In February, a ship set out from Mauritius into the blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Its mission? To deliver a group of visitors to the Chagos archipelago, under their own flag, for the first time since the British government had forcibly cleared the islands of their 2,000 inhabitants in 1966. Cullen Murphy was there […]
colonialism
Posted inStory
The Easter Island Schoolteacher Who Sparked a Revolution
The remarkable story of a freedom struggle on a tiny island in the South Pacific.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Hawai‘i Is Not Our Playground
“To most outsiders, Hawai‘i is defined by the lei-draped, aloha-dispensing, honeymooner-welcoming image of the place. There’s no room for another version to emerge.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Battle for Zimbabwe’s Land Never Ended
“We all still have scars of having land taken from us in the past.”
Posted inCulture, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes, Uncategorized, Writing
Listen to the Sound of My Voice
How a journalist found her voice as her mother lost hers.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Original Karen
On “colonial nostalgia and Nairobi’s Out of Africa industry.”
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘My Tongue Swallowing the Taste of Home Soil’: On Filipino Food, Family, and Identity
“Far from our barrios, mountains, and islands, we cook, so that we may practice swallowing our undesirable truths, acidic and blood-heavy.”
Posted inFeature
Tea, Biscuits, and Empire: The Long Con of Britishness
The soft-focus Britain of Downton Abbey bears little resemblance to the real Britain collapsing under the weight of racism, austerity, and COVID-19. As Brexit plods on, it’s time for an honest reckoning of the history and future of this outsize little island.
Posted inStory
The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Orchids
Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and sometimes it’s a powerful vehicle for giving free rein to our worst colonialist and misogynist impulses.
Posted inNonfiction
Queens of Infamy: Njinga
The Portuguese colonizers of West Central Africa learned it the hard way: you mess with the Queen of Ndongo and Matamba at your own peril.