AfricaIs aCountry

The Daily Show takes on the World Cup

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

The Daily Show takes on the World Cup

By
Sean Jacobs

[vodpod id=Video.3900482&w=450&h=370&fv=autoPlay%3Dfalse]

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart sends “correspondent” John Oliver to Johannesburg to learn “… about the rich African culture at the World Cup.”

Brilliant piece. It strikes the right balance between on the one hand, the disdain most fans feel about FIFA, and, on the other, the passion associated with the World Cup. It is also satisfying to see Rich Mkhondo, the spokesperson for organizing committee, exposed as a windbag and making up a “cultural tradition” for the vuvuzela.

— Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

A world reimagined in Black

By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.

Securing Nigeria

Nigeria’s insecurity cannot be solved by foreign airstrikes or a failing state, but by rebuilding democratic, community-rooted systems of collective self-defense.

Empire’s middlemen

From Portuguese Goa to colonial Kampala, Mahmood Mamdani’s latest book shows how India became an instrument of empire, and a scapegoat in its aftermath.

À qui s’adresse la CAN ?

Entre le coût du transport aérien, les régimes de visas, la culture télévisuelle et l’exclusion de classe, le problème de l’affluence à la CAN est structurel — et non le signe d’un manque de passion des supporters.

Lions in the rain

The 2025 AFCON final between Senegal and Morocco was a dramatic spectacle that tested the limits of the match and the crowd, until a defining moment held everything together.