BAB Interviews and Conversations

About BAB Interviews and Conversations

BAB is a centre of documentation and expertise on Namibia and southern Africa, located in Basel, Switzerland. Our podcast features extracts from past and recent interviews with scholars and BAB guests as well as selected recordings from the extensive southern African historical audio archive curated at the BAB. The series maintains a loose format. Listeners may also want to consult the BAB online catalogues of the archive, library and publishing house for additional information about a scholar or theme. The catalogues are found on www.baslerafrika.ch.

Publisher

Basler Afrika Bibliographien (BAB) - Namibia Resource Centre & Southern Africa Library

Category

history · science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

9 May 2020

Latest episode

19 Sept 2025

Latest episodes

26 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   19 Sept 2025

   «My very first question to you”. In memory of Ruth Weiss (1924-2025)

   A long-lasting collaboration and friendship has ended: BAB is mourning the passing of anti-apartheid journalist and writer Ruth Weiss at the age of 101. We are humbled by her unwavering trust over nearly 30 years in our work of curating her remarkable audio and paper archives. Her acoustic archives alone comprise some 180 tapes with interview, press conference and music recordings spanning several decades and including the voices and narratives of many southern African women and men. On occasion of her 90th birthday in 2014 we produced the exhibition “My very first question to you. An acoustic portrait of the journalist Ruth Weiss and southern African liberation politics”. “My very first question to you” was Ruth’s frequent opening phrase in her interviews. Drawing on her interviews we commissioned recompositions from her archives and as such recompositions of her voice and the voices of her interview partners. The exhibition was shown in Basel, Cape Town, Lusaka and Bayreuth. It invited visitors to become listeners to the acoustic reverberations of the African liberation archive. We invited reflection on the continued relevance of the political and moral claims at stake during the struggle for freedom and justice in Africa. Ruth’s legacy is closely entangled with these values which she continues to share with us through her unique archives. This podcast features one of the 2014 exhibition recompositions. We invite you to listen to Ruth’s “very first question to you”. Recomposition © : Ramon De Marco & Henrik Plünnecke, Idee und Klang (Basel, Switzerland) Gesprochenes Audio Intro: Welcome to the podcast series “BAB Interviews and Conversations” presented by the Basler Afrika Bibliographien. Today’s episode provides an acoustic homage to the anti-apartheid journalist Ruth Weiss who passed on in early September 2025 at the age of 101. The episode features Ruth’ frequent opening phrase in her many interviews with southern African women and men: “My very first question to you”. Recomposed with extracts from her unique acoustic archives, the composition invites reflection on the continued relevance of her decade-long engagement in the struggle for freedom and justice in Africa. The recomposition is one of several which featured in the exhibition “My very first question to you. An acoustic portrait of the journalist Ruth Weiss and southern African liberation politics”, shown on occasion of her 90 th birthday in 2014 in Basel, Cape Town, Lusaka and Bayreuth.

2. 

   25 Feb 2025

   Doek! Reflections by Rémy Ngamije on becoming a writer and founding a literary magazine in Namibia

   Doek! is an online literary magazine published in Windhoek since 2019. It has brought to the front new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art —to much acclaim. Experimental and daring in various ways, its beautifully curated editions have enriched Africa’s literary and visual landscape quite unexpectedly. Early on, Rémy Ngamije, one of the co-founders, invited the Basler Afrika Bibliographien to contribute glimpses from its archival holdings and within the curatorial frame of providing “a window to the past”. After a series of historical photography explorations, we now jointly curate past Namibian voices in aural graphs. In this extract from a public presentation in Basel on 24 July 2024, Ngamije reflects on the path he and his colleagues walked to imagine new literary futures in Windhoek. Today, five years later, he is an established writer and Doek! is not only a thriving magazine but also a prominent literary award and festival beacon.

3. 

   20 Sept 2024

   Kritische Rückblicke: Barbara Müller über Solidarität und Freundschaft mit Befreiungsbewegungen in der Schweiz und in Zi

   Barbara Müller fungierte von 1973 bis 1988 als Präsidentin des Komitees «kämpfendes afrika» (ka), das 1971 als politische Solidaritätsorganisation Medic’ Angola begann. Zunächst eng mit dem maoistisch geprägten «proletarischen Internationalismus» der Kommunistischen Part der Schweiz verbunden, konnte das sich seit 1976 «kämpfendes afrika» nennende Komitee besonders enge Kontakte zu einigen Befreiungsbewegungen im südlichen Afrika aufbauen. Barbara Müller reflektiert im Gespräch mit dem BAB Archivar Dag Henrichsen zunächst über die Bedeutung von Freundschafts- und Solidaritätsbeziehungen mit afrikanischen Bewegungen in einem schwierigen politischem Umfeld (zu letzterem siehe auch den früheren podcast mit Barbara Müller vom 9. März 2023). Im zweiten Teil skizziert sie Veränderungen in der Unterstützungsarbeit am Beispiel der Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) und mit Bezug auf die Unabhängigkeit Zimbabwes 1980. Dieser Auszug aus einem Gespräch vom 22. März 2023 bildet die siebte und vorläufig letzte Episode in der Podcast-Reihe zur Solidaritäts- und Anti-Apartheidbewegung in der Schweiz.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 21 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

42

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0