Reading time: 5 minutes
The book A Far-Away War: Angola 1975 – 1989, about the war waged by apartheid South Africa against its neighbour, has attracted the attention of historians and those who fought in it. More than a quarter of a century after it ended, the war is still remembered by many who were touched by it in one way or other.
Reading time: 13 minutes
In this blog post I’m going to draw on the Cabinet Papers to explore the British Government’s response to the arrival of Black GIs in Britain during the Second World War. I refer to government records and other primary sources of the time which use terminology which we now consider offensive, for example, ‘coloured troops’ and ‘negroes’.
Several years ago I recall hearing a story about villagers in the West Country during the Second World War refusing to go along with a local US Army segregation order that Black GIs were excluded from the local pub and that only white American troops could use it – the villagers protested and effectively overturned this order. I’m pretty certain that it was the singer-songwriter and activist Billy Bragg that related this story to me, when I had the pleasure to meet him some years back. The story made a big impression on me and I thought, one day, I must follow this thread up. Now I have, and here are the fruits of my research so far.
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Reading time: 5 minutes
Exactly 75 years ago, Australians dressed in steel helmets and khaki shorts, and often not much else, sat in weapon pits in the Egyptian sun about 120 kilometres west of Alexandria. They were preparing for what history would call the second battle of El Alamein, the great offensive planned by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery. In the summer heat of July 1942, his predecessor, Archibald Wavell, had held the German–Italian drive towards Egypt, a battle in which the 9th Australian Division had played a notable part. Now, after gathering more troops, tanks and guns, Montgomery was ready to launch his Eighth Army against General Erwin Rommel’s Panzer Armée Afrika, a commander and a force admired and respected even by their adversaries.
Reading time: 5 minutes
536 is the current consensus candidate for worst year in human history. A volcanic eruption, or possibly more than one, somewhere in the northern hemisphere would seem to have been the trigger. Wherever it was, the eruption precipitated a decade-long “volcanic winter”, in which China suffered summer snows and average temperatures in Europe dropped by 2.5℃. Crops failed. People starved. Then they took up arms against each other.
Reading time: 6 minutes
The Castle is situated on the West African coast, formerly and notoriously known as the “White Man’s Grave”. The castle’s origins can be traced to a lodge built by Swedes in 1652. Nine years later, the Danish built a fort on the site and called it Fort Christiansborg (“Christian’s Fortress”), named after the King of Denmark, Christian IV.
Reading time: 6 minutes
European museums are under mounting pressure to return the irreplaceable artefacts plundered during colonial times. As an archaeologist who works in Africa, this debate has a very real impact on my research. I benefit from the convenience of access provided by Western museums, while being struck by the ethical quandary of how they were taken there by illegal means, and by guilt that my colleagues throughout Africa may not have the resources to see material from their own country, which is kept thousands of miles away.
Reading time: 6 minutes
In March 2022, overshadowed by British asylum policies, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published its findings about the state of free speech in Rwanda. In 2018, the government of President and “darling tyrant” Paul Kagame adopted the latest version of a law making punishable, by up to seven years imprisonment, public speech questioning the events and statistics related to the 1994 Genocide. However, the law lacks clear definitions and its vague language is seen as instrumental in prosecuting legitimate debate, in particular over crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), of which Kagame was the commander. Prosecution of legitimate historical discourse took place under earlier versions of the law, but in the lead-up to the thirtieth anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Kagame government has increased its efforts to combat “genocide ideology.”
Reading time: 7 minutes
A relatively unknown name in contemporary Britain, Sir Seretse Khama left an indelible mark on southern African politics. From 1966, he served four terms as the first president of newly independent Botswana. Under Khama, Botswana took immense economic and socio-political strides, leaving a multiracial, democratic, and prosperous nation behind him. He provided a real-world example of how racial equality could function in a part of the world that saw apartheid South Africa just beyond its southern border.
Reading time: 7 minutes
Africa is often referred to as the cradle of humankind – the birthplace of our species, Homo sapiens. There is evidence of the development of early symbolic behaviours such as pigment use and perforated shell ornaments in Africa, but so far most of what we know about the development of complex social behaviours such as burial and mourning has come from Eurasia.
However, the remains of a child buried almost 80,000 years ago under an overhang at Panga ya Saidi cave in Kenya is providing important new details.
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Reading time: 8 minutes
Hundreds of women served with the British Army in East Africa, and their role in the conflict goes largely untold.
Reading time: 6 minutes
The Woman King is a big-budget Hollywood movie that has been anticipated since 2018, when US star Viola Davis was announced as the lead in the story of the “amazons” of Dahomey. Rising South African star Thuso Mbedu also takes a key role in the film, which has premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is heading to cinemas worldwide.
Reading time: 6 minutes
Remember when Australians paid in shillings and pence? New research suggests the words for these coins and other culturally important items and concepts are the result of close contact between the early Germanic people and the Carthaginian Empire more than 2,000 years ago.
