How do we talk about the memory of Apartheid
The fact that the choices for black people under Apartheid were either martyrdom or compromise was part of the injustice of that system.
508 Article(s) by:
Sean Henry Jacobs
Sean Henry Jacobs is the founder of Africa is a Country and Professor of International Affairs at The New School.
Akon’s “giant Ebola air bubble”
That story about Akon, the Senegalese-American R&B singer, performing in an air bubble to thousands of screaming Congolese in Goma, because he doesn’t want to get Ebola is false
What is the matter with … TB Joshua
T.B. Joshua proffers a version of American tele-evangelism’s empty promises to African masses, as nationalism and liberation politics lose their shine.
What would Mandela do
The South African struggle suggests that sports boycotts are effective at forcing change. For white South Africans (and their apologists), sporting isolation was a bitter pill to swallow.
Christmas Day for Football Fans
Football is a Country’s Elliot Ross has describes the World Cup Final, every four years, as Christmas Day for football fans, just better. The champion this time is Germany.
The Beautiful T-Shirt
Art, Politics, T-Shirts, Fútbol, Play: Africa is a Country joins forces with Los Angeles artists for a t-shirt project.
There’s something about “ghetto pranks”
Youtube “ghetto pranks” are meant to expose poor black people as “naturally” and irrationally angry.
Brazilians are used to this
The Mexican writer Alma Guillermoprieto declared this World Cup "the best ever." Few can disagree. A
History Class with Cheta: Who is Herbert Macaulay
Too many people have forgotten about the one Naira coin, and the chap on that coin.
Adam Sandler’s “Africa”
It’s unfunny and borderline offensive. But Late night TV talk shows can’t get enough of it.
When Maya Angelou lived in Africa
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a group of African Americans moved to Ghana and redefined their relationships to citizenship in the U.S. and their African identities.
Wole Soyinka has opinions about social media
The novelist and Nobel Prize winner on why he avoids social media entirely, saying he doesn’t tweet, blog, or engage with what he calls today’s increasingly promiscuous digital platforms.
News of an Engagement
Why you’ve got to love the way the South African tabloid newspaper Daily Sun reported Caster Semenya’s marriage to her girlfriend
The new kid on the block
Admit you didn’t expect the Economic Freedom Fighters or EFF, a breakaway from the ANC, to do so well in South Africa’s latest elections.
Fumana isazisi sakho. Bhalisa. Vota.*
I came across this image taken by a press photographer in May 1990 after one of the
Chris Hani’s political legacy
Chris Hani should not be made into an ideal type or used to settle political scores in the present.
Happy Africans
Pharrell Williams’s pop hit, “Happy,” is infectious and feel good. But what is it all about really?
Instagramming Africa
An interview with Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill, founders of the Instagram project, Everyday Africa.
#WhiteHistoryMonth
Every February here schools, McDonald's, television, corporations, the advertising industry, celebrate Black History Month. The whole thing is a charade. That black people don't get a break from police brutality, red lining, profiling or plain neglect, doesn't matter. In 20o7, Gary Younge (he is an ally) suggested that what we needed was a White History Month. So, dear readers--in the service of good sense, this year March is the inaugural White History Month on Africa is a Country. Yes, we're a few days late, we know, but good things take time sometime. Stay tuned.
Give that man a Bells
There's a commercial for Bell's, a popular South African whisky ("Give that man a Bells"), that