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At the end of every week, Tony Blair receives his “box” to review over the weekend. It is no longer the tatty, old red briefcase of a Prime Minister, but a virtual one accessible from his laptop wherever he …
Ukraine has exposed the EU’s nationalism
Over the past decade, and especially since the political shocks of 2016, there has been an increasing tendency to see both domestic and international politics in terms of a set of binary opposites: democracy and authoritarianism, liberalism and illiberalism, internationalism …
Western lockdowns still torment Africa
Nearly three months after the World Health Organization declared that Covid-19 was no longer a global health emergency, the repercussions of Africa’s policy response to the pandemic are yet to subside. Quite the opposite: as a result of its response …
Why Africa welcomed the Wagner Group
“A phased shift is happening in the world. And it’s a good thing.” That is Yevgeny Prigozhin’s bullish assessment on Telegram of the Wagner Group’s growing impact on the Global South. Under his leadership, the quasi-private mercenary force has quickly …
Who is winning the scramble for Africa?
Reports of violence breaking out in Africa rarely raise eyebrows in the West these days. Perhaps we feel it has little to do with us, whatever the West’s historical responsibilities for the continent’s problems. But as the recent events in …
How Wagner plundered Sudan’s gold
Aircraft are bombing Sudan’s capital Khartoum; soldiers are occupying civilian houses; most of the country’s hospitals have run out of basic supplies. On the surface, this might appear in the West to be just another African war — the culmination …
The threat to Nigeria’s political elite
While there is no indisputably powerful black nation on the global stage today, there is a country striving to become one. Nigeria has the economic potential to become a major world player, and is also projected to become the third-largest …
Did the West impose austerity on Africa?
The 21st century was supposed to belong to Africa: it heralded the start of the “Africa Rising” era, when the continent seemed destined to enjoy an extended period of economic growth and rising incomes. Two decades later, however, that narrative …
The history wars target Dahomey
The historical epic The Woman King, which has just opened at the US box office to an ecstatic reception, is a truly remarkable film. Set in 19th-century West Africa and starring Viola Davis and John Boyega, it’s a tale of …
The truth about Elizabeth’s empire
History matters. And it is often the case that when we talk about the past, we are really talking about the present. We are trying to explain why we are where we are. The current debates over colonialism and the …
The EU has created a new dictatorship
Seifeddine Ferjani was just ten years old when he arrived in the UK. It was 1990, and his family had been forced to flee Tunisia after his father, Said, became close to the opposition figure Rached Ghannouchi. For the next …
Anarchy rules South Africa
Personal attacks within the ANC come either by smear or funeral oration; the organisation’s strong traditions of omerta allow few other avenues. So when the former South African president Thabo Mbeki recently warned incumbent Cyril Ramaphosa that his inaction was …
Why is the Church obsessed with gay sex?
Every ten years, bishops from all over the global Anglican Communion meet up in Canterbury to argue about gay sex. They are supposed to be talking about other things as well — after all, there are 90 million Anglicans worldwide …
The future of Anglicanism is African
The future of the Christian religion in England is not to be found in the southern shires or the former mill towns of the North. Out there, the voice and tenor of the Bible is a thinning force, a hoarse …
This is how despotism ends
The absurdly long table Vladimir Putin sits at, whether with Emmanuel Macron last month, or his terrified subordinates now, was the giveaway. There is stately furniture, then there is 20 feet of thuddingly symbolic paranoia. Isolated during the pandemic, padlocked …