Deconstructing Jackie In an interview in the
Guardian in 2017, the celebrated rationalist Daniel Dennett declared: “I think what the postmodernists did was truly evil. They are responsible for the intellectual fad that made it respectable to be cynical about truth and facts.” If Dennett’s anathema was heard in the afterlife by Jacques Derrida, who died in 2004 renowned as the progenitor of what is commonly described as postmodernism, his shade must have smiled. Nothing is more characteristic of evangelical rationalists than the demonological discourse of fundamentalist religion. But what can “pure evil” mean for those who claim to have exorcised all traces of the supernatural in their thinking? In the same interview, Dennett describes himself, evidently without irony, as “an eternal optimist”. By what magic does he imagine unadulterated malevolence can be banished from the world? Such enemies of postmodernism beg to be deconstructed whenever they open their mout
Forbes Africa
Published 2 months ago
By David Dawkins, Ariel Shapiro, Momina Khan, Jennifer Wang, Chase Peterson-Withorn and Kerry A. Dolan
In Africa as elsewhere in the world the wealthiest have come through the pandemic just fine. The continent’s 18 billionaires are worth an average $4.1 billion, 12% more than a year ago, driven in part by Nigeria’s surging stock market. For the tenth year in a row, Aliko Dangote of Nigeria is the continent’s richest person, worth $12.1 billion, up by $2 billion from last year’s list thanks to a roughly 30% rise in the share price of Dangote Cement, by far his most valuable asset. The second richest is Nassef Sawiris of Egypt, whose largest asset is a nearly 6% stake in sportswear maker Adidas. At number three: Nicky Oppenheimer of South Africa, who inherited a stake in diamond firm DeBeers and ran the company until 2012, when he sold his family’s 40% stake in DeBeers to mining giant AngloAmerican for $5.1 billion.
France Is Flooding Africa With Fake News
The former colonial power isn’t just a victim of Russian disinformation. It’s waging a similar propaganda campaign in Mali and other countries in the Sahel region.
CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON/AFP/Getty Images
French President Emmanuel Macron visits Operation Barkhane troops in Northern Mali in May 2017. On May 5, 2017, the French political scene was upended by what became known as
MacronLeaks, a cache of more than 21,000 emails hacked from Emmanuel Macron’s political associates. It was two days before the final round of voting in the presidential election and just hours before a legally mandated election-news blackout was set to begin: prime time to try to spread rumor and scandal on French social media. Attributed to Russian hackers, who used bots to promote the material on Twitter, Facebook, and 4chan, the leak was seized upon by supporters of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. The leak, which helped spread unsubstantiated rumors of