Africa Is a Country

Germany has a version of GQ magazine

Germany has a version of GQ magazine

By
Elliot Ross

A woman in Germany removes her clothes and poses for a magazine photographer with her famous boyfriend. Her boyfriend’s father happens to be Tunisian and the pictures are reprinted in Tunisia. Three journalists are arrested in Tunis and charged with “violating public morals by publishing a nude photograph.” It would be fair to say that in post-Ben Ali Tunisia, nudity provokes a wide-range of responses. The boyfriend in this story happens to be Real Madrid’s German midfielder Sami Khedira, and the girlfriend is Lena Gercke, a model.

Presumably, it’s not the photograph of the goateed Khedira loafing around shirtless on a sofa in tight white pants (below) that has caused the stramash, but the one, above, from the cover of German GQ in which Gercke is wearing nothing at all while Khedira, standing behind her in a natty tux, has helpfully deployed what can only be described as a one-armed hand-bra.


My initial hope was that the Tunisian police were simply expressing their dismay at the old fully-clothed-man-with-stark-naked-woman magazine-cover cliché, and might demand that in future shoots Khedira should show off even more of his sculpted chest. Sadly it seems their beef was with Gercke’s nakedity alone, and they don’t see that the hand-bra makes any difference.

Further Reading

Not exactly at arm’s length

Despite South Africa’s ban on arms exports to Israel and its condemnation of Israel’s actions in Palestine, local arms companies continue to send weapons to Israel’s allies and its major arms suppliers.

Ruto’s Kenya

Since June’s anti-finance bill protests, dozens of people remain unaccounted for—a stark reminder of the Kenyan state’s long history of abductions and assassinations.

Between Harlem and home

African postcolonial cinema serves as a mirror, revealing the limits of escape—whether through migration or personal defiance—and exposing the tensions between dreams and reality.

The real Rwanda

The world is slowly opening its eyes to how Paul Kagame’s regime abuses human rights, suppresses dissent, and exploits neighboring countries.

In the shadow of Mondlane

After a historic election and on the eve of celebrating fifty years of independence, Mozambicans need to ask whether the values, symbols, and institutions created to give shape to “national unity” are still legitimate today.

À sombra de Mondlane

Depois de uma eleição histórica e em vésperas de celebrar os 50 anos de independência, os moçambicanos precisam de perguntar se os valores, símbolos e instituições criados para dar forma à “unidade nacional” ainda são legítimos hoje.