From a comment about Elon Musk to the governance of African capital Tallulah Patricia Bär, Zurich, September 2026 I had wanted to leave a comment beneath Doug Melville's Forbes article asking whether Elon Musk should be classified as African American. The premise was deliberately provocative: Musk was born in South Africa and later became an American citizen. Taken literally, he is African by birth and American by citizenship. Why, then, should he not be called African American? Before...

Angélique Kidjo can credibly be described as a woman of exceptional impact—but the nature of that impact must be defined carefully. Her significance does not rest only on fame, awards, or philanthropic activity. It lies in her ability to convert cultural authority into four distinct forms of power: narrative power, institutional access, economic opportunity, and political voice. Her cultural impact is global and historically significant. Her activist record is unusually sustained for a major...

For the past few days I was surrounded by nature, and I had almost forgotten how good that could feel. I am not a devoted hiker. I do not usually dream of climbing mountains or walking for hours uphill. Yet this time, I was open to everything—to going anywhere, following any path, seeing what might appear. That openness felt freeing. For a few days, I could create some distance between myself and everything cruel, frightening and senseless happening in the world. While walking, I kept...