AfricaIs aCountry

'Symbols of Liberia's Struggle'*

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

'Symbols of Liberia's Struggle'*

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZOvI9bvruQ&w=500&h=307&rel=0]

Rapper Nas narrates a short insert on ESPN’s “E:60” on the Liberian national amputee team made up of men, often former enemies, who lost the use of their legs or arms in Liberia’s very recent civil war.  (Above is a kind of mash up from the in-studio introduction that usually precedes an insert as well as an excerpt from Nas’ narration. I am a regular viewer of the show.)  You can watch the 10 minute insert here. It includes some incredible goals and celebrations. It is also about the politics of rebuilding societies after wars.  Not bad for ESPN.

* That’s a line from the show.

Via The Hairdryer Treatment.

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Reading List: Barbara Boswell

While editing a collection of the writings of South African feminist Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell found inspiration in texts that reflected Ngcobo’s sense that writing is an exercise of freedom.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

An annual awakening

In the 1980s, the South African arts collective Vakalisa Art Associates reclaimed time as a tool of social control through their subversive calendars.

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.