The system of racial oppression in South Africa touched every aspect of life here. As a result, over time, black South Africans and their allies built the freedom struggle in four arenas of action: mass action, underground organization, armed struggle, and international mobilization. In this way, each aspect of the system would be met with more…
Adelaide Steedley interviews Selby Semela and Barney Mokgatle, two leaders of the Soweto Uprising: What can we learn about our own lives from ordinary people who became heroic in theirs? There are times in history, as in life, when events seem unfair, chaotic, surreal, even sublime. While we could ponder them all day, at some more…
Africa’s largest informal settlement is owned not by an enormous enclave of squatters transgressing life’s deprivations and hardships. Kibera is owned by the Kenyan government (a fact disputed), and home to an estimated 300 000 to 1 million people (also disputed, and the exact same estimate often given about Soweto, a range so wide it means more…
