Mahmood Mamdani, the director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Uganda and a prominent voice in African studies, recently gave a talk in which he compared the recent uprisings across North Africa, the “Walk to Work” protests in Uganda, and the Soweto Uprisings. While the argument may not sustain scrutiny as a historical argument I think it does provide an interesting way to try to think about and contextualize recent events (while also reminding a world with a short attention span of the importance of the anti-Apartheid protest in African and global history).
