Africa Is a Country

Bafana Bafana

Bafana Bafana

By
Sean Jacobs

Football historian Chris Bolsmann just sent me a note:

“… If you want to buy the Bafana [Bafana replica shirt] at a ‘reasonable’ price [in the UK; 35 British pounds it is] you get the replica without the team’s Protea logo. Or you pay an extortionate price for the one with the logo.”

But even more infuriating, according to Chris, is that Uhlsport, the German goalkeeper equipment manufacturer and sponsor of Bafana keeper Itumeleng Khune, has just released a new range of keeper equipment–with the Springbok logo plastered all over it.

Further Reading

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Fragile state

Without an immediate change in approach, Somalia will remain a fragmented country populated by self-serving elites seeking foreign patrons.

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.