12 May 2023
South Africa: Whether the accusation (that Pretoria supplied arms to Moscow) is true or not, South Africa is already paying a high price: the Rand crashed and “lost more than 30 cents of its value against the dollar”.
BBC Africa Live 12 May 2023. 5:11
South Africa: IsiZulu and isiXhosa were produced as distinct languages starting two centuries before apartheid, as a result “of colonial encounters and both foreign and African ideologies of language”. Protestant missionaries and their interpreters played important roles in this process – as they needed to know in what languages to translate the Bible.
https://theconversation.com/zulu-vs-xhosa-how-colonialism-used-language-to-divide-south-africas-two-biggest-ethnic-groups-204969
West Africa/Small Weapons: The more a regime is illegitimate in West Africa, the more small weapons proliferate and the less ECOWAS’ 1998 small arms and light weapons moratorium is respected. The article takes Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana as examples to show this.
https://theconversation.com/west-africa-has-a-small-weapons-crisis-why-some-countries-are-better-at-dealing-with-it-than-others-203085
11 May 2023
Namibia/South Africa: ANC and SWAPO were very close in liberation struggle times – and they are both still in power but on a downward trend. The article analyses their fate in parallel.
https://theconversation.com/namibia-and-south-africas-ruling-parties-share-a-heroic-history-but-their-2024-electoral-prospects-look-weak-204818
Sudan: The article tells the history of the resistance committees, first formed in 2009/10. In 2021, they took centre-stage in resisting the military coup. Now, they risk “their lives to drive people to safety or to working hospitals. They (…) maintain(…) up-to-the-minute information on where medicine can be found or which roads are safe”. They have acquired a credibility like no one else ever has.
https://theconversation.com/sudans-people-toppled-a-dictator-despite-the-war-theyre-still-working-to-bring-about-democratic-change-205236
Media freedom: Based on research in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, the article tries to answer the difficult question where a limit needs to be drawn to media freedom. Hate speech and false information need to be prevented.
https://theconversation.com/media-freedom-and-democracy-africans-in-four-countries-weigh-up-thorny-questions-about-state-control-204925