News & Events, February '03

Takes

Mukoma wa Ngugi on Africa and the war on terror

Suren Pillay on Big Leaders, little leaders, and forked tongues

Goddy Leye and Iba Ndiaye Diadji debate on the relevancy of African contemporary art…in Africa

Pumla Dineo Gqola on being proudly Safrikan…in Germania

Sandile Dikeni (for Vernon February)

Croc-e-moses on friends and enemies

Babacar Gueye on rap music and politics in Dakar

Conversations

Hugh Masekela: "The only thing disco is all about is love. I love you baby. We'll boogie all night. Love is the thing. Shake your moneymaker. Do it to me tonight. Do it to me three times…Now we're trapped, man. Disco is a social tranquilizer. You don't recognise other things. We can't boogie for the whole year." (talking to Mothobi Mutloatse – circa 1981)

Four Kenyan writers and artists reasoning around the fire: "This [Ryszard] Kapuscinsky has some other liberal pretensions with which he camouflages his bullshit. In Europe he is the authority, the darling of leftist white Afriphiles. I was being told that atone of the local International Press bureaus, newcomers are encouraged to read Kapuscinsky to find out how it should be done…man. I would like one hour with that guy on tape, so he can justify himself…"

Sechaba Morojele: "large numbers of the perpetrators are meeting victims and are very casual. It can be like, 'Hey, remember me? I am that guy who killed your father or your husband, or your mother." (talking to Sean Jacobs and André Pinard)