Why hasn’t an African nation won the World Cup?

• Sebastian Abbot

Until African officials stop lining their pockets with money that could be spent identifying and developing the best young talent the continent has to offer, dreams of an African nation winning the World Cup will remain elusive.

Senegal’s jersey

The Senegalese football jersey is a powerful symbol of nationhood and independence.

Pitch dreams

• Ndeye Debo Seck

Football in Senegal is magic. That the team has qualified for their second World Cup, heightens the joy.

Imagining the South African Indian

• Camalita Naicker

How do you tell a different story of Indians in South Africa, one that shatters long-held and reproduced stereotypes?

France ’98 and a genuine moment of Maghrebi solidarity

• Haythem Guesmi

20 years after English and Tunisian football fans clashed in the streets of Marseille, their teams again meet in their opening match up.

The descent of our fathers

• Ashwin Desai

A remembrance for Father’s Day.

Ghana didn’t qualify for the World Cup, so which African team do I support?

• Kwesi Foli

One Ghanaian football fan wrestles with which teams to support in this year’s World Cup after the Black Stars failed to qualify.

Giant Russian dolls wearing Egyptian national team jerseys

• Sarah El-Shaarawi

A Canadian immigrant father’s Egyptian football nationalism, and reflections on World Cup fever from Cairo.

Game of chickens

• Grégory Pierrot

Reliving the epic quarterfinal match between France and Brazil at Mexico ’86.

The beautiful month

• Sean Jacobs

We are exploring the culture and history of the World Cup for the next month while the tournament goes on.

Reconsidering France’s role in the Rwandan genocide

• Rene Lemarchand

It is worth revisiting the context for the mass killings, how historians have studied it since and casting a revisionist eye.

Who gets to define borders?

• John Aerni-Flessner

What will the renewed land debate in South Africa mean for the border woes of neighbors such as Lesotho?

Cameroon on the brink

• Kangsen Feka Wakai

Paul Biya’s inability to address the crisis in the country’s Anglophone region is pushing the nation to the brink.

Captain Kolisi

• Stephen Coplan

South Africa’s national rugby team, the Springboks, gets a black captain for the first time in its history–24 years after the end of Apartheid.

The Ebola refugees

• Benjamin N. Lawrance

Has migration policy reckoned with epidemics like Ebola?

Apo Six, Forever

• Kemi Falodun

A reflection on police brutality in Nigeria on the anniversary of the death of the ‘Apo Six.’

Is this Nigeria?

• Ainehi Edoro
• Sarah Ladipo Manyika
• Wilfred Okiche
• Káyọ̀dé Fáníyì
• Alithnayn Abdulkareem
• Toyin Ajao
• Dotun Ayobade

A group of esteemed Nigerian thinkers come together and chat about rapper Falz’s take on the viral “This Is…” video meme.

This is democracy, political hysteria

• Andy Kasrils

Why has Childish Gambino’s “This is America” video resonated with so many people around the world?

Young, Latin & Black

• Boima Tucker

In INTL BLK episode 5, deejays Chief Boima and Francesca Harding take a look at race and cultural difference in Latin America through the lens of trap music.

The Nelson Chamisa chimera in Zimbabwe

• Melusi Nkomo

While entertaining, the showy presidential campaign of Zimbabwe’s opposition may not amount to much on July 30th.