Africa Is a Country

Tartan Army

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

Tartan Army

By
Sean Jacobs


Kathleen Madden, in Artforum, on Zwelethu Mthethwa’s 2010 series “The Braves Ones,” showing through July 17th at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London:

[“The Brave Ones”] documents Zulu boys from the Shembe church wearing pink gingham or rich red tartan kilts with tribal hats, a mixed visual code that evokes the Scottish Highlanders who were deployed to the region in the late nineteenth century. The boys pose before the lush backdrop of the KwaZulu Natal, aka the “garden province,” making them appear timeless in an Arcadian landscape.

Further Reading

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahelian States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?

The road to Rafah

The ‘Sumud’ convoy from Tunis to Gaza is reviving the radical promise of pan-African solidarity and reclaiming an anticolonial tactic lost to history.

Sinners and ancestors

Ryan Coogler’s latest film is more than a vampire fable—it’s a bridge between Black American history and African audiences hungry for connection, investment, and storytelling rooted in shared struggle.