South Africa's Reckoning: Xenophobia, Land, and the Ghosts of Apartheid

South Africa's Reckoning: Xenophobia, Land, and the Ghosts of Apartheid

In this episode, we are joined by South African writer and historian Phethani Mazibandhila to unpack the growing wave of anti-immigrant violence in South Africa and the deeper political and economic forces driving it. Far from being a simple conflict over jobs or migration, xenophobic attacks are situated within South Africa's unresolved history of colonialism, apartheid, land dispossession, and economic inequality. We examine how migrant labour has long been central to the country's economy, why post-1994 political settlements failed to transform material conditions for the majority, and how movements such as Operation Dudula have emerged within this context. The conversation also explores the role of capital, political elites, and external actors in shaping narratives that pit African workers against one another while leaving underlying structures of exploitation untouched. As calls for exclusion grow louder, we ask whether Pan-Africanism offers a more meaningful path toward justice, solidarity, and liberation across the continent. Watch the full conversation on YouTube or listen on your favourite podcast platform. Watch A Certain Amount of Madness on⁠⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@CertainMadnessPod] Follow us on Social media: ⁠⁠⁠Twitter (X)⁠⁠⁠ [https://x.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠⁠Tiktok⁠⁠⁠ [https://tiktok.com.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ [https://instagram.com/amadnesspod]

Kenya’s Broken Promise of Free Education | Boaz Waruku

In this episode, we are joined by Boaz Waruku, veteran educationist and Senior Advisor to the Elimu Bora Working Group, to discuss Kenya's education crisis. Long considered the great equalizer in an otherwise deeply unequal country, education has, over recent years, been beset with escalating challenges and controversies, from the hasty, ill-conceived rollout of the Competency Based Curriculum, to the return of school fees, to the collapse of higher education as universities undergo insolvency, to the recent wave of school closures following fires in high schools across the country. We explore what it would mean, philosophically, in policy, and financially to actualize the Constitutional guarantee of free and compulsory basic education for a developmental state, and consider education's fundamental place in transforming Kenya.

Borrowed Lives: Kenya's Personal Debt Emergency | Radha Upadhyaya and Naomi Barasa

Nine out of ten Kenyan households are in financial distress. Not the country — the household. Your neighbor. Your mother. You. Fuliza alone disbursed 1.24 trillion shillings last year. People are skipping meals to service loans of a thousand shillings. Young people can't get jobs because they're CRB-listed. A regulator built for 42 banks is now chasing hundreds of lenders and losing.In this episode, Dr. Mamka Anyona sits down with development economist and University of Nairobi associate professor Radha Upadhyaya and feminist community organizer Naomi Barasa to trace how a celebrated financial inclusion story quietly became a personal debt emergency.This is a conversation about structural adjustment hiding inside an app, about debt as a tool of social fragmentation, and about what it means to organize for dignity when you're too busy worrying about collection day. Watch A Certain Amount of Madness on⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@CertainMadnessPod] Follow us on Social media: ⁠⁠Twitter (X)⁠⁠ [https://x.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠Tiktok⁠⁠ [https://tiktok.com.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ [https://instagram.com/amadnesspod] Thank you for listening.

EP 11: Beyond Protests: Mass Mobilization for Meaningful Socio-Political Change.

A decade of protests – the 2010s – taught us that mass movements require a theory of change and an action plan to achieve it paired with effective organizing.  The Gen Z protests in Kenya demonstrated the power of the will of the people but also the limitations of streets-focused actions to achieve real structural change.  In this moment of rebalancing global power because of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, we ask: “How do we ensure that we channel those energies and frustrations of the streets to achieve our goals of people-centred governance through collective actions by means beyond street-led protests?” Watch A Certain Amount of Madness on⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@CertainMadnessPod] Follow us on Social media: ⁠⁠Twitter (X)⁠⁠ [https://x.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠Tiktok⁠⁠ [https://tiktok.com.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ [https://instagram.com/amadnesspod] Thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow the podcast. There's a lot more to come.

EP 10: WAR! What is it good for? David Hundeyin on the implications for Africa of the US/Israel-Iran war

In a speech at the Munich Security Conference on 14 February, Marco Rubio, the United States’ Secretary of State extolled the virtues of empire and denounced anti-colonial and decolonial movements of the 20th Century. Two weeks later, the United States and Israel launched a missile killing 175 girls and staff in a school in the southern city of Minab, in what is widely understood to be the opening salvo of WWIII. As of this recording, just over a week later, it is believed that 1,500 people have been killed in a war that has spread to 12 countries. In our conversation with David Hundeyin, Nigerian journalist and author, we discuss the implications for Africa which go far beyond the price of oil. This war is about whose consciousness gets to define reality in the 21st century. For Africa, it may be our first opportunity in a lifetime to redefine our sovereignty. Watch A Certain Amount of Madness on⁠ YouTube⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@CertainMadnessPod] Follow us on Social media: ⁠Twitter (X)⁠ [https://x.com/amadnesspod] ⁠Tiktok⁠ [https://tiktok.com.com/amadnesspod] ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://instagram.com/amadnesspod] Thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow the podcast. There's a lot more to come.