In a bid to lower high rates of gang violence and other crime, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced he’ll deploy the army to work with the police.
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Africa Re-Union Debuts at FNB Art Joburg: Africa Turns the Map, the Table and the Story
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, 9 September 2025/African Media Agency (AMA)/- The Africa Re-Union, a landmark artistic initiative, is to be unveiled at the FNB Art Joburg, transforming the fair into a stage of reclamation and imagination, where art became manifesto and memory became movement. It reverses the context of the infamous 1884 Berlin Conference — where Africa was carved and divided without consent — by restoring the continent as author of its own story and architect of its own destiny.
Conceived and co-created by pan-African thinker and founder of Brand Africa, Thebe Ikalafeng, realised on canvas by South African artist Mark Modimola, and anchored in history by Professor Kwesi DLS Prah, the Africa Re-Union is not simply an artwork but a provocative declaration to reimagine the African story and history.
The monumental 3m x 2m canvas inverts Africa—literally and philosophically—using the
Equal Earth projection to restore the continent’s true scale and dignity. Rendered without
borders, it corrects centuries of cartographic distortion that made Africa appear small, coinciding with Africa No Filter, Speak Up Africa and the African Union’s recent call to rectify the misrepresentation of Africa in global maps. The work amplifies the broader Correct the Map campaign, a movement that challenges outdated cartography and calls for equal-area maps that restore Africa’s true size, scale, and significance in the world, and Brand Africa’s broader mission to contribute to the AU 2063 agenda for an integrated, peaceful, and prosperous Africa.
At the heart of the work stands a round table — because here there is no hierarchy, every voice matters equally. Seated are some of the diverse and impactful voices that have shaped Africa’s past and are re-imagining its future: Ghana’s founding president Kwame Nkrumah, Kenyan environmental advocate Wangari Maathai, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, the frontline independence leaders Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda, host of hte founding of the OAU, Haile Selassie, Cabo Verde and Guinea Bissau’s Amílcar Cabral, Senegalese thought leaders Léopold Senghor and Cheikh Anta Diop, proponent of the United States of Africa, Muammar Gaddafi, Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, youth activist Zulaikha Patel, the diaspora W.E.B. Du Bois, Dambisa Moyo and freed slave Sojourner Truth, South African sanusis, South African singer, Mirriam Makeba, the first artist to address the United Nations in 1963, cultural activist and sanusi, Credo Mutwa, pan-African advocate for a brand-led renaissance and convenor, Thebe Ikalafeng, and advocate of the African renaissance, former South African president, Thabo Mbeki. Their presence affirms that Africa’s story has always had authors—even when unrecognised. It’s a gathering of the diaspora, the enslaved whose voices were stolen, the revolutionaries and artists, the freedom fighters and feminists, writers, sanusis, and youth across the private and public sectors and the civil service. Together, they embody the unfinished conversation of Africa’s identity, memory and destiny.
One chair is left empty at the table. It is the most important seat of all — a call to action. It belongs to the unborn child who will inherit this Africa, the ancestor whose spirit still hovers, the diaspora longing to remain rooted, and every African alive today who must rise, sit, and take their rightful place at the table of history. The empty chair is not absence; it is invitation.
In a symbolic act of permanence, the original canvas will not be sold. Ikalafeng has instead gifted it to the UNISA Art Gallery, ensuring the work lives where Africa’s future is being studied and shaped. At the largest university on the continent, Africa Re-Union will be preserved not as a commodity, but as a covenant — a manifesto for generations to come. Only 2063 signed limited reproductions will be made available to ensure the conversation goes far. The number is a reminder of the AU agenda 2063 for an integrated, peaceful and prosperous Africa.
“The Africa Re-Union is not a return to the 1884 Berlin Conference table, but the setting of our own table: equal, sovereign, and unapologetically African. It is both remembrance and declaration: Africa is whole again. This time, no one will define us but us,” says Thebe Ikalafeng, Conceptual Author and Chief Curator of the Africa Re-Union.
“For me, Africa Re-Union is about shifting the canvas of our imagination. It’s to challenge how we see ourselves and how the world sees us; not as fragmented, diminished, or peripheral, but as whole, central and sovereign. This work is both a mirror and a map, and reflects our past, but points us toward a future we must author ourselves,” says Mark Modimola, Visual Artist of the Africa Re-Union.
“Johannesburg has always been a city of convergence, where Africa meets the world. To host the Africa Re-Union at FNB Art Joburg affirms our city’s role as a crucible of ideas, creativity and cultural leadership. This is more than an artwork — it is a call to re-centre Africa in history and in the future,” said Vuyisile Mshudulu, Director of Arts, Culture and Heritage for the City of Johannesburg.
“Correcting the map is about more than geography. It’s about dignity. The way Africa is represented shapes how the world sees us, and how we see ourselves. The Africa Re-Union is a bold and creative way of reclaiming that story, insisting that Africa is seen in its true scale, power and possibility,” said Moky Makura, Executive Director of Africa No Filter.
The Africa Re-Union was unveiled at the 18th FNB Joburg Art Fair opening night, in a live performance led by celebrated actor Aubrey Poo and acclaimed poet Napo Mashiane, with costumes designed by award-winning wardrobe stylist, Sheli Masondo. The performance re-imagines the infamous 1884 Berlin Conference, but this time with African agency, voice, and vision at the table.
The Africa Re-Union, part of the broader Correct the Map campaign, a movement that challenges outdated cartography and calls for equal-area maps that restore Africa’s true size, scale and significance in the world launched in partnership with the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) and Africa No Filter, and supported by Brand South Africa, comes at a historic moment. At a time when Africa No Filter, Speak Up Africa and the African Union have called for the world to redress centuries of distorted representations of Africa’s size in global maps, and as the continent prepares to host its first-ever G20 Summit in 2025, the initiative is a milestone in Africa’s growing agency on the international stage.
The Africa Re-Union is a timely reminder that Africa’s voice, creativity and unity are central to creating a Better Africa for a Better World.
Distributed by African Media Agency on behalf of Africa Re-Union
MEDIA CONTACT:
South Africa
Maria McCloy
(+27) 082 340 0262
International
Eloine Barry
(+255) 07 49 012 888
UK
Moky Makura
(+44 7939 485160)
Thebe Ikalafeng
(+27 82 447 9130)
The post Africa Re-Union Debuts at FNB Art Joburg: Africa Turns the Map, the Table and the Story appeared first on African Media Agency.
Negotiating Trump’s Sweeping Agenda, South Africa’s President, DOGE Cuts
The latest on the president’s massive tax and immigration bill as it faces continued resistance from both moderate and hardline Republicans. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will travel to Washington next week as relations between the U.S. and South Africa are at their lowest since the end of apartheid. An NPR analysis finds that the ad hoc Department of Government Efficiency keeps finding new parts of the federal government to try to shrink.
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South Africa: Cyril Ramaphosa to meet with Donald Trump in US next week
It is difficult to hide: relations between South Africa and the United States are strained and have been so for months.
Since Donald Trump took office again as president of the United States, the two countries have repeatedly clashed over the US plan to resettle white South African farmers, which Donald Trump claims face “racial discrimination” in South Africa.
And in March, Washington expelled the South African ambassador Ebrahim Rasool over critical comments he had made on the subject of the Trump administration.
Could a meeting however help improve the situation?
Late on Wednesday, Pretoria announced that South African president Cyril Ramaphosa would travel to Washington next week. On the agenda is a meeting with Donald Trump.
While the South African presidency did not further comment on the issues to be discussed by the two presidents, the tensions surrounding the white farmers’ refugee status, which the US granted earlier this week, are likely to be included in the talks.
The US welcomed 59 white South Africans as refugees this Monday, the start of what the Trump administration said is a larger relocation plan for minority Afrikaner farmers who Trump has claimed are being persecuted in their homeland because of their race.
South Africa denies the allegations and says whites in the majority Black country are not being singled out for persecution.
No evidence of “genocide” of white farmers
The Republican president has singled out South Africa over what the US calls racist laws against whites and has accused the government of “fueling” violence against white farmers.
The South African government says the relatively small number of killings of white farmers should be condemned but are part of the country’s problems with violent crime and are not racially motivated.
Trump said Monday that there was “a genocide taking place” against white farmers that was being ignored by international media.
This claim has previously however been discredited, most recently so by a South African court ruling in February.
The US criticism of what it calls South Africa’s racist, anti-white laws appears to refer to South Africa’s affirmative action laws that advance opportunities for Black people, and a new land expropriation law that gives the government power to take private land without compensation.
Although the government says the land law is not a confiscation tool and refers to unused land that can be redistributed for the public good, some Afrikaner groups say it could allow their land to be seized and redistributed to some of the country’s Black majority.
South Africa: Cyril Ramaphosa to meet with Donald Trump in US next week
It is difficult to hide: relations between South Africa and the United States are strained and have been so for months.
Since Donald Trump took office again as president of the United States, the two countries have repeatedly clashed over the US plan to resettle white South African farmers, which Donald Trump claims face “racial discrimination” in South Africa.
And in March, Washington expelled the South African ambassador Ebrahim Rasool over critical comments he had made on the subject of the Trump administration.
Could a meeting however help improve the situation?
Late on Wednesday, Pretoria announced that South African president Cyril Ramaphosa would travel to Washington next week. On the agenda is a meeting with Donald Trump.
While the South African presidency did not further comment on the issues to be discussed by the two presidents, the tensions surrounding the white farmers’ refugee status, which the US granted earlier this week, are likely to be included in the talks.
The US welcomed 59 white South Africans as refugees this Monday, the start of what the Trump administration said is a larger relocation plan for minority Afrikaner farmers who Trump has claimed are being persecuted in their homeland because of their race.
South Africa denies the allegations and says whites in the majority Black country are not being singled out for persecution.
No evidence of “genocide” of white farmers
The Republican president has singled out South Africa over what the US calls racist laws against whites and has accused the government of “fueling” violence against white farmers.
The South African government says the relatively small number of killings of white farmers should be condemned but are part of the country’s problems with violent crime and are not racially motivated.
Trump said Monday that there was “a genocide taking place” against white farmers that was being ignored by international media.
This claim has previously however been discredited, most recently so by a South African court ruling in February.
The US criticism of what it calls South Africa’s racist, anti-white laws appears to refer to South Africa’s affirmative action laws that advance opportunities for Black people, and a new land expropriation law that gives the government power to take private land without compensation.
Although the government says the land law is not a confiscation tool and refers to unused land that can be redistributed for the public good, some Afrikaner groups say it could allow their land to be seized and redistributed to some of the country’s Black majority.
South Africa to probe whether prosecutions of apartheid crimes were blocked
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered an inquiry Wednesday to establish whether previous governments led by his party intentionally blocked investigations and prosecutions of apartheid-era crimes.
The landmark move, which survivors and families of those who were killed have demanded for more than 20 years, will address allegations of “improper influence in delaying or hindering” investigations that have been levelled against post-apartheid governments led by the African National Congress party, Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement.
The ANC was the organization at the forefront of the battle against the system of white minority rule and led South Africa to democracy in 1994. But ANC-led governments since then have been criticized by some for prioritizing national reconciliation ahead of justice for victims.
Ramaphosa’s announcement of a judicial commission of inquiry came after 25 survivors and relatives of victims of apartheid-era crimes launched a court case against his government in January seeking damages. They alleged that successive South African governments since the late 1990s had failed to properly investigate unresolved killings, disappearances and other crimes during the time of forced racial segregation despite recommendations made by the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The new inquiry was part of a settlement agreement in the January court case, Ramaphosa’s office said.
“President Ramaphosa appreciates the anguish and frustration of the families of victims, who have fought for so many years for justice,” it said.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up in 1996 by then-President Nelson Mandela under the chairmanship of fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu. Its mission was to expose and record apartheid-era crimes and give some of those responsible an opportunity to confess their role, including members of the apartheid government’s state security forces that were implicated in many killings.
Some were granted amnesty from prosecution, but others didn’t come forward and thousands were denied amnesty.
One of the most prominent unresolved cases is that of the Cradock Four, a group of Black anti-apartheid activists who were abducted and murdered by security forces in 1985. Their bodies were burned and security officers were suspected of torturing them.
Six former police officers appeared before the commission in 1999 over the murders of Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli, and Sparrow Mkonto, but none of them were granted amnesty.
No one has been prosecuted for the killings and the circumstances of the deaths have never been fully revealed. They are among the thousands of crimes during apartheid where victims and families still haven’t seen justice.
Lukhanyo Calata, whose father Fort was one of the Cradock Four, is part of the group that took the current South African government to court in January. He said at the start of that court case that successive South African governments since the administration of President Thabo Mbeki from 1999-2008 had failed to act on the commission’s recommendations and had denied victims and their families justice. He and other relatives say that government ministers intervened to prevent the investigation and prosecution of crimes.
While the majority of the victims of apartheid-era crimes were Black, whites have also sought justice decades later.
South Africa’s graft case against Zuma adjourned to July 27
By NQOBILE NTSHANGASE Associated Press
DURBAN, South Africa (AP) — The corruption case against former South African president Jacob Zuma has been delayed until late next month, while Zuma took to a stage near the courthouse on Friday before thousands of cheering supporters and again declared his innocence.
“A person is not guilty until the court says so,” said Zuma, who has described the 16 counts of fraud, racketeering and money laundering linked to an arms deal in the 1990s as politically motivated. He had been deputy president at the time. Continue reading South Africa’s graft case against Zuma adjourned to July 27