News & Events

Nelson Mandela was the greatest statesman that Africa has produced. His reputation is based above all on the enormous dignity and magnanimity that he showed after he was released from prison, after 27 years behind bars, in 1990. He was able to reassure his countrymen and the wider world that looked on, entranced, there would be no race war in South Africa, as many people had feared. Among South Africans black and white, Mandela’s achievement endured throughout the years after he had stepped down as president in 1999, even though his dream of a rainbow nation began to look tattered. Worldwide, Mandela has become a revered figure in the mode of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.  

The ASC Library compiled a web dossier containing a list of publications on Nelson Mandela as well as publications by Nelson Mandela; it also contains a list of publications about Robben Island and a selection of web resources.

The African Studies Centre and ZAM Magazine invite you to commemorate Nelson Mandela on Wednesday 11 December. Several speakers will focus on the significance of Mandela and the roles he has played in a long liberation struggle. How does South Africa’s future look without Nelson Mandela? Ineke van Kessel (ASC) will illustrate the evolution of Mandela’s image. Harry Wels (ASC and VU) will address the question what happens after Mandela. ZAM editor-in-chief Bart Luirink will lead a roundtable discussion.

The emergence in the Gambia of the transnational Islamic missionary movement Tablighi Jama‘at is the focus of the ASC seminar by Marloes Janson on Monday 16 December. It explores how a movement originating in South Asia could appeal so tremendously to a West-African Muslim population, particularly women and youth. ‘Converts’ have been willing to abandon their youthful pursuits and transgress generational and gender boundaries for a life devoted to God. The seminar is organized together with the Department of Cultural Anthropology of Leiden University.

De 'Wikipedian-in-special-residence' bij het Afrika-Studiecentrum, Hans Muller, geeft op woensdag 11 december van 14:00-16:00 een korte cursus Inleiding Wikipedia. Wat zijn de regels voor het plaatsen van artikelen op Wikipedia? Hoe kunnen we Wikipedia verbeteren met correcties en aanvullingen? Experts, liefhebbers en geïnteresseerden op het gebied van Afrika en meer zijn van harte uitgenodigd voor deze bijeenkomst.