Africa Is a Country

A Lion in Winter

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

A Lion in Winter

By
Peter Alegi

Isaiah Stein was a sports activist and father of footballers, Edwin (Luton Town), Brian (Luton Town and England) and Mark (Chelsea).

A young Isaiah Stein.

A stalwart of the anti-apartheid sport boycott movement, Isaiah Stein, passed away in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2011. After serving time in prison – in the mid-1960s – Stein left South Africa for Britain where he worked tirelessly for the exiled South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC).

Three of his sons became professional footballers in England; Brian had an illustrious career at Luton Town and earned an England cap in 1984. Playing for Chelsea, Mark once scored in seven consecutive matches (a record which stood until 2002); Edwin meanwhile played for Barnet. It is little-known stories like those of the Stein family from [the coloured township of Athlone in]Cape Town that remind us of the dignity, humility, hard work, and sacrifice of individuals who fought relentlessly to advance the cause of sport and human rights in South Africa and beyond. Rest in Peace Isiah.

* For more on Mark and Brian Stein’s remarkable football careers, read Sean Jacobs’ article, “‘It wasn’t that I did not like South African football’: media, history and biography.“

Further Reading

After Paul Biya

Cameroon’s president has ruled for over four decades by silence and survival. Now, with dynastic succession looming and no clear exit strategy, the country teeters between inertia and implosion.

Leapfrogging literacy?

In outsourcing the act of writing to machines trained on Western language and thought, we risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that decolonization sought to undo.

Repoliticizing a generation

Thirty-eight years after Thomas Sankara’s assassination, the struggle for justice and self-determination endures—from stalled archives and unfulfilled verdicts to new calls for pan-African renewal and a 21st-century anti-imperialist front.

Drip is temporary

The apparel brand Drip was meant to prove that South Africa’s townships could inspire global style. Instead, it revealed how easily black success stories are consumed and undone by the contradictions of neoliberal aspiration.

Energy for whom?

Behind the fanfare of the Africa Climate Summit, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline shows how neocolonial extraction still drives Africa’s energy future.