History

Chukwuma Nzeogwu

Revolutionaries or Opportunists? Chukwuma Nzeogwu and the Contradictions of African Coups

As African nations continue to experience a resurgence of coups and the kind of political instability that characterized the 1960s-80s, it is important to draw lessons from the past. For the part he played in instigating one of Nigeria’s bloodiest coups, Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu is mostly remembered in infamy. But was he a misunderstood revolutionary or a bloodthirsty opportunist?
OAU AU

From the OAU to the AU Has the African Union Learned to Handle Conflicts Better?

In 60 years as the principal African organization, both as the OAU and the AU, the African Union has been tasked with managing a wide range of conflicts on the continent. The AU has made great strides in diverging from the position of the OAU on peacekeeping intervention. But efforts are all it will remain if the AU does not deal with the holdbacks that hindered the OAU.
Marcus Garvey

Ethiopian Dream Marcus Garvey, Ethiopia and the Founding of the OAU

Leading up to the founding of the Organization of African Unity in 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia emerged as an unlikely progenitor of the unprecedented moment. Ethiopia’s rise to the forefront of pan-Africanism was sustained by the influence of Black consciousness in the African diaspora, culminating with the far-reaching activism of Jamaica’s Marcus Garvey.
Frantz Fanon

Concerning Violence How Frantz Fanon Might Interpret Today’s France

Over the last few weeks, France has seen unrest at the death of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old boy of Moroccan and Algerian origin shot and killed by police officers in a Paris suburb. The events dawn on the 98th birthday of Frantz Fanon, the Martinican psychiatrist who, educated in Paris, spent a critical part of his life in Algeria supporting its nationalist liberation movement against France, seeing the revolution as a ‘bridgehead’ of a pan-African vision.