Trade Unions and Party Politics

Labour movements in Africa

Power-sector reform and regulation in Africa, Power-sector reform in Ghana, Power-sector reform in Kenya, Power-sector reform Namibia, Power-sector reform in Tanzania, Power-sector reform in Uganda, Power-sector reform in Zambia, electricity regulators in Africa, Joseph Kapika & Anton Eberhard

Aquino de Bragança was a close advisor to Samora Machel, former president of Mozambique. Both lost their lives when their plane crashed at Mbuzini in October 1986.

Born in Goa, fluent in French as well as Portuguese, and trained as a scientist, Aquino dedicated his life to the liberation struggles of southern Africa. He was a militant journalist, an academic, a diplomat, and a public intellectual. His skill in sensitive and discreet political negotiation earned him the nickname ‘the submarine’ and he played a key role in Frelimo’s early contacts with the Portuguese, leading eventually to independence in 1975.

Does the African continent want to be economically and socially sustainable as well as environmentally safe? What is the role of culture and how does it shape development strategies? In New African Thinkers: Culture at the Heart of Sustainable Development, the authors argue that culture – defined broadly as the way of life, system of values and controls, and modes of practice and expression – lies at the heart of a re-imagined Africa as a place of prosperity and socio-economic well-being, integration, and self-determination. By contextualising the discourse of development, the authors hope to influence policy and practice towards shifting the narrative from ‘one size fits all’ to a more morally justified and socially diverse model.

Biko was not only considered a ‘brilliant political theorist’, but is also considered ‘a formidable and articulate philosopher’. Biko was not simply and merely a philosopher in the manner in which Immanuel Kant was a philosopher, but a philosopher of a special kind, an important Africana existential philosopher. From Biko’s writings, speeches and interviews, Mabogo More’s view is that, philosophy is not a disembodied system of ideas nor is it a mechanical reflection about the world; rather, it is a way of existing and acting. To be a philosopher, especially an Africana existential philosopher, is not just to hold certain views, it is a way of perceiving and a way of being in the world, what Biko himself describes as ‘a way of life’. This important perspective on Biko would be of value to many Africana philosophers of existence, African philosophers, political and social thinkers, social scientists, psychologists, cultural critics, political activists, students, critical race theorists and anyone interested in the ideas that Biko presents.