It has been 9 years since the idea of an online journal was conceived over tea on the serene lawn of the Guest House at the venerable Makerere University. The idea was subsequently baptized with the name Nile Journal and now known also by its unmistakable iconic picture of the rainbow over River Nile.
By Liza Sekaggya, an international human rights lawyer
As an African woman, born and raised in the motherland, I had never experienced racism until I came to study at a European university. When I first encountered racism, I was naive and unable to identify a racist act immediately until a white student to whom I narrated my experience, confirmed that it was racist.
“I Can’t breathe”. That was the cry of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, as he was being suffocated by a white policeman who had his knee on his neck. It took eight minutes and 46 seconds for the police officer, Derek Chauvin, to commit murder so foul.
One of the founders of Russia’s Pussy Riot rock band, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, was interviewed on the BBC last weekend. When the group played inside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour she was jailed for two years for “religious hatred”. She doesn’t seem bitter, but she seems damning. She thinks that last week’s referendum on a new constitution was only held to cement Putin in power for two more decades
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It has been 9 years since the idea of an online journal was conceived over tea on the serene lawn of the Guest House at the venerable Makerere University. The idea was subsequently baptized with the name Nile Journal and now known also by its unmistakable iconic picture of the rainbow over River Nile.
As an African woman, born and raised in the motherland, I had never experienced racism until I came to study at a European university. When I first encountered racism, I was naive and unable to identify a racist act immediately until a white student to whom I narrated my experience, confirmed that it was racist.
“I Can’t breathe”. That was the cry of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, as he was being suffocated by a white policeman who had his knee on his neck. It took eight minutes and 46 seconds for the police officer, Derek Chauvin, to commit murder so foul.
One of the founders of Russia’s Pussy Riot rock band, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, was interviewed on the BBC last weekend. When the group played inside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour she was jailed for two years for “religious hatred”. She doesn’t seem bitter, but she seems damning. She thinks that last week’s referendum on a new constitution was only held to cement Putin in power for two more decades
