Pambazuka News takes stock of the victories since WCAR in Durban, the political organising that informed the landmark conference, reparations and the tasks for the next 25 years.

The demands for reparations arose from battles over the dignity of the African descendant, repatriation, self-determination and questions around land, labor education, political power, culture, white supremacy and black racism. Campbell explains the progressive forces forging repair and the cooptation and political expediency of the reactionary elements pushing back the efforts of the working class, women, grassroots and marginalized groups in Jamaica and other parts of Global Africa.

Zionism has discriminatory and racist roots that manifests in its treatment of Palestinians and other races. Elkorghli offers a historicity of the international recognition of the links between racism and zionism, and precedence and Pan-African solidarity for reparative justice.

The Durban site as host to WCAR 2001 was a bold statement that reflected the honour of a country that had gained freedom from a racist, discriminatory, marginalising and violent apartheid regime. The years after Durban present complex local and international events around the country. Khamees interrogates the contradictions in South Africa’s diplomatic posturing and anti-African discrimination and violence against migrants in the country within the 25 years after the Durban Conference.

Serekberhan covers a half-day symposium packed with former Durban attendees, guerilla intellectuals, and the Syracuse community to commemorate 25 years since the Durban Conference. From how Durban was built and functioned to ongoing struggles for reparations in New York state and within the global context, the conference threaded many themes relevant to our fight for reparative justice. 

Imperialist competition and wars that facilitate extractivism have long shaped the use of seaports for access to resources, markets, and devalued labor. In the last decade, countries in the chain of imperialist exploitation have increased attempts to restore the external domination of African ports and lands while producing conditions that ensure wars, instability, corruption, and perpetuate a cycle of theft and underdevelopment. The war on Iran is set to sharpen these conditions as countries like the UAE and Turkey attempt to maintain their positions in a crumbling system. 

Karim F Hirji discloses how two of Tanzania's horticultural treasures of historic import are succumbing to subtle neocolonial domination. 

In this first part of a two-part policy note, Yassine Fall examines Senegal’s relations with the IMF. The analysis shows how the cycle of debt and adjustment in Senegal, and other parts of Africa and the developing world, has adversely affected the transformation of these countries.

Abukar assesses the cost of Türkiye's relations with Somalia on the lives and properties of Somalis in their homes and during their economic activities.

Daley situates the young academic’s tragic death in the recent history of anti-Blackness and marketisation in UK higher education, amidst performative diversity and enduring white supremacy.

The U.S. Army's July 15, 2026 activation of “Drongo Company,” a new Psychological Operations company within the 7th Psychological Operations Battalion, marks an important development in Washington's expanding information and psychological operations capabilities in Africa. The Army describes the unit as part of its effort to conduct psychological operations across “contested environments,” while reporting identifies its mission as supporting U.S. Africa Command.

This essay examines Türkiye’s two-stage intervention in Somalia since 2012. First came humanitarian involvement during the Somali famine in the early 2010s. Once the immediate crisis waned, Turkish economic and strategic interests came to dominate its relationship with Somalia. It is as if Islamic humanitarianism was the trojan horse for Türkiye’s long-term interests in and exploitation of Somalia.

Allowing us to examine how migrants remain excluded even under the guise of inclusion, Uçkan examines the lives of Syrian refugees in Turkey, which demonstrate the structural conditions that render them invisible, stateless, and as a cheap “army of labour” without a pathway for integration and progression in their material conditions.

Bilateral relations between South Africa (SA) and the United States (US) increasingly depict how US coercive power has been less concerned with the veneer of diplomacy since the current Trump administration. In addition to SA’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against genocide in Palestine, the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act and the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Act stand contrary to the policies the US administration seeks to see in SA. The article concludes on the constraints SA faces considering asymmetric global relations, and calls for building local capacity to protect autonomous decisions. 

The United States had helped force out Somalia’s most Turkey-aligned minister. He recently came back as Speaker of parliament. The day after his confirmation, he called Ankara - not Washington or the African Union.

The Global Pan-African Movement, North American Chapter, regards the erection of the statue of Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu at Entebbe Airport as deeply inappropriate and inconsistent with Africa's historic commitment to the principles of national sovereignty, opposition to foreign military intervention, and solidarity with peoples struggling against occupation and domination.

Often treated only as a political movement, Nathan argues that one of Pan Africanism’s strongholds has always been the church. Black churches and clergy not only created international networks and political organizations, but insisted that the Gospel could never be reconciled with racial oppression.

Using the Kenyan Rastafari lawsuit as a case, this article argues that colonial legacies marginalise African indigenous religions, advocating for their legal recognition, protection, and a commitment to upholding broader religious freedom.

NATO’s summit ended with custom-engraved .357 Magnum — a Turkish-made Gümüşay and live ammunition souvenir to its leaders amid an increased synergy between the summit and the military industrial complex in the West. Elkorghli examines the synergy and highlights the contradictions in the alliance’s principle of “attack on one, attack on all,” the manufacturing of fear in service of militarism and finance, and doubts about the invincibility of western defence projected during the Summit in the light of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and Israel/US aggression on Iran.

Farooque argues that Africa has many challenges but parts of its leadership and people are awakening to unity for its transformation. It is the people of Africa who can get rid of the exploitation of life and nature, neo-colonialism, civil and inter-state war, imperialist interference and aggression unleashed by external forces and internal collaborators. Political education among the masses of people and political organizing with mature leadership anchoring in Nkrumah’s calls and teachings are urgent initiatives on the continent.