Africa Is a Country

The Johannesburg Cup of Nations

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

The Johannesburg Cup of Nations

By
Ts'eliso Monaheng

The spirit of the African Cup of Nations is infectious in the streets of Johannesburg, especially in the inner city where different African nationalities coexist.

All photos: Tseliso Monaheng.

I live in the Western Cape Province, one of South Africa’s nine provinces popularly known as “Zillestan;” so named for Helen Zille, the white leader of the conversative opposition party governing the province. This particular fortress’ set-up – residential apartheid along racial lines remains largely in practice – makes it almost impossible to feel that one is part of a bigger whole, that is South Africa. In fact, Premier Zille has on occasion referred to people moving to the province from other parts of South Africa as “refugees.”

So on a recent trip to Johannesburg (which is in Gauteng Province), a couple of friends decided to invade a Congolese restaurant in Yeoville; Kin Malebo on 31 Raleigh Street in Yeoville. The African Cup of Nations, currently being hosted by South Africa (no matches in Cape Town) was happening. The game was between DR Congo and Niger; I had access to a camera and decided to tag along.  The spirit of Afcon 2013 is infectious in the streets of Jozi, especially in the inner city where nationalities of all kinds from distant reaches of the African continent can be seen donning their respective countries’ national colors. In fact, I wrote something about the inner city and AFCON (how the African Cup of Nations is generally known) here.

The final score for the DRC vs. Niger match was a goalless draw. Good times were had by all.

 

Further Reading

Djinns in Berlin

At the 13th Berlin Biennale, works from Zambia and beyond summon unseen forces to ask whether solidarity can withstand the gaze of surveillance.

Colonize then, deport now

Trump’s deportation regime revives a colonial blueprint first drafted by the American Colonization Society, when Black lives were exiled to Africa to safeguard a white republic.

On Safari

On our annual publishing break, Gaza’s genocide continues to unfold in real time yet slips from public grasp. This is not just a crisis of politics, but of how reality is mediated—and why we must build spaces where meaning can still take root.

The battle over the frame

As Hollywood recycles pro-war propaganda for Gen Z, Youssef Chahine’s ‘Djamila, the Algerian’ reminds us that anti-colonial cinema once turned imperial film language against its makers—and still can.

Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

Against a backdrop of global collapse, one exhibition used Chinua Achebe’s classic to hold space for voices from the Global South—and asked who gets to imagine the future.

The General sleeps

As former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s death is mourned with official reverence, a generation remembers the eight years that drove them out.

The grift tank

In Washington’s think tank ecosystem, Africa is treated as a low-stakes arena where performance substitutes for knowledge. The result: unqualified actors shaping policy on behalf of militarists, lobbyists, and frauds.