Africa

By Robin Adams in Africa on February 8th, 2012
Picture by GALLO/GETTY

It's so easy to get caught up in the romance of football. Or maybe it's just me?

Every so often a team comes along, and their story just pulls on your heart strings.

Libya is a prime example.

The national football team qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) proper, despite a war going on in the country. They played most of their qualifying matches outside their own borders.

Sadly they didn't progress pass the group stages, but that won't matter. The mere fact they made it here - while teams like Egypt, the defending champions who failed to qualify, and South Africa, who failed to familiarise themselves with the qualification rule book - was enough for people to praise Libya's efforts.

By Barnaby Phillips in Africa on February 5th, 2012
Sign behind protesters reads, "2000: popular jubilation, 2012: popular distress". [AFP]

For more than a year, opposition supporters in some of sub-Saharan Africa's more repressive countries have hoped that the wave of pro-democracy protests will spread south from Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

By and large, the wait has been in vain. There is some irony in that the latest candidate mooted for "people power" is Senegal, one of the few African countries with a genuine democratic tradition in the post-independence era.

Senegal has strong institutions, and is the only country in west Africa never to have suffered a military coup.

The current president, Abdoulaye Wade, first come to power in 2000 when he defeated the incumbent in one of the most exciting and transparent African elections of the post-independence era.

But now, to the fury of many, Senegal's constitutional court has ruled that Wade will be allowed to run for a third term in presidential elections due at the end of this month.

By Andy Richardson in Africa on February 5th, 2012
Al Masry fans remember those who died [Andy Richardson]

Al Ahly is a football club that has long been famous as a focal point for patriotism and political discussion.

Right now it is a meeting point for grief.

Families of the dead gather for shared comfort at the team's Cairo social club. Former and current players offer what support they can. Hundreds line up to sign a book of condolence. The future is something this club are struggling to contemplate. Remembering the fans who didn't return home from that fateful game in Al Masry is their only focus for now.

In Al Masry's hometown of Port Said, pitches stand empty. All local leagues have been suspended as a mark of respect. 

Here the local supporters talk of being unfairly vilifiied, that the disaster was the consequence of a police plot. Some tell us they are now afraid to drive out of the city. Anyone with a Port Said number plate on their car is liable to be attacked, they say.

By Andy Richardson in Africa on January 30th, 2012
Libya meet Equatorial Guinea in the opening match at the Africa Cup of Nations

It was a scene that must come close to defining irony - Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang introducing himself to the Libyan players at the opening ceremony of the Africa Cup of Nations with a big smile.

Since the departure of Muammar Gaddafi, Obiang has taken the prize of being the longest serving leader in Africa. His country is effectively a one-party state and human rights abuses are well documented. Sound familiar?

The Libyan team is a group of players who talk optimistically about the new values they hope their country can represent.

But, in Equatorial Guinea, the people are often too frightened to even mention politics.

Last year alone a state radio broadcaster was fired on air just for mentioning Libya. He foolishly tried to evade the official news blackout on pro-democracy protests.

A recent conversation with a taxi driver is indicative.

By Robin Adams in Africa on January 24th, 2012
Picture by GALLO/GETTY

A quick show of hands, if you will. Who, like me, is not a fan of the vuvuzela?

You know? That giant horn which featured over-abundantly in the 2010 football World Cup in my country, South Africa? The one that is making another appearance right now at the Africa Cup of Nations. And I have an interest in this – I’ll be going there in a couple of weeks.

I must admit, I sang the vuvuzela's praises in the lead-up to the first  World Cup on African soil. I believed the vuvuzela would give the biggest football event on the planet a uniquely African flavour.

That was until I attended two World Cup matches featuring the South American giants, Argentina and Brazil respectively, and got it in the ear from all sides.

Vuvuzelas blaring!

I thought the blowers were sounding it in my ears on purpose. They weren't being blown into the air. They were aimed a little lower - at my head.

By Barnaby Phillips in Africa on January 22nd, 2012
File 58061
A series of bomb blasts hit the northern city of Kano on Friday, killing at least 178 people [Reuters]

I bumped into an old friend at a book launch in London recently. She used to be a senior British diplomat, and is still involved in African affairs. The conversation quickly turned to Nigeria, a country that we are both passionate about, and that we visit regularly.
"I get the feeling that people in Lagos have been reacting to the violence in Northern Nigeria like we Londoners used to react to news from Northern Ireland during the Troubles of the 1970s and 1980s", she said. 
"They recognise that it's terribly sad, but it all feels so far away for many of them, not something that touches their day to day lives," she said. 
By Stefanie Dekker in Africa on January 17th, 2012

By Haru Mutasa in Africa on January 14th, 2012
Photo by Reuters

Labour unions in Nigeria aren't protesting this weekend.

It's amazing how things have changed.

When I arrived in Abuja, the capital, last Saturday there were very few cars on the road or people on the street.
 
When the fuel subsidy protest started on Monday, the central business diestrict felt like a ghost town.

It felt as if most people had left the city. Shops and business were closed, police were out in full force and the atmosphere was tense.

We have just arrived back in Abuja from Kano – a journey that took about five hours by road.

The traffic was terrible.

Tags: Abuja
By Haru Mutasa in Africa on January 13th, 2012
Photo by EPA

It's an odd feeling - living with a curfew.

I am in Kano, in northern Nigeria. After protests over the removal of fuel subsidies turned violent, officials here declared a curfew from dawn to dusk.

That means you have no business being on the street during those hours.

So here we are (me and the colleagues I work with) trying to finish up some filming, we have a live crossing to do, an interview with a minister in an hour, and them somehow have to dash back to the safety of our hotel.

It was a nightmare, but we make it just in time.

My problems are minor compared to those who actually live here. I am just passing through.

I went to the market in Kano, one of them anyway, and saw people trying to make a living.

A butcher complained about the rise in prices of basic commodities and how the market is very quiet since the curfew was imposed.

Everywhere I go someone tells me how quiet things are in Kano.

Tags: Kano
By Imran Khan in Africa on January 13th, 2012
Art work by Libyan graffiti artist Adnan Al Gargani [Imran Khan]

Over the last four weeks I have crisscrossed what feels like the whole of Libya, but in reality is probably only half of it.

The one constant in every town I have visited is the sometimes extraordinary, sometimes awful graffiti that covers every white wall.

After the fighting (and probably during it knowing the fearless nature of Libyans), graffiti artists took to the streets and painted.

They painted massive patriotic flags with slogans that encouraged the rebels.

They painted downright crude and wicked caricatures of the Gaddafi family and regime that compared them to, well, rats.

It's worth remembering Gaddafi called the rebels rats.

But one piece really caught my eye.

Silhouetted against the red, green and black of the Libyan flag was a scarf-wearing protester, her eyes full of the promise of revolution.

Al Jazeera Live

What's Hot


Recent Comments

This work is licensed under Creative Commons. Please read our attribution policy.