The historian Margery Perham once wrote that “the basic difficulty” with the British colonial technique of indirect rule, of which she was a major architect, was “the great gap between the culture of rulers and ruled.” “People do not understand what we want them to do,” she wrote, “or, if they understand, do not want […]
We had been studiously avoiding coverage of Madonna’s latest trip to Malawi, but such is the deliciousness of the excoriating 11-point press release put out yesterday by Joyce Banda that we couldn’t resist wading in. These two had previous — Madonna’s people had scapegoated Banda’s sister over a botched school project — and the latest […]
These days, well-behaved African heads of state are rewarded by Barack Obama with the chance to meet with him in groups of four and have their picture taken with him. It’s like meeting Beyonce, but you get to call it a state visit. That’s what happened on Friday when Malawi’s Joyce Banda, Senegal’s Macky Sall, […]
Post by Laurent Dubois The French national anthem, La Marseillaise, is, if you think about it, a pretty nasty song. It dreams, in one of its more memorable verses, that the “blood of the impure” will “irrigate our fields.” It’s a rousing anthem, to be sure, and I myself can frequently be heard humming it […]
We may not all love Chelsea Football Club (John Terry, their klepto-petro-billionaire owner, John Terry, the list goes on) but we are loving the team’s Brazilian midfielder Ramires right now. And not just for that equalizing goal he scored on Saturday against Manchester United in the English FA Cup. When Ramires played for Cruzeiro in Brasil, […]
The Guardian’s Sunday edition, The Observer, have run the puff-piece nobody else wanted, a lengthy tête-à-tête with Jason Russell of Invisible Children infamy. “Jason Russell: Kony 2012 and the fight for truth” (illustrated by the photograph above) is a dreadful, half-assed piece of reporting that seeks to help resuscitate Russell’s broken credibility.
Whatever Jay-Z and Beyonce were expecting when they went to Nigeria in 2006, they can’t have seen this one coming.
Nineteen years ago, a Super Eagles team captained by one Stephen Okechukwu Keshi won the Africa Cup of Nations in Tunis. Will it be Keshi’s time again in Soweto today?
Post by M.anifest* Oh Ghana Black Stars! Again? Our time in the trophy-less wilderness just got a 3 year extension yesterday courtesy our neighbors to the north, Burkina Faso. This is how they repay us for supplying them with electricity (I kid).
Zambia’s victory in last year’s Africa Cup of Nations was a great story, and one that even the crustiest of cynics could get behind. A team returned to the site of the national tragedy in which their fathers’ wonderfully talented generation of footballers were killed, and won the trophy against overwhelming odds. They sung in unison as the emotional penalty shootout unfolded, and when the celebrations began, the coach picked up an injured player and carried him across the pitch to his jubilant teammates. What wasn’t to like?
