The Full-Back

By: Sean Jacobs

I am still on my pre-World Cup binge.

Brazil remains odds on favorites to win Africa’s first World Cup two months from now. BTW, it’s old news now but Brazil can also count on local support in South Africa: they’re South African fans’ favorite other team. Brazil play two group matches in Johannesburg–against North Korea on June 15 and Ivory Coast on June 20. Their final group game, against Portugal, will be in Durban in a stadium named after a great Communist leader of the struggle, Moses Mabhida. Anyway, this man, Maicon–here scoring a great goal against Juventus for his club Inter Milan in Italy’s Serie A last weekend–will be central to Brazilian plans. And he plays like a midfielder.

What Graham Platner reveals about the US left

Riley Singh

The economic emancipation of the American working class cannot come at the expense of the global working class.

Politics

12.01.2025

Beyond independence

Mbaye Bashir Lo

The post-colonial settlement has left Africa vulnerable to conflict, external pressure, and intellectual dependency. What comes next?

Politics

11.28.2025

Trump’s beef with Nigeria

Yusuf Bangura

Trump’s threats of military action against Nigeria are not about Christian genocide, but are about rare earths, China, and the scramble to control Africa’s mineral future.

Culture

11.27.2025

Davido’s jacket

Gopolang Botlhokwane

Davido’s appearance at ‘Amapiano’s biggest concert’ turned a night of celebration into a study in Afrophobia, fandom, and the fragile borders of South African cultural nationalism.

Culture

11.26.2025

Empty riddles

Bárbara Rousseaux

Drawing on his forced migration from Rwanda, Serge Alain Nitegeka reflects on the forms, fragments, and unsettled histories behind his latest exhibition in Johannesburg.

Culture

11.25.2025

Heritage on horseback

Emmanuel Solate

A photo essay on Nigeria’s Durbars and the power of royal pageantry.

Politics

11.24.2025

When Moscow looked to the horn

Moustafa Ahmad

Half a century after the Soviets built their base on the Gulf of Aden, the same strategic coastline is once more drawing in foreign powers, old and new.

Culture

11.21.2025

How much does a Nigerian intellectual cost?

Efe Paul-Azino

The country that once produced some of Africa’s fiercest moral voices now struggles to sustain independent thought.

Culture

11.20.2025

The sound of what remains

Eliel Peterson

Jean Maxime Baptiste’s latest film listens to how grief and history reverberate across generations in French Guiana.

Politics

11.19.2025

The coup kids are in charge now

Faisal Ali

Across the continent’s new coup belt, young officers are stepping into power, casting themselves as guardians against corrupt civilian elites.

Culture

11.18.2025

Who cares about African heritage?

Ngaire Blankenberg

While the world debates restitution, Africa’s own heritage institutions are collapsing. The question is no longer who took our past, but who is keeping it alive.

Politics

11.17.2025

Life after aid cuts

Shobana Shankar

Trump’s aid cuts have gutted HIV programs across Nigeria—forcing local women-led groups to rebuild health and dignity from below.

Politics

11.14.2025

Whose transition is it anyway?

Charlize Tomaselli

Africa’s first G20 presidency could mark a turning point for the continent—or simply another performance of green-washed extraction led by mining elites.

Politics

11.13.2025

Elimination by other means

Jwan Zreiq

From Iraq to Gaza, empire no longer needs to annihilate populations when it can dismantle the very structures that make collective life possible.

Culture

11.12.2025

The mirror and becoming

Joy Odondi Mala

In Najaax Harun’s paintings, the self confronts its own reflection—haunted, tender, and unafraid to transform.

Culture

11.11.2025

Filming what survives

Made just as Sudan descended into war, ‘Khartoum’ captures the beauty, pain, and humanity of a city shaken by violence—and the filmmakers who became refugees alongside their subjects.

Politics

11.10.2025

The invention of foreigners

Ntsika Dapo

From indirect rule to Operation Dudula, the lines dividing citizen from stranger trace back to the way empire organized identity and labor.

Politics

11.07.2025

When solidarity becomes spectacle

Ali Ridha Khan

Francesca Albanese’s visit to South Africa exposed a truth we prefer not to face: that our moral witness has hardened into ritual. We watch, we clap, we call it solidarity.