Unwritten Lives

"Far above all other hunted whales, his is an unwritten life." Moby Dick

Posts tagged with: South Africa Show All

Arsenal is an African club

May 24, 2026 by Sean Henry Jacobs

Arsenal is an African club
Two boys — both ardent Arsenal fans — in the Ethiopian town of Sendafa, September 2007. Photo: Antony Robbins via Flickr

Today, Arsenal is viewed as a open, welcoming, diverse, and above all as representing democracy, antiracism, and forward-looking values. Yet the club spent years (from 2018 until 2025) advertising one of Africa’s most efficient dictatorships through its “Visit Rwanda” sponsorship. Although Arsenal’s sleeve sponsorship agreement with Rwanda has now come to an end, the controversy surrounding the partnership has left unresolved questions

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Delete Genocide Tech – Public Meeting Tour

May 23, 2026 by Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Liverpool, Cardiff and London: 15/06/2026 - 17/06/2026 12:00

Delete Genocide Tech – Public Meeting Tour
Image: Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Israel uses AI and surveillance technology in its genocide and apartheid against Palestinians, and the companies developing the tech have contracts here in Britain. Our new Delete Genocide Tech campaign, launching in June, will force complicit tech companies out of the government, local councils, universities and workplaces. Join the public meetings in Liverpool, Cardiff and London to learn more, including how you can get involved! BOOK YOUR TICKETS

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Nakba 78: Land You Have To Kill For Isn't Yours

May 15, 2026 by Ishtiyaq Shukri

There is no ceasefire, no justice, no peace, just continued Israeli military occupation of Palestine and escalating genocide in Gaza, Jerusalem, and the occupied West Bank

Nakba 78: Land You Have To Kill For Isn't Yours
Palestine solidarity demonstration, London, 11 November 2023. Photo: Ishtiyaq Shukri.

It has been 78 years since one of the most catastrophic events in modern times: the violent expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The Nakba, or the great catastrophe, is commemorated annually on 15 May. At Nakba 78, there is no ceasefire, no peace, no justice. There is only genocide, continued Israeli military occupation, and increasing conflagration across the region. In addition to the original Palestinian dispossession of 1948, Nakba commemorations also highlight the continued displacement, loss, and statelessness experienced by millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), in Palestinian refugee camps across the Middle East, and in the global Palestinian diaspora around the world today.

Ishtiyaq Shukri first travelled to the occupied West Bank in 2005. For twenty years, Palestine has remained a recurring theme in his writing. His work forms part of the vast catalogue of Israeli atrocities, appalling and unchallenged violations of international law, which over decades, have culminated in the genocide currently unfolding in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and the systematic erasure by Israel of Palestinians from the across the OPT.

For Nakba 78, we are republishing his 2005 travel journal, Palestine Journey, along with "...And 1 Can of Sardines", an extract from his novel, I See You, accompanied for the first time by photos from Shukri's personal archive from the time.

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Poem | To the people of the UK: You have voted. Here is what will happen next

May 11, 2026 by Ishtiyaq Shukri

Poem | To the people of the UK: You have voted. Here is what will happen next
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

With heavy losses for the governing Labour party, and huge gains for the rightwing populist party, Reform UK, the results of last week's local elections on 7 May have reverberated through the UK like an earthquake. Here is what will happen next

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Is Catherine West MP a war criminal?

May 11, 2026 by Ishtiyaq Shukri

Is Catherine West MP a war criminal?
Catherine West, Labour MP for Hornsey & Friern Barnet, Haringey, north London. Photo: Catherine West

The Labour MP, Catherine West, has challenged the leadership of Keir Starmer. West, my local MP in the north London constituency of Hornsey and Friern Barnet, has much to answer for the genocide in Gaza.

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Struggle and archive. Albie: A Strange Alchemy

May 10, 2026 by Sean Henry Jacobs

Struggle and archive. Albie: A Strange Alchemy
Anti-apartheid activist, author, and former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Albie Sachs. Photo: The Albie Collection

The South African project remains unfinished. Stories like Sachs’s not only testify to the hard-won gains of the past but also confront us with the urgent, unfinished work still ahead to achieve justice, dignity, and equality for all.

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JM Coetzee declines to attend Jerusalem writers festival over Israel’s ‘genocidal campaign in Gaza’

May 7, 2026 by Sian Cain

JM Coetzee declines to attend Jerusalem writers festival over Israel’s ‘genocidal campaign in Gaza’
The 86-year-old is arguably the world’s most decorated living author. Photo: The Guardian/Getty

Nobel laureate says he previously considered himself a supporter of Israel, but ‘the campaign of annihilation in Gaza has changed all that’

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Standards in public office, respecting right to criticise

April 22, 2026 by Haringey Liberal Democrats

Standards in public office, respecting right to criticise
British Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. Photo: The Guardian/Leon Neal/Getty Images

Dear Home Secretary, We are writing on behalf of constituents in Crouch End, Haringey, who have asked us to raise concerns about remarks you made at a public event recently.

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Calling for a public apology from UK Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood MP

April 22, 2026 by Ishtiyaq Shukri

Calling for a public apology from UK Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood MP
British Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood MP. Photo: UK Parliament, House of Commons

On Monday 20 April Shabana Mahmood told “white liberal” hecklers to “f**k right off”. Under no circumstances is this acceptable. With standards in public life in the UK slipping, community cohesion disintegrating, and democratic procedures eroding, Mahmood must be held to account for her abusive language. I have written to my local north London MP, Catherine West, and local councillors, calling for an apology from the home secretary, because everybody has the right to feel safe.

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Transcript and Recording | Palestine and the World: Struggle and Solidarity. Public lecture by Professor Steven Salaita (AUC), delivered at the Centre for the Study of Race, Class and Empire, Queen Mary University of London, Wednesday, 8 April 2026.

April 13, 2026 by Steven Salaita

Transcript and Recording | Palestine and the World: Struggle and Solidarity. Public lecture by Professor Steven Salaita (AUC), delivered at the Centre for the Study of Race, Class and Empire, Queen Mary University of London, Wednesday, 8 April 2026.
Image: “Papa Giving a Speech,” Five-Year-Old artist, Steven Salaita

"Whenever I hear a Western pundit or politician go on about 'democracy,' I say to myself, 'Oh hell, give it a rest. Nobody’s buying that crap anymore.' I think that people serious about Palestine and decolonization more broadly react skeptically to the term because we understand it to be the vocabulary of our own dispossession."

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Featured Author

Sean Henry Jacobs

Sean Henry Jacobs

Sean Henry Jacobs is the founder of Africa is a Country and Professor of International Affairs at Th …

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