For Africans and diasporans, learning about their heritage is important. But it remains to be seen how this will translate into a sustained continental and diasporan engagement.
Statue of Kwame Nkrumah at his mausoleum in Accra.
Flickr
Barack Obama was asked to give the Mandela Lecture because he represents what the global liberation struggle icon stood for. He struck the right chord.
African leaders at the closing of the 26th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, in 2016.
EPA/Solan Kolli
The transformation of the EU-Africa summit series into the EU-AU summit is more than just a change of name. It reflects the increasing recognition of the AU as an international actor.
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.
Funeral of Namibian liberation struggle hero Herman Andimba Toivo Ya Toivo at Heroes’ Acre in Windhoek.
GCIS
Namibian hero and former Robben Island prisoner Toivo ya Toivo was part of a generation who contributed to the struggles against apartheid and colonialism in the region.
Crossing borders have always been tough for Africans.
Peter Andrews/Reuters
For real integration to happen, the Pan African Parliament needs to be imbued with supranational law-making powers. But national sovereignty is something that many states are reluctant to give up.
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.
A member of Ghana’s navy attends celebrations in Accra to mark the country’s 60th independence anniversary.
EPA/Christian Thompson
Ghana is very much the African rising star 60 years after independence with an exemplary record in health and education. But it’s struggling like many of its peers to meet social and economic targets.
Morocco’s return to the African Union raises questions about the body’s continued commitment to anti-colonialism and its pan-Africanism.
The African Union sees Africa as a sealed off geographic entity. Yet it remains remarkably quiet about the many bits of Africa that are geographically part of it but do not consider it their home.
Hopeton Dunn, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
South African-Jamaican intellectual, activist and author Peter Abrahams died in January 2017. He will be revered for his contributions to the anti-colonial struggles in Africa and the Caribbean.
Mahatma Gandhi figurine at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Vienna.The call to remove his statute from the University of Ghana has reignited debate about his legacy.
shutterstock
Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most influential personalities in history, celebrated for his advocacy of non-violent resistance. But his dark side is now receiving increased attention.
South Africa and Ethiopia are part of a wave of protests sweeping across parts of Africa that are known as Africa Uprising.
Reuters/Tiksa Negeri
The growing revolt against South Africa’s president, amid state capture allegations, is not an isolated event, but part of a much wider pan-African uprising led by the continent’s disaffected youth.
University authorities in South Africa have agreed to most fees protesters’ demands. Yet, the protesters keep moving the goalposts. Do they want more than fees to fall?
Nelson Mandela, accompanied by his wife Winnie, walks out of the Victor Verster prison on February 11, 1990.
Ulli Michel/Reuters
The foundation founded by Nelson Mandela in 1999 has done a major revision - it has written off most of his reign as comprising “grand symbolic gestures”.
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.