Africa Unleashed

further reveal the hypocrisy of claims to free speech, all the while policing dissent.

None of this should surprise us. The same power that funded coups, branded liberation movements as criminal, and preached 'democracy' and 'free speech' now shrinks the space for anti-imperialist voices at home.

Further, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s exile in Russia and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s five-year imprisonment before a 2024 deal won his release,

to violent crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests under both Biden and Trump, the state’s bipartisan hostility to dissent is evident.

From a wave of investigations and disciplinary actions, including firings of teachers and doctors for criticising assassinated right-wing figure Charlie Kirk (1993-2025),

This movement was among several that laid the foundation for broader civil liberties in the US, but its legacy is now under strain as dissent faces renewed suppression.

Sparked by the arrest of graduate mathematics student Jack Weinberg for setting up a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) table, students mobilised en masse, surrounding a police car until he was released.

Free Speech Movement Day: A Reflection

The Free Speech Movement, born 61 years ago this week at the University of California-Berkeley, symbolised a student-led struggle against state repression.

he was known to many as ‘The Prophet.’ Find out why his legacy matters by swiping through these slides.

Nat Turner was one of the most significant figures in the struggle against US slavery. Born on a Virginia plantation on 2 October 1800 and executed on 11 November 1831 after leading the most sustained slave revolt in US history,

Africans collectively declared, ‘Enough is enough,’ echoing the unity they displayed against Italy when Mussolini sought to conquer Ethiopia.

Having witnessed the West’s devastation of Muammar Gaddafi’s (1942-2011) Libya and the assassinations of the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba (1925-61) and Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara (1949-87) before that,

Outraged by former US Africa Command (AFRICOM) General Michael Langley’s verbal assault on Traoré, tens of thousands worldwide took to the streets in protest, rallying under the banner, ‘Hands off Burkina Faso!’

Ninety years later, the global African community again showed its support for Africa by rallying in solidarity with Burkina Faso and its revolutionary leader, Ibrahim Traoré.

In Harlem, New York City, where many Black people resided, long lines formed as men and women signed up to take up arms and travel to Ethiopia in solidarity with Ethiopians.

Thousands of Black people around the globe rallied to combat the Italian invaders.

For Black people, Ethiopia represented a potent symbol of African independence and sovereignty, motivating them to join the fight for Ethiopia’s military.

the only African state to have successfully resisted colonisation.

However, the Italians underestimated the solidarity amongst Africans in support of Ethiopia, which crossed borders and reached as far as the Caribbean, South Africa, and the United States.

Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) harboured grand ambitions of restoring the Roman Empire, and his well-equipped military was set on avenging the humiliation of the 1896 defeat while establishing Italy’s rule in Ethiopia,

While Guinea remains a member of the West African regional bloc, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), it maintains good relations with the anti-colonial Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Conakry serves as a vital hub for trade with Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso.

After Touré’s death in 1984, Guinea entered a turbulent period marked by foreign-backed military coups and contested rule.

In 2021, French-and US-trained Mamady Doumbouya led a coup against Alpha Condé, who had attempted to extend his rule for a third term.

(1909-72) as honorary co-president in 1966 following a CIA-backed coup that ousted him.

In 1975, Touré allowed Soviet and Cuban aircraft to use Guinea’s airfields during the Angolan liberation struggle in support of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).

Throughout the 1960s, France backed repeated attempts to remove Guinea’s first president, Ahmed Sékou Touré (1922-84).

Under Sékou Touré, it turned defiance into solidarity by sheltering deposed Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah

As French staff withdrew, they cut telephone lines and emptied hospitals and army camps of equipment and supplies. French companies siphoned capital out of the country, while intelligence services flooded the economy with counterfeit currency.

France retaliated with vengeance on all fronts: Diplomatic, economic and military. It froze bank credit, cut aid and cooperation programmes, and re-routed ships carrying food and medicine.

This West African country boasts a rich history of anti-imperialism and a commitment to Africa’s liberation.

In 1958, the state became the first territory in French West Africa to break free from colonial rule, rejecting membership in the so-called French Community.

Did you know that Guinea was the only French colony in the mid-20th century to contest continued French control?

This week, Guinea is celebrating 67 years of independence from French colonial rule, which officially ended on 2 October 1958.

He considers the legal attacks against him over the years as part of a broader effort to protect entrenched white privilege and suppress Black liberation politics.

It is against this backdrop that Malema has doubled down on the EFF’s anti-imperialist vision, with land expropriation without compensation at its core.

still own 72 per cent of private farmland, while Black South Africans, who make up 81 per cent of the population, control only a fraction.

At the heart of this conflict is South Africa’s deep racial wealth divide, where three decades after apartheid, white South Africans, who make up less than 8 per cent of the population,

AfriForum, a right-wing lobby defending European settlers in South Africa, has consistently clashed with Malema and the EFF, a decolonial, anti-imperialist opposition party in Parliament.