Current Issue – Transition Magazine

**Miska Mohmmed, *Features*, 2024.** Acrylic and markers on canvas. Courtesy of artist and OOA Gallery.

CURRENT ISSUE

T137: SOLIDARITIES

T137 Solidarities couldn’t be timelier. Reading about the historical solidarities of the Diaspora, which continue through the present moment, gives solace and inspires the hope and courage needed for global resistance. Solidarities starts off with anti-apartheid activist Xolela Mangcu’s consideration not only of Black vs. black solidarity but also of white solidarities that arise during periods of intense globalism. His analysis offers both a warning and a call to action. Read on for an essay on neighborhood resistance to gentrification through the reactivation of forgotten African American spaces; a history of the solidarity between the African Diaspora and Palestinians; a definition and discussion of passive eugenics as practiced by the Brazilian government to “whiten” the country and the Afro-Brazilian resistance to that quiet, systematic erasure; and a mapping of the musical connections that cross the Atlantic and gave rise to the blues. That is only the beginning of this extraordinary issue.

Personal accounts follow. One author attends a gathering of Tijani Muslims in Harlem, a sect that is centered in Senegal but has a global reach, including a large following of African Americans. In another, read about the friendship between migrants trying to stay in the U.S. through arranged marriage and other means.

To round out the issue, read an interview with Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, author of The Most Secret Memory of Men, and Wole Soyinka’s address to the U.N. on reparations. And don’t miss a photo essay of Send Me, an art exhibition in Kampala that uses Transition’s first issues, produced in Uganda, as a touchstone.

See a list below of authors and artists who have contributed work to T137. Scroll farther for a table of contents.

Description Continued

In addition to the essays mentioned above by Michael Fischbach, Kris Manjapra, Gracyelle Costa Ferreira, Mafaz Al-Suwaidan, and Kai Mora you’ll find deeply imagined fiction that probes interpersonal solidarities by Damilola Onwah, Ndinda Kioko, magical fiction across generations by Elinam Agbo, speculative, political fiction by Dennis Mugaa, and class skrimishes in a short story by Lekan Aleshe-Shittu.

Striking poems by Clarisse Baleja Saidi, George Elliott Clarke, Alain Jules Hirwa, JJ Bola, Prosper Ifeanyi, and Jean Erian Samson. Purchase this issue to read each essay and experience the stunning art (in resplendid color) of Miska Mohammed (cover), Thameur Mehri, Mihret Dawit, BUCK!, Gerhard Marx, Xenson Ssensaba, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Émilie Régnier, Iba Ndiaye, Souad Abdelrassoul, and the great El Anastui.

One of the treasured objects on display, a nativity scene. Photo Credit: Nohemi Rodriguez

Essay

Feeling Right, in Solidarity: Place-Based Performance Loops and Anti-Gentrification in Black Cambridgeport

Kris Manjapra

…gentrification reorders place and meaning to facilitate the capacity of one group (often rich and white) to “feel right,” while eliminating the ability of displaced and minoritized people to experience that right feeling…”financial profit is bound to the accumulation of certain kinds of good feeling for certain kinds of people in certain kinds of places” (Adeyemi). Opposing gentrification requires opposing this commodification of affect and foregrounding the non-market value of place in ways that refuse displacement of the existing community and facilitate the forging of new solidarities.

Thameur Mejri, *Fallen Archetypes 2*, 2024.
Acrylic, charcoal and pastels on canvas. Detail.
Courtesy of Selma Feriani

Essay

Black, White, and Rainbow Solidarities, Our Choice

Xolela Mangcu

Karl Polanyi, in The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, describes how these emerging nations adopted economic protectionism as a defense against the vicissitudes of globalization:

[They] shielded themselves from unemployment and instability with the help of central banks and customs tariffs, supplemented by migration laws…

To understand this trend toward economic protectionism is to also understand the emergence of “transnational white solidarity”…

Elsadig Janka,*Tanzeel.* From SEND ME installation, 2024. Courtesy of Elsadig Janka.

Photo Essay

Freedom Is a Gathering Place

Kara Blackmore, Helga Rainer, Gloria Kiconco, Charity Atukunda, and Elsadig Mohamed Janka

In working with the archives of Transition Magazine, we recognised the recursive histories of oppression in Uganda. At points, it seemed easy to feel a sense of déjà vu while reading about the 1960s during Obote II or the 1970s when Idi Amin violently cracked down on artists and intellectuals for their outspokenness, while at the same time expelling citizens based on their South Asian heritage. Monitoring agencies who observe the state of artistic freedom globally continue to list Uganda as one of the most dangerous places for artists.

Artist Spotlight

Jean Katambayi Mukendi

In anticipation of our Congo issue (2026), which will explore the recent film Soundtrack to a Coup-D’Etat as a touchstone, we present the work of Congolese artist Jean Katambayi Mukendi, whose work appears in the Solidarities issue. Jean Katambayi Mukendi, born in 1974, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, lives and works in his home town, Lumbumbashi.

He was trained as an electrician; you’ll find his work inspired by his loves: mathematics, engineering, geometry, and technology. He grew up in the workers’ camp of his mining hometown and has continued to be fascinated by its mechanisation.

Katambayi creates delicate installations and drawings inspired by complex electrical circuits and technology. His tries to solve social issues in contemporary Congolese society, drawing attention to the depletion of the country’s vast energy resources. Using recycled and fragile materials like cardboard and discarded electronics, he gives new life to what is often thrown away. And through his poetic art, Katambayi seeks to address the power imbalance between different parts of the world.

To see more of Katambayi’s drawing, visit Wouters Gallery.

His work accompanies Nninda Kioko’s story, “The Woman from the Lonely-Hearts Section of the Newspaper.”