Ideas worth spreading

How protest is redefining democracy around the world

952,606 views |

Zachariah Mampilly |

TEDGlobal 2017

• August 2017

The democratic process is messy, complicated and often inefficient -- but across Africa, activists are redefining democracy by putting protest at its center. In an illuminating talk, political scientist Zachariah Mampilly gives us a primer on the current wave of protests reshaping countries like Tunisia, Malawi and Zimbabwe -- and explains how this form of political dissension expands our political imaginations beyond what we're told is possible.

The democratic process is messy, complicated and often inefficient -- but across Africa, activists are redefining democracy by putting protest at its center. In an illuminating talk, political scientist Zachariah Mampilly gives us a primer on the current wave of protests reshaping countries like Tunisia, Malawi and Zimbabwe -- and explains how this form of political dissension expands our political imaginations beyond what we're told is possible.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speaker

Zachariah Mampilly

Zachariah Mampilly

Political scientist

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Zachariah Mampilly is an expert on the politics of both violent and non-violent resistance.

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The Time of Youth: Work, Social Change, and Politics in Africa

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The Wretched of the Earth

Frantz Fanon’s work is often said to be defined by its fury. But at core, Fanon’s fury is fueled by a sense of fatigue over the failure of non-violent modes of resistance. A first-hand observer and participant, Fanon came to his views on violence slowly only after noting that appeals to civility did little to curtail the relentless force of French domination. In Kwame Nkrumah, Fanon discovered his intellectual foil, and his classic works can be understood as one half of a protracted conversation on the merits of violent versus non-violent protests between two of the greatest intellectuals of the post-colonial era.

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Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution

CLR James originated the method of history from below by narrating the story of the Haitian revolution from the perspective of the brilliant former slave turned revolutionary leader, Touissaint L’Oueverture. In this lesser known work, he applies his ferocious and compassionate insights to the actions of Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party in Ghana.

Partha Chatterjee | Columbia University Press, 2011 | Book

Lineages of Political Society: Studies in Postcolonial Democracy

Discussions of what constitutes democracy often rely on ideas first developed in the West and then transported via colonial institutions to the non-western world. But does that make democracy itself western? In this book, Partha Chatterjee continues to develop a vocabulary for discussing democracy outside of its western origins revealing how the daily practices of ordinary people shape democratic life in much of the non-western world.

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.