MIL Africa Engine

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Ongama Mtimka, Lecturer, Nelson Mandela University

Julius Malema, the leader of South Africa’s fourth-largest party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), is a divisive figure: loved by some, hated by others.

Malema made headlines in April 2026 after a lower court found him guilty of illegal possession and discharging of a firearm and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment. He is appealing the conviction and sentence.

Within a few weeks he made headlines again when the country’s Constitutional Court ruled in a case the EFF had brought before it. The case was about the alleged theft of a large sum of foreign currency from President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa’s private game farm, Phala Phala. The court found in favour of the EFF and the other party to the case, the African Transformation Movement.

Malema hails from Seshego, a small village in Limpopo, which is one of South Africa’s poorer provinces. Born in 1981, he has become something of a generational peculiarity in the body politic of the country.

The old guard of liberation fighters who were active from the 1960s and 1970s onwards continue to dominate South Africa’s political landscape. They include leaders of parties in parliament like the African National Congress (ANC), Bantu Holomisa of the United Democratic Movement, and Patricia De Lille of the Good party, among others. But Malema broke that mould.

Few South African politicians have achieved what he has.

In 2013 Malema, together with Floyd Shivambu, announced the founding of the Economic Freedom Fighters as the main host for radical youth politics in South Africa. This was after they were fired from the ANC while serving as leaders of its youth wing.

The EFF went on to poll numbers that put it in third place in four successive elections between 2014 to 2021. In the most recent national poll in 2024, however, the party lost this spot to the former president Jacob Zuma’s new uMkhonto weSizwe Party.

Malema is a career politician who has used the political liberties bequeathed to democratic South Africa to his personal and political advantage. Yet, he continues to agitate against the emerging order, as if he himself were the victim of it, not a beneficiary high up in the distribution chain.

As a political analyst and senior lecturer, I have studied the rise of Malema and his party as part of South Africa’s ongoing leftist, worker-driven political wing. Tracking the gains and failings of the EFF, I believe there are several factors that contribute to Malema’s successes and shortcomings.

His skills at building a party and running a tight ship have been bolstered by his charisma and speech-making capability. But there have been controversies over showmanship and the use of divisive and incendiary speech. This has produced a complex and ambiguous public figure. And a party in flux.

The rise of a firebrand politician

Malema shot to national prominence in 2007 in the build-up to the major political upheaval of the democratic period, the 52nd conference of the ANC in the city of Polokwane. The league had assumed a kingmaker role in ANC succession battles in various times in the history of the liberation movement, helping remove president AB Xuma in 1949 and then president Thabo Mbeki through its active campaigning.

Events at the conference would change the trajectory of South Africa. Mbeki was president of the country as well as the party and was seeking a third term to run the party. His deputy in the party, Jacob Zuma, whom he had suspended as deputy president of the country, defeated Mbeki and delegates to the conference elected him to lead it.

After Zuma had come to power, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the ANC Youth League became critical of him.

Youth league members, including Malema, were hauled before the disciplinary structures of the ANC. According to his biographer, Fiona Forde, this was an attempt to curtail his rising influence in the party and the potential to disrupt succession.

Nonetheless, Malema’s EFF avoided the fate of quickly disintegrating, unlike other breakaway parties such as the Congress of the People.

He did this by building his party with the leaders who followed him from the Youth League. He used strong control of the party platform as its chief communicator, building a militant persona.

Malema’s wider public success can be attributed to his rhetoric, chants and tactics that have bordered at times on anarchy, war mongering and glorification of violence.

He has fashioned himself into a warrior figure who exploits black rage to gain popularity. The party stands for a more radical path to economic transformation in South Africa, particularly expropriation of land without compensation and nationalisation of mines.

But, as my research shows, his purpose appears less about waging a true revolutionary war and more about drawing political value from the perception that he could.

This creates a stark contradiction. Malema performs the role of a fearless revolutionary within a stable democracy that offers him all the securities and legal protections he needs to sustain this performance. Unlike those who rise against authoritarian regimes, he faces no mortal risks.

He appears to care deeply for the plight of the poor, yet his lifestyle suggests he is high up the distribution chain, with a taste for the finer things in life.

Many revolutionaries throughout history came from better backgrounds than the people they spoke for. Karl Marx, Frans Fanon, and Martin Luther King Jnr are but some of the examples. Yet few have balanced so overtly the “militant” brand with such personal comfort.

The primary mechanism for this warrior persona is a calculated mix of word, appearance and branding.

Malema uses the media and public events as a platform for his politicking. He has received significant media coverage as a result of his activities. But this hasn’t stopped him from frequently attacking the fourth estate.

In Parliament he has used disruptive tactics to draw attention to the party, even though it now only has 47 seats out of a total of 400.

An ambiguous future

Now that Malema has been convicted and sentenced to an effective five-year term in prison, he faces a turning point. He may be disqualified from serving as an MP and could even go to prison. This places the EFF into the realm of the ambiguous and uncertain.

Because the party has been held together by his firm grip, which clamped down on ambition, the EFF is not yet prepared for a succession. The potential loss of its leader leaves the “Red Berets”, and the rage they channel, in a state of flux.

The South African Communist Party has resolved to contest elections independently of the ANC. It remains to be seen how this will reconfigure left politics in terms of control over municipal councils in 2026. South Africa is scheduled to go to the polls in November 2026.

– Julius Malema: South Africa’s performative revolutionary is facing his biggest battle
– https://theconversation.com/julius-malema-south-africas-performative-revolutionary-is-facing-his-biggest-battle-281750

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Wafula Yenjela, Research associate, University of the Free State

At the dawn of Kenya’s colonial era in 1902, consumption of home-made alcohol was deeply embedded in society. For instance, among the Mijikenda of coastal Kenya, palm wine was integral (p.290) to traditional ceremonies, such as marriage and initiations, and in ritual offerings.

This partly explains why the colonial authorities did not consider prohibiting African home-made liquors.

As early as 1908, however, they did prohibit Africans from consuming or handling European liquors. The prohibition was ratified on the pretext of Europe’s commitment to preserving the presumed innocence of Africans. The ban on Africans’ consumption of European liquor fostered and sustained racial “social distance” between the colonised Africans and European colonisers.

The socio-political landscape began to change after the second world war. Neoliberal capitalism was becoming dominant in Africa. Multinational breweries took command of the market through advertisements, propaganda, and networking with government agencies to subdue home-made brews.

It was also a time of growing political awareness by a now sizeable educated African elite. A case in point is the mid-1940s boycott of traditional brews by African elites in Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam, agitating for access to bottled beer.

The prohibition of Africans’ consumption of bottled beer, wines and spirits in Kenya was lifted at the end of 1947. The end of the prohibition marked the beginning of condemnation, criminalisation and vicious attacks on the indigenous African alcohol industry.

Successive governments and religious groups opposed these brews directly. Multinational breweries also targeted them indirectly.

In the emerging propaganda narratives, bottled beer was presented as the consumers’ mark of civilisation, patriotism and respectability. Kenyan media, through popular advertisements, touted the notion of bottled beer as a mark of “good citizenship”.

Consumers of traditional home-made brew were identified as unrespectable, unpatriotic.

My recent research examined three novelistic portrayals of “respectable” alcohol consumption in Kenya. Meja Mwangi’s Going Down River Road (1976) and The Cockroach Dance (1979), and Charles Mangua’s Son of a Woman (1971), highlight urban class imaginaries that emerge from alcohol indulgences at the time.

Based on the analysis of the themes in these novels, I conclude that the Kenyan state’s war against traditional brews was a psychological war driven by a colonial mentality of African barbarism. State operatives’ attempts to wipe out traditional brews, their brewers and patrons sought to create the impression that Kenya was now a civilised country that consumed European liquors.

Novelistic portrayals of alcohol consumption

The novelistic representations of alcohol consumption are set in the 1970s. This was a time when Africans were emerging from a highly racialised atmosphere that was the Kenyan colony. The African elites at that time were attempting to adjust to the prevalent notions of respectability. They desired co-option in the colonial order, which they believed was the epitome of civilisation and modernity.

The consumption of bottled beer was one of the available illusory affirmations of European civilisation. Going Down River Road foregrounds clubs in the inner city: Karara Centre, The Capricorn, Small World, Eden Garden. Through these drinking centres, the novelist paints a picture of Nairobi’s 1970s economic disintegration mostly experienced by the city’s marginalised low-income population.

Patrons in Karara Centre admire bottled alcohol adverts on the centre’s walls. The owner sells African brews but displays adverts for Johnnie Walker, pilsner and Scotch whisky. Empty bottles of the European brands are displayed on the counter to reinforce the colonial hype of the superiority of European alcohols.

James, a civil servant, drifts to Karara Centre when broke. He reminds the regular patrons of the home-made alcohol that he is a patriot who builds the nation. That is, he regularly drinks bottled beer. Such sentiments reflect the power of adverts in the construction of a people’s identities.

On payday, Ocholla and Ben abandon Karara Centre for The Capricorn, a club that sells bottled beer. There, they imagine themselves to be in an advanced, modern joint, and among the respectable. But this lasts for only one day before they slip back to Karara Centre, their dependable base.

What we note here is that the colonial histories of bottled beer coupled with the advertisements contribute to a sense of inadequacy among the underdogs who aspire to be among the “civilised” through consumption of bottled beer in “modern, advanced” joints yet cannot afford it.

But in The Cockroach Dance, Meja Mwangi upsets the neoliberal capitalist posturings regarding bottled beer. While the adverts insist on bottled beer being a lubricant for lasting friendships and patriotism, events in the novel highlight the revolutionary savagery of alcohol.

Duzman Gonzaga and Toto, key characters in the novel, partake of bottled beer. Their experiences in various bottled beer joints reveal that the spaces are chaotic. After consuming the alcohol, patrons engage in violent rampages against their neighbours. Essentially, the novel demonstrates that bottled beer is not the hallmark of modernity and orderly development.

My analysis of the novels reveals that the claim that bottled beer was a mark of respectability was merely a marketing strategy. The strategy fed into the neoliberal capitalist interests of the multinational brewing and distillery giants, distributors and retailers. Consequently, traditional home-made alcohols’ criminalisation and condemnation features here as misplaced aggression.

Colonial doctrine against African brews

The sale of home-made brews in informal urban settings is sometimes treated as an act of terrorism against the state. Indeed, distilled home-made alcohol known as chang’aa has caused the deaths of an alarming number of its consumers in recent years. Laboratory tests reveal the brewers’ use of dangerous additives such as industrial methanol.

In February 2024, state operatives led by the country’s deputy president embarked on rounding up and destroying the alcohol and distillation equipment in various places. Despite crackdowns such as these, the sale and distribution continues.

The political elites’ war against the African indigenous brewery industry reveals their colonial anxiety – their own fears of regressing to barbarism.

Alcohol history in Kenya played a crucial role in the making of postmodern identities in the country. Colonial condemnation of African brews as emblematic of regression to African barbarism swayed the African psyche. The African elites who aspired to belong to a progressive postmodern world quickly learnt the colonial doctrine of condemning African brews.

The Kenyan state’s anxieties against home-made alcohol are mainly rooted in respectability politics.

– Kenya’s war on traditional alcohol: a colonial hangover about what it means to be ‘civilised’
– https://theconversation.com/kenyas-war-on-traditional-alcohol-a-colonial-hangover-about-what-it-means-to-be-civilised-281377

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By David Comas, Full Professor, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; Instituto de Biología Evolutiva (IBE – CSIC – UPF)

Sudan lies at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East. It has played a key role in human demographic movements, reflected in the diversity of its cultures and languages. Although much of the country is arid, the Nile River has long acted as a corridor for trade, facilitating human migration through the region for thousands of years.

This makes Sudan a valuable place to study human genetic diversity and evolutionary history, which has important implications for understanding population-specific adaptation and health.

The Copts are a population that migrated from Egypt from the 7th century and mixed with populations in neighbouring regions, but also remained somewhat isolated. Copts are historically distinguished by their Christian faith and their language. In Sudan their numbers are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.

As a group of evolutionary biologists we conducted a genomic study to understand the complex demographic history and identify signals of adaptive selection among Sudanese people. Our research is the first whole-genome sequencing study carried out in Sudan. This is a method scientists use to read and analyse a person’s complete DNA, the full set of genetic instructions, to understand traits, ancestry and disease risk.

Our research covered a total of 125 individuals from five population groups, defined by their language and cultural identity, known as ethnicity.

We found that Sudanese Copts showed unusually high resistance to Plasmodium vivax, the most geographically widespread malaria-causing parasite. This protection comes from a genetic variant they acquired after mixing with local Nilo-Saharan people.

Similar examples of recent adaptation to malaria after population mixing have previously been reported in Madagascar, Cabo Verde and Pakistan. But this is the first time such a process has been documented within mainland Africa itself.

The selection signal observed in Sudanese Copts is among the strongest ever detected in humans.

These findings show that strong natural selection can reshape the human genome very rapidly and that recent demographic history is crucial for understanding present-day genetic patterns. These can help explain differences in disease susceptibility across populations, informing medical research and public health strategies.

Human migrations in the region

The expansion of Arabic-speaking people in north Africa started in 639 CE in Egypt and gradually moved southward. It intensified between the 10th and 11th centuries with the migration of Bedouin groups into north Africa and Nubia. By the 16th century, the spread of Arab culture and Islamic faith contributed to the collapse of the last Christian kingdoms in the region.

But some populations remained in more isolated areas and preserved their own languages and cultural traditions. These include Nilo-Saharan-speaking groups in Darfur, around the Jebel Marra mountains, and Kordofanian speakers from the Nuba Mountains.

These mountainous regions also acted as partial genetic barriers. They limited interactions with surrounding populations. Today these populations show little or no genetic influence from the Arab expansion.

Our study confirms this pattern reported in previous studies. With the use of whole-genome sequencing data, our findings further strengthen this insight.

Adaptive selection to malaria protection

Our study indicates that around 1,000-1,500 years ago, the ancestors of Sudanese Copts intermarried with local Nilo-Saharan groups. The geographical barrier is not applied for all Nilo-Saharan speaking groups, only for those from Darfur. Copts could have admixed with other groups with a Nilo-Saharan origin but living in a more accessible area. The individuals from Darfur are the group in our dataset that better represent these ancestors, but that does not mean they are their direct ancestors. Through this mixing, they acquired the Duffy-null allele. This is a genetic variant (one of the different versions of a gene) that is widespread in Africa south of the Sahara.

This allele is a classic example of natural selection in humans, showing strong geographic differentiation between African populations and the rest of the world. The Duffy-null allele prevents the expression of the ACKR1 receptor, a protein found on red blood cells, used by P. vivax to enter and infect these cells.

Individuals who have inherited the allele lack this receptor and are therefore protected against this form of malaria.

Because the Duffy-null allele is rare among north African and Middle Eastern groups, it would not be expected to be prevalent in Copts. However, our findings show that about 89% of Sudanese Copts carry it.

Our study shows that after admixture with local populations, the variant was introduced into the Coptic population. Natural selection meant it was passed down through generations and became more common.

Having the allele gave people a survival advantage in a malaria area. Sudan reported over half million cases of P. vivax malaria in 2017. There is little or no information on regional variation, but the presence of the adaptive variant in Darfur does not necessarily mean adaptation occurred there.

This provides a clear example of a genetic population adapting to disease, occurring within the past 1,500 years.

Fixing Africa’s under-representation

Our study also identified more than one million previously unknown genetic variants, over 1,500 of which may affect genes and their functions. This highlights a major gap in global genomic databases. These are still heavily biased towards people of European ancestry, although Africa harbours the greatest genetic diversity. North Africa, in particular, has often been overlooked.

It’s important to know more about the genetic heritage of different populations because, as the Coptic resistance to malaria shows, it can guide medical research and help understand human evolution better.

Although whole-genome sequencing has transformed the study of human health and disease, truly global representation remains essential. Africa, as the birthplace of modern humans, harbours the greatest genetic diversity on Earth and should therefore be a top priority for genomic research.

This study fills important gaps in our understanding of Sudan’s and Africa’s demographic histories and increases diversity in global genetic datasets. It also shows the importance of including recently mixed populations to obtain a fuller picture of human evolution.

Hisham Y. Hassan was a co-author on the article.

– In Sudan, a migrant community reveals a resistance to malaria: the genetic study helping shape medicine
– https://theconversation.com/in-sudan-a-migrant-community-reveals-a-resistance-to-malaria-the-genetic-study-helping-shape-medicine-278806