Playing for the home team
Most national teams that made it to the 2013 African Cup of Nations in South Africa play in Europe. Ethiopia is one of the few teams composed of mainly "home" based players.
Politics
Why the rhino is Newsmaker of the Year in South Africa
The divorce between social reality of post-apartheid South African and White South Africa.
The ‘Africa Rising’ Bandwagon
Al Jazeera falls for the fiction that business entrepreneurship and corporate capitalism will be Africa’s saving grace.
Afcon 2013 Preview: Drogba’s last chance of Nations Cup glory with Côte d’Ivoire
By John James* One day Côte d’Ivoire will lift the cup, said captain Didier Drogba, shortly after the team’s arrival in South Africa, though I may not be in the team to see it. Côte d’Ivoire are used to the pressure, they’re used to being called favourites, they’re used to being the continent’s top under-achievers, and […]
Performing democracy in Zimbabwe
A few days ago the BBC reported on Zimbabwe’s impending elections, amidst concerns of renewed violence and human rights abuses in the country. However, what is often lost in the sensationalization of political violence, by this and other news articles is the revolutionary impact that non-violent actions can have in transforming a national political landscape. […]
Afcon 2013 Preview: Can Zambia’s Chipolopolo do it again?
Guest Post By Charles Mafa* Zambian fans know what it’s like to participate in the Africa Nations Cup. Their national team take part in 15 tournaments (0ut of a total of 28) so far. The team twice lost in the final: first to Zaire (as the Democratic Republic of Congo was known) in 1974 and […]
Afcon 2013 Preview: Ethiopia finally back where they belong (including incredible archival footage)
Guest Post By Andreas Hansen for Addis Rumble* It has been a long time coming. The Ethiopian national team has been rare guest at the Africa Cup of Nations. In the years after the inaugural tournament in 1957 – in which only three teams took part and Ethiopia got a wild card to the final – the […]
Race politics in Ghana
Historian Jemima Pierre argues that Whiteness serves as a reference point for Ghanaians’ notions of beauty, Blackness, and power, but Ghanaians remain blind to this.
When Wikipedia writes Malawi’s national history
John Chilembwe is Malawi's first great anti-colonial hero. Why do our media outlets mainly rely on Wikipedia to give us “facts” about him?
A Very Short History of the Africa Cup of Nations
The big kick-off is nearly upon us. Just 11 months after that extraordinary Zambian triumph in Libreville, starting Saturday we have another month of football ahead as Africa’s top teams (and South Africa, there as hosts) fight it out to be Champions of Africa. We’ll be covering the tournament more intensively this time around, in […]
Eggs and omelettes
The existence of African billionaires are not positive evidence of “Africa rising,” but testament to the extreme inequality characterizing economic growth on the continent.
France in Mali: The End of the Fairytale
This is not a neo-colonial offensive. The argument that it is might be comfortable and familiar, but it is bogus and ill-informed.
Not an African Christmas
If the image of the starving black child has been deemed obsolete, then so has the Western “we” that claimed so much power for itself in the late 1980s.
Why does the BBC care what FW de Klerk thinks?
It's 2012 and FW de Klerk still thinks Apartheid had been beneficial to its black victims. Yet global media treats him like an analyst on South African politics.
François Hollande went to Algeria
Hollande’s visit coincided with a vote in the UN Security Council authorizing ECOWAS intervention in Mali; something Algeria, Mali's northern neighbor, objected to.
Waiting for Superman
The idea that leadership is the panacea to South Africa's varied troubles, is asserted as an almost axiomatic truth amongst South Africa's monotonous punditry.
Woman of the Year
Alice Nkom, the brave, activist lawyer, harassed and imprisoned by Cameroon's repressive regime on the government's actions: "Threats like these show us that the fight must continue.”
We write what we like about Steve Biko
What does it mean for a dead man to live through us, as we chant his name and claim him?
Rethinking mental illness
The diagnostic parameters need to be completely overhauled as they embody a Western mode of understanding which itself is culturally bound.
All the immigrants’ crimes in Italy
The online work of Italian rightwing websites to establish the idea that immigrants are dangerous for the Italian society