AfricaIs aCountry

Africa is a Country’s Twitter World Cup

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

Africa is a Country’s Twitter World Cup

By
Sean Henry Jacobs

You can follow us as well as some of our writers - particularly Sonja, Sean and Herman - on Twitter.

Ronaldo scores for Brazil vs Germany in the final of the 2002 World Cup.

The World Cup is three days away, so everybody is writing, blogging, speaking, filming, and broadcasting from or about Africa (well, specifically South Africa, but that does not stop them from making generalizations about 53 countries and territories). Of course, things will calm down—we know this — in a few days when the media realizes that hosting a World Cup is a day’s work for Africans. But until then, they’re relentless.

We can try but can’t keep up with them by giving you long, nuanced, detailed posts. We have things to do, day jobs to attend, World Cup matches to watch (especially this), and sometimes we have small children to put to bed.

Ghana, who has qualified for the World Cup in South Africa, playing the Czech Republic in the 2006 World Cup in Germany (Wiki Commons).

But we can do a lot more on the fly in 140 characters.

You can follow us or Sonja, Sean and Herman on Twitter.

 

Further Reading

Slow death by food

Illegal gold mining is poisoning Ghana’s soil and rivers, seeping into its crops and seafood, and turning the national food system into a long-term public health crisis.

A sick health system

The suspension of three doctors following the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son has renewed scrutiny of a health-care system plagued by impunity, underfunding, and a mass exodus of medical professionals.

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.