The rise in the number of people fleeing Boko Haram terror calls for urgent amendments to Nigeria’s constitution to provide legal protection to the country’s millions of internally displaced citizens.
Tshwane mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa unsuccessfully pleads for calm with angry ANC supporters.
EPA/Ihsaan Haffejee
Some of the factors behind the riots by ANC supporters in Tshwane are not new. They include gripes within the governing party about its process for choosing mayors and divisions over Jacob Zuma.
Supporters angered by the ANC’s choice of a mayoral candidate went on the rampage in Tshwane, South Africa, .
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The increase in rioting ahead of municipal elections in South Africa, such as that in Pretoria, suggests that the country’s general election in 2019 could be more violent than previous elections.
Residents of Zandspruit, a shanty town north-west of Johannesburg, during a violent protest against the removal of illegal electricity connections.
EPAKevin Sutherland
The brouhaha over South Africa’s upcoming high-stakes municipal elections hides critically important questions about the continued relevance of local government amid growing public disaffection.
South African President Jacob Zuma inflated the size of his cabinet, making it among the largest in the world.
GCIS
Although not a panacea, cutting down the number of deputy ministers would go a long way to helping government get its finances onto a more stable footing.
Soweto schoolchildren protest against Afrikaans in 1976.
Anti-Apartheid Movement Archive, Bodleian Library, Oxford UK
Forty years after the students uprisings of 1976, South Africa is again in the midst of a political movement led by students.They have changed the tenor and shape of political discussion around education.
A protester smokes marijuana during a march calling for the legalisation of cannabis in Cape Town.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
Despite protests in South Africa being largely peaceful, municipalities are placing unreasonable restrictions on the right to protest, which sometimes amounts to a veto of that right.
A recent protest by South African schoolchildren which had to be quelled by an under-resourced police force.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
It is exactly forty years since the Soweto uprising in June 1976 where the South African police met the students with brutal force. How much has changed in terms of policing?
Twentieth-century political thinker and fighter against colonialism and imperialism, Frantz Fanon, left an indelible mark on history.
Tony Webster/Flickr
Leo Zeilig, School of Advanced Study, University of London
For the revolutionary Frantz Fanon it was not enough to celebrate the achievements of decolonisation. It was necessary to educate, to strain at the limits of national freedom and to provoke debate.
An Eritrean refugee at ‘The Jungle’ camp in the port of Calais. Thousands of Eritreans flee repression at home to seek a better life elsewhere.
EPA/Stephanie Lecocq
Eritrea achieved independence 25 years ago amid high expectations for its future. Today, the country’s youth make up a large portion of the refugees risking their lives for a better future in Europe.
African leaders meet at the African Union Summit held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2015.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
Silencing the guns in Africa by 2020 will require a Herculean effort on the part of the AU Peace and Security Council, whose remit is to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts.
Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), greets supporters at the launch of the party’s local election manifesto in Soweto.
EPA/Cornell Tukiri
Understandable anger about the excessive inequality in South Africa lies at the heart of the rise of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters. The problem is how the party wants to address these issues.
South African President Jacob Zuma, flanked by ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe (left) and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
A key question ahead of local government elections in South Africa is whether the African National Congress will retain control of seven of the country’s eight metropolitan municipalities.
A refugee illegally crosses the border from Zimbabwe into South Africa.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Zimbabwean migrants’ journey to South Africa is fraught with danger. But the emptiness of life in their country makes it imperative to risk life and limb to seek a better life across the river.
Members of the Senegalese anti-government youth movement Y'en a Marre (We’re Fed Up), in Dakar.
Reuters/Joe Penney
Press freedom has changed little in the past decade. If the African Union is to commit to the principles of democracy, it needs to do more to uphold freedom of expression and protects its journalists.
A woman cheers during Freedom Day celebrations in South Africa.
Reuters/Mujahid Safodien
South Africa’s transition to democracy was based on the values of inclusive politics, reconciliation, human rights and constitutionalism. Twenty-two years on, how has the country fared?
Yarik Turianskyi is Manager of the Governance and African Peer Review Mechanism Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs and guest lecturer in African Governance and Eastern European Politics, University of Pretoria