Punocracy

… where sa-tyres never go flat

FeatureFrom Our Allies

How to be a Nigerian Scholar in the West│James Yékú

You are “in the abroad” and your views must be seen by these irrational colleagues you have left in the dark as the absolute and irrefutable truths. After all, their research is a mere survivalist response to a parlous postcolonial state you are so generous to theorize in your peer-reviewed essays. Yours is the finest example of scholarship and your prestigious location is the desired Mecca those at home dream only about.

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FeatureFrom Our Allies

How to write about Africa│Binyavanga Wainaina

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book.

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FeatureFrom Our Allies

Opinion: Laugh if you like. But we need satire more than ever│Owen Jones

It is all too often those at the bottom of society who are demonised and derided. There’s too little punching up. Where is the scrutinising – and yes, ridiculing – of the poverty-paying bosses, the tax dodgers, or the bankers responsible for economic disaster? Satire can be brilliantly effective at encouraging us to challenge the way our society is run. It is a more crucial element of our democracy than we perhaps think, and we should fight to bring it back to the prime-time slots it deserves.

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