https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/History-Slam-147.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham Influence debuts tonight on CBC and GEM at 8 pm (8:30 NT) and 9 ET/PT on documentary Whenever I teach a course about popular culture, the final class always includes a discussion about the importance of being critical consumers of content. We are bombarded with information on a daily basis, whether… Read more »
By Aaron Boyes and Sean Graham Remember December? It was only 4 months ago, despite how long ago it feels. When we convened for our Annual(?) Year in Review (100 Years Later)™ we wrote that 2019 had been “a slog” and that “consuming news this year has rarely left us with an overwhelming feeling of optimism.” Then 2020 came along… Read more »
By Rachel Hatcher [Originally published by teleSUR and the first post in a series titled “Learning and unlearning history in South Africa’s public spaces”] Students rewriting the history of South Africa on buildings and statues at the University of the Free State is an important act of restorative justice. In recent years, students in South Africa, Chile, Québec, and elsewhere,… Read more »
By Elizabeth Vibert The people of Jomela village in eastern Limpopo Province, South Africa, feel like canaries in a coal mine. The local metaphor features a snail collecting ashes. When I last visited Jomela in April and May, sixty-five-year-old vegetable farmer Daina Mahlaule told me that home food gardens in the village produced “nothing, nothing at all” in the recent… Read more »
By Susanne M. Klausen It’s been an exciting and inspiring week in South Africa watching the student movement #FeesMustFall in action. (The name builds on the recent successful #rhodesmustfall campaign that resulted in the removal of the Cecil Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town, or the UCT). The students have placed the demand for free, quality education front and… Read more »
In 1999, Nelson Mandela declared “the day should not be far off, when we shall have a people’s shrine, a Freedom Park, where we shall honour with all the dignity they deserve, those who endured pain so we should experience the joy of freedom.” As you walk around the bustling streets of South Africa’s capital city, Pretoria, you would never… Read more »
