A historian counters the popular view that the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall set in motion talks to end apartheid. The process was unstoppable by then.
Joao Lourenco, president of Angola. His promise to hold municipal elections this year has come to naught.
Chesenot/Getty Images
Citizens have been denied their right to elect officials at the grassroots and this has allowed the central government to maintain rigid control of the country’s regions.
The post-apartheid system of participatory democracy is generally considered to have failed.
EPA-EFE/Yeshiel Panchia
The first Islamist attack carried out by Mozambicans in the country is particularly surprising given the pride the country takes in its sound and relaxed inter-religious relations.
Violent service delivery riot near Soweto, Johannesburg.Millions of poor South Africans live in shacks.
EPA/Nic Bothma
The National Question cannot be resolved solely through South Africa’s constitution. There’s potential for a far more radical transformative project than traditional liberalism.
In this April 15, 2017, file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves during a military parade in Pyongyang, North Korea.
(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)
China could win unprecedented global credibility by emerging as the champion of an international effort that fixes the North Korea problem once and for all. Does it have the moxie?
Documents released ahead of the policy conference of South Africa’s embattled governing ANC show it hasn’t the guts or internal balance of forces, for self-correction and renewal.
Delegates at the launch of the South African Federation of Trade Unions.
The Star/Nokuthula Mbatha
South Africa’s newest trade union federation, Saftu, comes at a time of declining political influence by unions, compared to during the struggle against apartheid. They are also seen as elitist.
The problem for Jacob Zuma’s political theology is that far too many members of South Africa’s ruling ANC have been experiencing a dramatic loss of faith in a party they see as no longer righteous.
#FeesMustFall, and its demands for zero university fee increases, is in a second cycle of mass resistance in South Africa.
Mike Hutchings/Reuters
Employing a unique literary method that blurred the genres of oral history and documentary prose, the Nobel Prize for Literature winner told the stories of a traumatized people.
The Economic Freedom Fighters’ entry into parliament is the most dramatic example of political realignment in South Africa.
Reuters/Skyler Reid
The Marikana massacre of 2012 triggered strikes across South Africa and political realignment. But could this, and the formation of the United Front to rival the ANC, have long-term significance?
South African Communist Party general secretary and South Africa’s higher education minister Blade Nzimande addresses the party’s 3rd special congress in Soweto in June.
Sowetan/Vathiswa Ruselo
The SACP is the oldest communist party in Africa, formed in 1921. It is one of only 20 parties which survived the anti-communist purge post independence. Its membership went through cycles over years.
Anti-communist groups recently attacked victims of Indonesia’s 1965 anti-communist purge, unfurling banners with violent messages. This one reads ‘Crush the PKI from the motherland!!!’.
Joint Secretariat on '65