Opinion: The President’s ‘Black Panther’ Suit — Lessons From ‘Wakanda’ to the U.S.

Was Donald Trump among the movie fans pushing the latest entry in the Marvel universe to box office records this past weekend? Where else would the president have gotten the idea to play superhero, rushing to meet an active shooter — as he said he would have at a Florida high school — with only his bravery and, one imagines, a fantasy “Black Panther” suit to shield him?

On second thought, given his low opinion of the African continent, it’s hard to imagine him getting inspiration from any country there, even the fictional Wakanda.

In the real world, though, Trump and his congressional supporters might want to pay attention to recent developments in South Africa, where an unpopular leader was forced to resign by fellow party members when allegations of corruption and incompetent governance made him a liability for said party’s future

The (Un-) Making of Icons in Africa

Which African leaders qualify as an icon? Perhaps this is always a controversial question, but it was much easier to answer, say, 25 years ago, when the public memories of Pan-Africanist champions such as Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere were still fresh, Nelson Mandela had just walked out of prison, and Robert Mugabe was a widely respected leader. Today, lists like New African’s 2004 “100 greatest Africans of all time” – in which these leaders took the top four places – seem somewhat stale. Beyond famous musicians, artists and authors, the time of easy consensus on who is an “African icon” seems past. The sands are shifting beneath the political icons of old.